Leah 6 Months

 Leah Joy is now 6 months old; happy half birthday baby girl!! 

Weight: 16lbs - 48th percentile
Height:  27in - 89th percentile  (I highly question the accuracy of this, I don't think she really grew 2.5in in a month....)

Leah is getting so old!  She definitely is done being a little baby and has moved to interactive, knows what is going on, older baby stage.  She is a such a content little girl; she will play on the floor nice or sit in her bouncy or exer-saucer for a long time.  She has master rolling over in both directions; the other day all the sudden I noticed she had rolled into the kitchen.  She was so proud of herself and very happy that she could see me!  Leah has also started to sit up on her own.  She doesn't last very long before she topples over, but is doing better and better with it.  I use the boppy pillow which helps a lot.  She will cry a little when you set her down at first, but you can distract her usually with some toys.  She loves to be held, and isn't usually picky about who is holding her.  I put her in the baby carrier and she is just happy as a clam to up against mama. 

Leah isn't the best sleeper.  She has a hard time going to sleep often times.  We were rocking her to sleep and then laying down after she fell asleep; but often times she would wake up after we laid her down and there was a lot of screaming involved and not a lot of going back to sleep.  So I started laying her down in her bed awake, but very tired.  She takes a plug and has a lovey, so I give her those things and cover her up with a blanket.  This has been working pretty well; sometimes you have to go in and re-plug her a few times before she drifts off.  Her naps have been horribly short recently; almost always less than an hour!  I am a little frustrated with this because she acts tired not long after a short nap.....oh well, hopefully it is a short phase!  At night she is still all over the place with her sleeping schedule.  Lately she has been taking a LATE nap (like 7pm-8pm), wakes up and eats, then goes to bed around 10pm.  She will usually sleep until about 5-6am then, eat, and go back down until 7/7:30am.  It isn't horrible, but it isn't great. Up until recently, she was getting up around 2am consistently; thankfully that seems to have phased out for now.  Still sleeping in the pack n play in our room...I keep thinking we should just try a night with her in the crib, but then chicken out.  

We do solid food consistently with her now, she gets it once a day in the evening around dinner time.  She is doing better and better with it, still a very messy eater!  You have to feed her the same bite over and over until it finally goes down the hatch.  So far she has had sweet potatoes, carrots, and avacado.  She really wasn't a huge fan of the avocado; but I think it was a little too thick for her and I didn't mix it with her baby cereal.  With the carrots and sweet potatoes I mixed them in with baby cereal to dilute the flavor a little.   The doctor said as soon as she improves a little more we can step it up to twice a day.  He says you can start solid foods anytime after 4mon; but overall he said he doesn't really care as long as the kid is growing and developing ok.  4mon just seems SO crazy early; they are still little babies then!!  With your first kid you are more excited to start the next step as they grow, I remember that with Brie.  Now with Leah though, I am ok with prolonging the stages....I don't want my baby to grow to fast :)

She loves riding in the stroller, which is good because she does it often!  Thankfully Brie still loves riding in the stroller too, makes for a heavy stroller to push with both of them though!  She also spends a lot of time in the bouncy seat outside in the shade.  I've tried her in the outdoor swing a few times; she had mixed feelings about it.  She acted surprised every time I would push her, but overall seemed to like it!  It is nice that we have a baby swing right on the deck, which is also in the shade most of the time. 

Each week brings new development for her; it is so fun to watch her learn new things and continue to master new skills.  Brie is such a good big sister to Leah, she loves to go get her stuff and try and make her happy when she is sad.  If Leah is crying Brie will say, "Can you pick her up?" 

 Here are a couple picture out-takes:  She started pulling her dress and trying to chew on it.  Then she discovered the sticker....it was downhill from there!  Her only mission was to peal the sticker off!