The Six-Month Update

I maybe should've written this post yesterday morning when the world was new and we were all happy and smiles and excited about being six months old. Today, this photo from our "fun" little session yesterday afternoon expresses my feelings, too:

Some days are just hard, you know? (This one was hard because of teething-induced fussiness and neither of us being used to that.)

Regardless, I will plant my flag in the ground of gratitude and press on. 

Two words that could sum up Ayla's development this month are Noise and Motion. 

She's been babbling for a few months now, but this past month she has been exploring the range of her vocal chords, and seems to have an affinity for the very high part of that range. She makes some very cute noises, especially when she has something in her mouth that she uses to make all sorts of word sounds her tongue doesn't know how to do yet. Even as I write this, I'm loving the happy song sounds coming through the monitor as she plays in her crib. There are also some very not cute noises, my least favorite being this new grunting/squeal she just started when she's frustrated or unhappy.

The girl loves, no, LOVES to jump. When we were visiting her cousins in Oklahoma, they showed her that she could bounce in the jumper, not just stand there and chew on things, and now she does it like it's what she was put on this earth to do. 

She's also scooting around on her belly, mostly backwards but she can angle to the side, too. She gets up on her hands and then her feet, but hasn't put it together yet. I think all the jumping has really strengthened her back and now she can do this:

(she can do it for a few seconds, but she can do it!)

Last month, I blogged about how I had started swaddling her again because of the constant rolling over when I put her to bed. She has since learned how to roll back to her belly, but hasn't shown too much of an interest in doing that yet. She also started breaking out of every swaddle strategy I tried, and she took being put down swaddled as a challenge. Last week, I quit swaddling and now just let her fidget and fuss for a few minutes before conking out, which seems to be working well. 

My wise friend, Elizabeth, advised me that every new skill would impact her sleeping habits for a while, so I'm aiming to be flexible with my approach while giving her every opportunity to develop healthy sleep habits.

Finally, we closed out her first half-birthday with a first taste (I would say "bite" but I don't know if she got that far) of solid food. 

mmm...sweet potatoes

I'm trying the "baby-led weaning" approach, which is mostly a misnomer because it is neither baby-led nor weaning (yet), but the idea is that you start with soft solids right off the bat instead of spoon-fed cereal--->purees--->mush--->solids, and you let the child eat as much or little as he or she chooses. That's where the baby-led part comes in. The theory, as I understand it, is that this prevents food from becoming a control struggle between feeder and fed. 

So, it's something we'll try and if it works for us, great, and if not, we'll try something else! I'll let you know how it goes.