(former) Americans in Geneva: Katherine is 7 months old!

Well she is 7 and a half months already, I've just been really slow in posting this update as always... Oooops...

Wow! I know I keep saying that every month, but MY GOODNESS! How is it possible that our little baby is already 7 months old! I am amazed. It has been another fun month around here, filled with milestones, cuddles and giggles.

Stats:
I went in for a nurse visit just to have her weighed and measured. I am such a silly OCD mom. But since we've met our deductible for the year I figured what's the harm in that...

Weight: 19 lbs and 12 oz!! This girl is almost 20 lbs!! - 90%
Height: 27.5 inches - 90%

So she is a pretty big baby. Not fat just large overall. When I was undressing her the nurse kept saying "oh my you are so big..." and I kind of started feeling self conscious for her. What, is she fat or something? But no, she is absolutely perfect and proportional. She is just a big baby. It's not like her own parents are tiny people... I noticed on the nurse sheet I got they listed her body mass index which is around 18 and that's IDEAL!

Eating:
Katherine likes her solids a lot. She started the month with carrots and avocado and by now she has tried acorn and butternut squashes, sweet potato, green beans, parsnips, peas, apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums and prunes, bananas, veal, chicken, turkey, egg yolk, yogurt and oatmeal. I've also given her some mixed grain cereal to slowly introduce gluten. I make all her food including meat and freeze it in ice trays.

By far her favorites are green beans and the two types of squash. When she first ate them she just kept gobbling them up and I kept bringing out more and more and more and finally I had to say enough. I think her least favorite ones have been parsnips (my guess because of the distinct nutty aftertaste) and peas (because I messed up on the texture front. I did not strain them and so even with a long cooking time they were just too tough and gritty and she kept gagging).

As far as fruit she initially did not like apples and she's kind of iffy about plums (again I think this is a texture thing, the plum skins don't grind up as fine as I would like). But she loves banana. She would eat it 3 times a day if I let her.

She now gets 3 solid meals per day, one small one of oatmeal with a bit of fruit after her morning bottle. Then at midday she gets fruit with yogurt and some cereal, and in the afternoon she gets veggies with meat and egg.

She has also had and loved puffs. I've been giving those to her to practice her pincer grasp and she is doing great with them. At first she would stuff her entire fist in her mouth to get them in but she is getting more and more precise and she's learnt to use her tongue to help scoop the puffs out of her hand.

This month we've been experimenting with doing a 4 hour feeding schedule. She started it by giving me a few days of excellent naps - as in she slept for 2 hour stretches. That lucky streak is unfortunately over but I am still sticking with feeding her every 4 hours. She seems to be doing great with that. She never cries or fusses for food so that tells me that she can last 4 hours between feeds. She eats at 7:30, 11:30, 3:30 and 7pm.

She gets a big bottle on the morning and evening and the other 2 times, the bottle follows the solid meal so she takes as much as she needs at that point.

But I was worried that she would get dehydrated so I gave her a 10pm dreamfeed a few times (we started with that the last week of the month).

Sleeping:
Well, it's an interesting situation. She still takes really crappy short naps. But she has had days when she's gone from 3 naps to 2 naps per day, 1.5 hours tops, normally 1 hour long.
As for nighttime sleep, that has definitely deteriorated somewhat. She still goes to bed just fine at 7pm. But a few times during the month she would wake up at night and cry, so I had to feed her. Perhaps it was a growth spurt. Then around 6am she'll wake up and start playing in her crib but a lot of the times now, she won't go back to sleep like she used to before. She still normally does not cry or fuss. She'll play till I go "officially" wake her. But because she's been up since 6 she then acts super tired by 9... That kind of led me to start with the 10pm feeding. Since then, she's been staying asleep a little longer.

Also I am experimenting with nap times. Since she now sometimes refuses to take the 3rd nap, I am having to try to push the 2 remaining naps a little later in the day so that there is not such a long and drastic stretch of time where she's up in the afternoon. My latest thing is putting her down for her morning sleep around 10am (she'll then sleep till 11 if I'm lucky) and the afternoon sleep at 2:30 (and she's supposed to sleep till 3:30). Then she can typically make it to 7pm without too much fussing. For a short while I would give in and put her to sleep at 6:30 but then I think that partly contributed to her waking up earlier in the morning...

Ughhh I hate sleep issues....

Milestones and Randoms:
This has been another month of milestones and new achievements. her second bottom tooth came in about a week after the first one. And it was rough! She was screaming, crying, she couldn't settle down to sleep. She was unhappy and exhausted. I had to give her Baby Tylenol a couple of times, which made such a huge difference. The first time I gave it to her she literally passed out in my arms in a matter of minutes. She was soooo tired, the poor thing, and the relief from pain finally allowed her to fall asleep... And now I am having to slowly get her used to the idea of brushing those chompers. We are nowhere near perfect yet but we are working on it.

Then the week after she got her tooth, she started rolling from belly to back. Now she will roll over several times, one roll after another, to get to a toy she wants. Sooo cool! And she is using her new skill for all kinds of crib acrobatics. This kid seriously changes sleep positions a hundred times each night. She loves sleeping on her belly and I feel totally comfortable with that now since she can roll both ways so easily.

About a week before she turned 7 months I finally got her to sit unassisted for however long she chooses. I have been trying to teach her to sit for a couple of weeks and she finally got it! She can sit really well now. But then when she gets bored with it, she will either fling herself backwards or sideways and conk her head on the floor, so I have to watch her. I got her some toys which promote sitting - like an activity table, where I took off 2 legs so it is resting at an angle and she can lean on it a little.

I also got her a little walker and she has quickly learned how to push herself around. She does it all the time, except she can only go BACKWARDS! But I hear that this is normal and that forward motion should come soon. It is fun to see her so mobile. She likes to push herself to the window and mess with the blinds or to the kitchen oven and pull down kitchen towels which are hanging at her grabbing level.

And here are some pictures from the month.