6 months (and 3 weeks!)

 

Oops!  I better get this 6 month post for Axel up before he turns 7 months.  It's kind of a big mile stone ...half a year ...and I have been negligent in posting any thing about it.

(The following post contains a number of details that probably only a mother would care about, but I like to look back and see how things were then...so bear with this mama!)

So far I am really loving 6 months!  Finally, Axel is sleeping through the night.  He was still sleeping in our room since he had been waking up for a very early morning feeding.  Then it seemed I would stay up late to feed him and he was still waking up at least twice and would only settle down if he was fed.  NO!  This was not the direction I thought we should be going.  I decided I would put him in another room to sleep in hopes that he would sleep better and maybe only wake up once.  He obviously needed his own space because now I put him down at 8 or 9 and he wakes up around 8 am!!!!!  This is so great... if only I had made the move earlier I think we all would have been sleeping better much earlier!  I'm sure adding some solid food helped as well.
He is taking a short morning nap (45 min - 1 hour) and then a good nap in the afternoon (2-3 hours).  Tobi is still napping, so recently there have been a string of days where both kids have been napping at the same time.  SO NICE!

Axel sits up now if positioned that way.  He has some control but usually ends up falling back or to the side...so soft surfaces works best!  He is so close to crawling... he is up an all fours now, rocks, launches himself forward, pivots, rolls scooches, and spins ...everything but actual crawling.  Once he figures it out I'm sure he will be on the move so I am not pushing him at all :)  He's been stuck (literally) at this stage for a few weeks now.



He has turned into a super eater...rice cereal, sweet potatoes and bananas were all he ate the first few weeks and this had some troubling effects on his poor little digestive tract...but after some prunes and pear juice and a switch to oatmeal cereal things have been moving along quite nicely :) 



So far he has loved everything he has eaten...carrots, peas, green beans, apples.  He treats banana in the mesh self-feeder like his sole life source...I have to limit his banana intake but he start panting and grabbing when he sees the feeder coming out.   I tried to put in an ice cube in it once....let's just stay it was not met with great delight!

Banana and bluberry - yum!

He is so goofy and smiley...I just love his little toothy grin (and frown).  Ben calls him "Chompers" and it fits him quite well right now.  He chews and chomps on anything and everything...he really loves a good shoe if he can find one. 

A few comparisons. 

Tobi still did not have any teeth at 6 months, her first teeth popped up around 7 months.  Axel is days away from his top teeth popping through.  His bottom teeth showed up just before he turned 5 months old.  We had to reschedule Axel's 6 month check up so I don't know how much he weighs or how long he is right now...but he was over 16 lbs at his 4 month appt. and Tobi was 17 lbs at her 6 month appointment.  So I think Axel probably has his sister beat.  Tobi was not interested in moving at all at 6 month...she loved sitting.  She wasn't so big on food yet...but she was in love with her bottles of milk.  Thankfully Axel is good with feeding now...no more pumping.  It is quite freeing to not have to lug around the black bag (breast pump)... unless I want to!  It's pretty much 5 feedings a day about every 3 hours...and 2-3 meals of cereal and pureed food...and of course a little banana!!!