Estelle's 6 Month Update

October 06, 2016

Estelle's 6 Month Update

Hooray for the magical 6 month mark! Estelle is getting so fun! She's an easy going, rolie polie, joy. At 6 months, she has lots of new tricks!

Estelle can sit up by herself, roll both ways, spin in a 360 circle on her tummy, and has tucked her knees under her body and tried to crawl once.

Sleep is getting better! Slowly but surely. Her normal routine is to go down between 6:30-7pm. This month, she had a week here or there where she'd sleep through the night and then she'd go back to waking twice a night. (It was killing my boobs with engorgement) So, I've started just giving her a bink for her wake ups unless it's past 5 am. Right now the trend is to sleep until 5, I'll feed her and then she's awake at 7 am.

She started taking a bink this last month too (she's never been too interested in a pacifier). Although, her biggest comfort item is still her blanket. She used to suck on the corners to sooth herself, but now she likes to have her bink while holding her blanket right by her face to fall asleep. If she loses her blanket, she'll suck on the foot of her jammies sometimes.

Naps are going okay. Excuse the excess of information here, but I wish I had written more of Indie's sleep patterns so I could look back and remember this time around with Estelle. Sleep woes drive me crazy and it's nice to remember what it was like and what was our normal at that age. Anyways. We try to keeper Estelle awake until 9:30 or 10:00 for her first nap. She'll sleep anywhere from 1-2 hours. (1 hour is more of the norm) Then I try to stretch her for 2 hours of wake time before she does another nap. She'll sleep a bit longer for that second nap.

She's also consistently putting herself to sleep, we no longer have to rock and walk our lives away to get her to sleep. I am SO glad it's finally in the past. May it forever be a fading memory.

Indie loves to 'get' Estelle from her crib. She'll crawl into her crib after a nap and snug and hold her. It usually very sweet, and sometimes a little traumatizing. Once I went in and Indie was literally rolling over Estelle repeatedly while kicking her in the face... Estelle just laid there blinking violently every time she was steamrolled and kicked. The one time screaming would have been more than appropriate.

Since she's been rolling, Stellie'll roll all around her crib instead of sleeping. Sometimes she gets stuck in the slats. She's starting to prefer sleeping on her tummy. When I say sleep on her tummy it looks like she belly flopped into her mattress. She loves to have her face buried in the sheets. She's always liked her face covered when she sleeps, just like Indie.

Estelle's loving the solids! She's learned to pick up food and get it to her mouth although its a messy affair. Her success rate is still only like 3/10.

She used to wake up a lot from runny, frequent poops but since starting solids it's really helped her sleep longer. Which is win win...win! She hated having her diaper changed in the night. Like blood curtailing screams, frantically grabbing onto my arms, it was pretty disconcerting. Poor thing, just wanted to be sleeping. Glad to have that phase over with. No more night poops!

Estelle loves nursing. She recognizes the sign of milk for nursing and gets really excited when I sign it to her. She will also bury her head in my boobs when she wants to nurse. That happens a lot after she wakes up from naps. She can't nurse unless we are in a quiet room though. She's too interested in noises to nurse through it.

Stellie is really good at playing and entertaining herself. She is a really content little one when she's not hungry or tired. She also loves to jump in her Jonny Jump Up.

Something that makes me a little sad, is that after all her colds, her talking voice slowly became less and less frequent. She never talks anymore or babbles. She will scream though. She does high pitched screams and squeals or throaty 'mmmmm' noises to communicate.

Indie says that baby sister hurts her ears. We agree. She really is so loud and shrill when she screams. For a few weeks instead of crying she would just scream like a murder victim. That was really disconcerting. Luckily she's started shying away from that and is going back to normal baby cries.

When Indie was a baby, I'd sing her lots of songs, but HER song was You Are My Sunshine. I think of her anytime I hear that song. Estelle's song seems to be turning into the 'A - Your Adorable' song. Damon found a great trick to help Estelle stay non screaming during diaper changes. (She hates diaper changes.) She calms down when he sings her Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It's a great 'angry Estelle' life hack.

Stellie is smiley, but really hard to get to laugh. I can probably count on one hand how many times I've heard her belly laugh. It's not for a lack of trying on our part. She will act like she's laughing a lot, but it's like the sound is trapped inside her and she can't get it out. A lot of the time the silent laughing will turn into happy squeal/screaming....She screams a lot... for all emotions.

Estelle is getting some fun little habits. She puts her hands by her ears and side of head a lot and then throws her little chubby hand forward. She does this a million times a day. She also LOVES to touch faces. All babies like to touch faces and play, but it's literally her favorite thing. She'll sit on your lap forever and grab and rub your face all over. She also has the most twinkly eyes, they're gorgeous!

Stellie is ticklish on her back and armpit. She still loves to have you gnaw on her little belly rolls. She also loves to blow raspberries.

Estelle loves it when Daddy comes home. She has a special place in her heart for him. She'll whine when she see's him until he picks her up. She likes to play the back and forth game between Damon and I.