Yesterday, our sweet Vi turned six months old.
It feels both longer and shorter than that somehow. I cannot believe it has already been half of a year since this moment when I heard the words “it’s a girl!”
. . . and yet, I can’t even imagine our family without her. It feels like she’s always been with us.
It’s all going a little too fast for this mama’s heart to handle, so today’s post is all about this girl and what life is like with her these days.
Relationships
Vi is honestly one of the happiest, sweetest babies. She is so smiley – I can’t help but smile too when I see her face light up! She especially loves her core family members. As her mama, I know we share one of the closest bonds. Whenever she’s upset, just the act of me picking her up and holding her usually calms her down right away. I love spending my days with her!
She is totally a daddy’s girl already. When Justin comes home from work, she gets a huge grin, makes happy noises, and starts kicking her arms and legs in excitement. She adores him!
And speaking of people she adores, her big brother LJ also tops the list. Oh my word. These two make my heart all melt-y. LJ loves to smother her in hugs and kisses and she follows his every move. She smiles when she sees him, tracks his movements across the room, and seems to genuinely like being near him (which is a good thing because he doesn’t exactly respect personal boundaries ha!) LJ is one of the few people who elicits genuine giggles out of her – she will laugh at the silly things he does or funny noises he makes and he loves it! One of their favorite little ‘games’ right now is he’ll blow zerberts on her belly and they both laugh. So sweet!
When it comes to other people, it can be hit or miss. Vi is starting to recognize “stranger danger” – she will sometimes get a huge frown and cry if she’s staring into a face she doesn’t know. It will occasionally happen with a babysitter too but we’ve learned that I just need to hold her facing out so she can observe the new face from the comfort of familiar arms until she warms up to the new person and then it’s fine. She is beloved by the ladies in the church nursery though – she’s always sweet as can be there and they love having her!
Sleep
Vi didn’t really have a 4 month sleep regression and has pretty consistently slept 8-12 hours every night since we moved her into her room. She either sleeps 8 hours, wakes up around 4 am, feeds, and goes back to sleep, or she’ll just sleep the whole way through the night until 7 or 8 am. Obviously, I prefer those nights 😉 but waking up once at four isn’t bad either. Maybe once every other week or so we’ll have a night where she’s waking up more frequently than that, but for the most part, she’s consistent!
While she’s great at night, she’s less consistent with naps. She sometimes takes a morning nap, she usually takes an afternoon nap, sometimes both, rarely neither. I think her inconsistency comes because of our schedule: mornings are generally the only time we can get out of the house during the day so we’re not always home. She’s pretty go with the flow and will at least fall asleep in her car seat if we leave the house, so that’s nice!
Food
We’ve just recently started introducing solids to her. Her very first food was avocado and she was … less than impressed.
She’s also had some tastes of banana. So far she’s not really interested in food other than just playing with it or watching us eat.
She still does really well with breastfeeding and has always fed on demand. She started out wanting to feed every 60-90 minutes, which was exhausting for me. Nowadays, she will occasionally still want to feed that frequently, but she’s also able to go up to four hours in between feeds during the day. Similarly to LJ, she took a bottle well really early on, but once she got a little older and recognized she was drinking from a bottle, she wanted nothing to do with it. Now that she’s finally able to go longer in between feeds, I’m able to leave her with Justin or a babysitter to run errands or have time by myself which is good for both of us.
Activity
Vi is so interested in her surroundings and is always in motion, interacting with whatever is near her. If we put her on the ground, she’ll roll all over to reach and play with toys. She also loves playing in her activity center and is generally content to play there if I need a safe place to put her while I get some other work done.
She also loves to look at herself in the mirror. I love watching her watch herself – she’s so proud of herself when she stands! (And those scrumptious leg rolls!!)
She experienced her first snow but she was more interested in watching us than she was at discovering snow.
While Vi is generally sweet, happy, and easygoing, she does have her moments. In particular, if I’m not home and she gets fussy for Justin or a babysitter, it’s generally because she wants to breastfeed and refuses a bottle. She will also sometimes get cranky when she’s overtired and we have to be conscious of putting her down in her crib when she shows signs of fatigue.
These last six months have been an adventure and I’m looking forward to making many more memories with this sweet girl.
We love her so much!
simplify the chaos 