After the last two updates went up late, I decided I had to get this one done right away after Gerrit turned 7 months old! Clearly that didn’t happen. Sorry, guys!
This past month has been a pretty good month for us. Gerrit is getting to be more and more fun to play with and interact with. He’s also on a loose schedule, which helps me plan our days a bit better.
Age: 7 months on 27 May 2015
Weight: 20.5 lbs
Height: 28 inches
Teeth: none
Clothing Size: 9 months
Diaper Size: size 3
Milestones: starting solid foods, learning to jump, sleeping through the night (5 hours) again
Sleeping: Overall I can’t complain too much about Gerrit’s sleep this month. I think we only had one awful night, and that was the night following his 6 month vaccinations. Ugh, it was a rough evening! Neither Andrew nor I could seem to soothe him. He would fall asleep while we held him, but as soon as we even started bending over to put him in his crib, he would start crying. Poor baby!
Most days he took 3 naps, but he had a few days with only 2 naps. I had read that he could keep 3 naps up until about 9 months, so I always tried to get a third nap in. But some days he was just not having it! If it turned into too big of a fight, I just let him skip the third nap and moved bedtime earlier. Gerrit is definitely an early riser, so I always hate bumping bedtime up. But I guess you do what you have to do.
At night, Gerrit got at least 10 hours of sleep most nights with at least 3 night wakings per night. He had one night (the night of Mother’s Day actually!) where he only woke up twice, and it was AMAZING. It felt so good to get some solid sleep for once! Anyway, he would nearly always eat when he woke up, although occasionally he just wanted some snuggles before nodding off again. He also would sometimes put himself back to sleep, but he usually nursed to sleep.
Eating: I’m still feeding on demand. Sometimes Gerrit eats every 2 hours, other times it’s closer to 3 or 4 hours. His best feeds are still right before naps and before he goes to bed at night.
Along with breastfeeding, we’ve introduced solid food! It is moving along slowly, with Gerrit really just trying different textures and flavors. He has eaten very little food, so I still consider him pretty much exclusively breastfed at this point.
Mommy Update: Mood-wise things are good! But I’ve been a little obsessed with baking this month, and it shows: I’ve gained back about 5 pounds. 😦 Definitely my own fault, but I’m still not happy about it.
Best Moments: Probably meeting more family & friends! Gerrit got to meet another set of great-grandparents right after he turned 7 months:
My grandparents were driving back up north from Florida, and they stopped to visit for a day. It was so good to see them! Gerrit loved the attention. 🙂
We also got to meet his newest cousin, Nolan, who was born in March.
Doesn’t Gerrit look huge compared to Nolan? Haha! I was so glad to meet baby Nolan and to see Braxton again. Plus my mom & my sister too, of course. 🙂
Over Memorial Day weekend, my friend Emily visited on her way to a wedding in the Outer Banks.
We didn’t do too much during her visit, but we did go do a short walk at the Cliffs of the Neuse. She was perfectly happy to catch up with us and meet Gerrit though. Gerrit was very fond of the jewelry she wore, haha!
I also finally finished decorating Gerrit’s room!
I would have liked to have painted the room the color of the curtains (and then gotten a different color for the curtains of course), but we didn’t want to buy paint or actually do the painting haha. I still think it turned out pretty cute though.
Likes & Dislikes: Gerrit still definitely likes being active. He loves standing on us, having us walk him around the house, and jumping in his jumperoo. He has gotten tall enough that he can actually jump in the jumperoo! And boy does he jump… it’s a great way for him to burn off some of his constant energy.
He also likes books and songs. I feel like I could just keep reading and reading to him, and he wouldn’t get bored by it. We listen to a lot of music during the day, and he seems to enjoy hearing me sing.
Gerrit likes sensory activities. I started making some sensory bottles for him, which he really seems to enjoy. He generally just likes playing with household things.
Gerrit dislikes being left alone. He loves interacting with Andrew & me… in fact, he usually demands it! He will play independently once in awhile, but he usually wants to be playing with one of us.
Memorable Events: Although we didn’t do much to celebrate, I did enjoy my first official Mother’s Day! I bought us this cute shirt set to celebrate:
The other memorable event was Gerrit starting solid food! We are doing BLW (baby-led weaning), which is introducing finger foods and skipping purees and rice cereal. I will try to do a separate post about this, since I’ve had quite a few questions about it.
So far he seems to really enjoy putting everything we offer to him in his mouth, but not much has made it to his tummy yet. We’ll get there!
All in all, we really enjoyed Gerrit’s 7th month. He’s becoming a lot more fun to play with, learning new things every day, and keeping us on our toes! It was great to enjoy the beautiful weather too.
On An Even Kiel 