Happy Halloween

Happy half birthday Juniper! VIDEO

6 months old

Juniper had her 6 months check-up with her pediatrician today on her half birthday. She weighs: 16 lbs 6 oz (greater than 50th percentile)
height: 27 1/4 inches (95th percentile)
Head circumference: 42.5 cm (50th percentile)
Most importantly, she's happy and healthy. If my blog postings have slowed down, it is only because I'm back to work. I have less time at home now, and I'm appreciating the time I do spend with Juniper so much! Juniper has been happy and well taken care of by her Aunt Squishy during the days when Mommy and Daddy are at work.

Sitting up unassisted!

Tonight for the first time Juniper was able to hold her back straight and sit up by herself without me holding her back for support. She did this for over 30 seconds. (Previously she would topple over after a few seconds). This time when she first started to topple over, she used her abdominal muscles to straighten back up to sitting. Eventually she did slowly fall backwards (and I caught her), but we are excited to see her strength building. I was able to snap this picture during her repeat performance.

Jeannie visits

We fed her real food

Juniper Joy W. ate her first solid food. Brown rice! Ground and mixed with mommy's milk. It went well. She had about a tablespoon or two. It was fun! The three of us had dinner together. Bob serenaded Juniper while I prepared the meal. Then Bob and I took a few bites of our food and let Juniper watch us as she has been doing lately. She's been fascinated with watching us take bites and chew our food. So then I gave Juniper spoonfuls of her brown rice smoothie, and although she made funny faces, she ate it and wanted more. For most bites she would push some of the food out of her mouth with her tongue, and I would spoon it back into her mouth for her. She ate all of what I had prepared for her (except for the bits that ended up on her bib, on her hands, on her face, on mommy's lap...).








The little pink cup is a plastic dish that we have saved from one of our many trips to Holy Gelato!, where we frequently go for yummy vegan gelato. (They have great dairy based gelato there, too.)

Bedtime cutie

Sleepy Family

It has been about a month now since we started our bedtime routine, and now we are ready for the next step which is to give up the swaddle. Juniper can easily roll over now, and she does so regularly, therefore it isn't really safe to continue to swaddle her. On Friday while trying to go down for a nap she seemed to prefer being unswaddled, and so Friday night we put her in the sleep sack (arms free) for the night. It was a challenging night for us parents, because she woke up a lot. However, she also woke up a lot Thursday night when she was swaddled, so I'm not sure what the reason is. This whole week it has been hard for her to sleep, partially because she had a slight fever for a couple days in reaction to a vaccination. The entire last month sleeping hasn't been great, which we figured was because of the two teeth that came in. Last week seemed to be better, where she was only waking up about twice a night. This week it has been more like 5 times a night.

Today we went to a free Sleep Workshop by Sara Cohen of Sleepy Family. It was reassuring to hear the stories of the other parents there. One of the tips the teacher gave us is to expect times of regression because progress isn't linear. That is helpful because there have been many nights when Juniper slept great and I optimistically think that she will sleep that well from then on. Not so! Also, the teacher said that when you make a change it takes about 10 days for the baby to adjust. She suggested for us that we start to teach Juniper to go to sleep on her own by sitting next to her bassinet while she is in there and sleepy, and wait with her until she falls asleep. She will probably cry and it could take up to an hour. She said a good time to start trying this is for her morning nap. I can't imagine doing that at this point. It takes so much patience to be with her while she cries. Anyway, for now I don't feel ready to "sleep train" her. For now we will work on getting her used to being unswaddled. We are still using a pacifier, and I am afraid that we are starting to depend on it too much to get her to sleep. But it seems like the alternative is to listen to a lot of crying.