nathan - 6 months old

Today Nate is 6 months. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. From being a super tiny squishy newborn  he is now sitting up on his own, playing with toys, babbling and interacting with others. Look at him here playing with Nana Val yesterday (so cute right?)

And 3 days ago he cut his first little tooth on the bottom right. It's just a little jagged piece peeking out from the gums, but it's there! It has been causing him a lot of discomfort and I think the left one will be coming soon too. It's frustrating to see him in so much pain when there really isn't much I can do but give him cuddles and the odd dose of pain reliever. Poor little lad. 

At 24 weeks we started weaning Nate onto solid foods. I am still breastfeeding him and I am fortunate enough to be able to take a year off work, so I hadn't been stressing too much about weaning him any earlier than 24 weeks. In fact, I hadn't really thought much about the whole solid food situation until I went to a weaning workshop in December. After speaking with some friends I decided to follow Annabel Karmel's weaning plan, which is based on traditional weaning, using purees and spoon feeding. I thought it would be easier to do what my friend's were doing so we could support each other. Nate had other plans...

On our first day of spoon feeding he hesitantly took a little bit of the puree, then grabbed the spoon from our hands and decided he wanted to feed himself.

We continued to try and feed him homemade puree food over the next few days, but Nate just did not want to be fed by someone else. He would purse his lips, turn to the side and protest. It was quite obvious that he would be more suited to a weaning plan where he was in control of feeding himself. I did some research on baby-led weaning and decided to try that instead and we have been doing well ever since. Nate has now fed himself toast, cucumber slices, banana, avocado, papaya and porridge fingers. He is clearly an independent and tactile little man and I'm very proud of him. Baby-led weaning is a messy and slow process, but it is so rewarding to see him learn how to feed himself. 

Cucumber

Toast

I have been enjoying wearing Nate in slings more as he is getting older. It's nice to hold him close while still be able to have my hands free. If he is fussy, I can pick him up, put him in a sling and still get things done. And we keep each other nice and warm on these winter days. Here we are out with the Moby wrap the other day.

I recently joined my local babywearing group and was pleased to find that they run a sling library. It costs £10 a year (bargain!) and I can loan out different slings to try for 2 weeks at a time. I currently have on loan a Storch baby carrier from them which hubby and I are enjoying. We took it out on Saturday in the snow and Nate fell asleep in it. He looked so peaceful. 

We are going to London in a couple weeks to register Nate at the American Embassy and to get his US passport. We plan on only taking a sling with us which will allow us to negotiate the busy trains and tubes with less hassle.