Nathan turned seven months today! This past month he has truly started to become an independent little person. His goofy personality is shining through and it seems like each day he subtly learns a new skill.
I think the most obvious and exciting change from last month is his ability to observe and react to his environment. Instead of only noticing people and facial expressions he now reacts and interacts with everything around him. For example, today I was at the sink washing my hands. I heard giggling coming from across the room and looked over to see Nate staring at the water as it poured from the tap, laughing at the splashing sounds and the action of my hands rubbing together. I then started laughing at his reaction, which made him laugh even more. The two of us were in hysterics, it was a perfect moment.
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| What's so funny? |
His hand-eye coordination is improving a lot, especially in the past week. He is now pointing at things, delicately placing his index finger on an object of interest and pushing. He can almost use a pincer grasp, but not quite. Mostly he still uses his whole palm to pick things up. He started waving two days ago! OK, maybe not proper waving, more like a full arm flap with his palm facing out, but it is so darn adorable.
Nate is great at sitting up. He loves sitting and looking at the world around him, but he is generally not interested on being on his stomach. Although he knows how to roll, if I place him on his back he will stay on his back. I don't see any signs of him starting to crawl. I am not overly bothered though - watching my other mummy friends frantically chase after their crawlers makes me appreciate Nate's current immobile state.
Weaning is going well and we are still doing BLW for the majority of our meals. Nate has started to accept being spoon fed occasionally too so we have been incorporating a mixture of traditional weaning and BLW. I hope to post a more detailed weaning update shortly.
Nate is a talker! He babbles and mumbles and screeches. His favourite thing to say is 'mama', but not just to me, he says it to everyone and everything. Sometimes he drops the first 'm' and my husband likes to joke that he is calling me Emma. A few days ago he started smacking his lips, really hard and really loudly - sometimes I think he will smack his lips right off.
Nate still has not slept through the night, but as a breastfed baby I don't expect him to until he is eating significantly more solid food. He goes to bed at 6.30pm and tends to wake once in the night around 3am for a quick feed and then goes back to sleep until 6am. I say this as if there is a predictable routine - there is not! Last night he was up at 12.30am and 4am for feeds. I won't miss the broken sleep when he finally sleeps all night long, but I will miss the middle of the night cuddles, just the two of us.
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| nom nom nom |
This week is our second week of baby-led weaning (BLW) and I think Nate is doing well. I have had people ask me what I have been giving Nate at meal times and how much he has been eating, so I thought I would post every once in a while what he has had for the day with some photos.
For anyone who doesn't know what BLW is, a good summary can be found here. In short, BLW is where you skip the mushy spoon-fed phase of weaning and go straight to "normal" food that the baby feeds themselves. A key difference between BLW and traditional weaning is that you let the baby decide how much he will eat, rather than force feeding a set amount.
Currently Nate is on 2 meals a day, breakfast and lunch. Today for breakfast Nate had porridge fingers and papaya. I don't think he actually consumed any of it. Mostly he just grabbed pieces and flung them around on his tray, trying to launch them towards the dogs or towards me. He simply wasn't in the mood this morning. I did try and load a spoon for him with some papaya just to get him to try it. He brought the spoon to his mouth, but then tipped it upside down before it reached its target. Papaya went all over his lap, it was actually quite humorous.
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| Breakfast - before |
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| Breakfast - after |
His lunchtime meal was roast chicken, Red Leicester cheese, and cucumber. It was his first time having meat and he did really well! I would estimate about 10% of the meal was consumed. This sounds low, but honestly it was really good for him (especially compared to breakfast). He absolutely loved the cucumber - I think it soothed his gums (which by the way, sprouted their second tooth yesterday - ouch!).
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| Lunch - before |
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| Lunch - after |
Overall, I think BLW is the right way forward for us, but it takes a lot of patience and persistence. Yesterday I met up with some mommy friends and they were all following traditional weaning. Their babies were eating loads, I'm talking full containers of mashed up vegetables and fruit and meats! This makes it so difficult to compare Nate's progress with others his age. I just hope he continues to explore the different tastes and textures and that little by little he will start to consume more of what I put in front of him.
