Hey friends!! How has it already been 6 months since my last post?! So much has changed and I can’t wait to update everyone. Today’s blog post is going to be an update on Thomas about his 6th month of life. I will be going over everything from sleep to breastfeeding, to diapers, to milestones, etc.
So first off I want to update everyone on how breastfeeding is going this time around. Thomas immediately latched once he was born and stayed latched for well over an hour straight. He was a hungry baby. Every since then, you will pretty much find Thomas nursing. Seriously though, not much has changed since the newborn phase. He is still on an every 2ish hour around-the-clock feeding cycle. With my oldest I had her on a 3 hour schedule from the beginning. She did extremely well with this for well over the first year of her life. I was able to drop nursing schedules from time to time as she started to sleep through them. It worked great! Thomas is definitely not wired that way. He is just nursing on demand and that tends to work out to about every 2ish hours. This “schedule” includes night time as well. I’m so incredibly thankful though for a baby who is so great at nursing and for a supply that has never given me any problems.
Speaking of night time, let’s talk about sleep. It’s so funny how you can just tell the difference in children from such a young age. Thomas’s sleep needs are lower than my oldest’s. He is currently taking 2-3 naps a day. The first two last anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half and if he has a third one it will last about 30/45 minutes. At night he seems to have fallen into the habit of needing about 10 hours of sleep, though he doesn’t go 10 hours straight. He is still waking every 2ish hours to nurse. Every now and again we will get a good 3 hour stretch, but those are rare. His longest stretch is right when he goes to bed. Bed time for him ranges between 7 and 8 and depends really on when he gets up from nap. So if he is asleep by say 7:30pm then he usually wakes between 9:30 and 10:30 for his first feeding of the night. Then like I said it’s about every 2 hours until we hit around 3:30-5:30am. This is where he really struggles. Some where in this time frame he wakes to nurse again and for some reasons thinks it’s time to get up for the day. Some nights he is awake from 3:30-5 and then falls back asleep until 6:30/7. Some nights it means he is put into bed with us and sleeps attached to my boob until around 6:30 when we get up for the day. (Note: We practice safe co sleeping practices and this is a last resort option when we just can’t get him calmed down enough to go back to sleep). I will say sleep with him has been more difficult than with Penelope, but we are working to figure out his specific sleep needs and also realizing that it changes depending of where he is in his development. He also is sleeping in a crib in our room next to my side of the bed. I often wonder if this is why he may wake more at night. Maybe he knows Mama is there and just wants to be close to me. He is one hundred percent a Mama’s boy and loves to cuddle his mom.
Let’s talk about diapers! Thomas is still going strong on the cloth diaper train. I feel like we really hit our stride around month 4. When he was born we used disposables for maybe the first few weeks until he hit the 10 pound mark and then we switched over to cloth. We struggled with leaks the first couple of months, but since about month 4 we haven’t had any issues. We are fully cloth now, even at night. It really isn’t anywhere as difficult as people made it out to be and I’m thankful it’s really working for us.
Some fun milestones that Thomas hit this month is he has really perfected his belly to back roll and has actually started to enjoy being on his belly for the first time. Just today at exactly 6 months old he was able to accomplish the tripod sitting position. I’m sure it won’t be long now before he is fully sitting on his own. We have also noticed that at the beginning of this 6th month he was putting together the dada sound and we are pretty sure we have heard the mama sound the last few days. One of his favorite things to do recently is to give me lots of hugs. He does this super sweet thing where he will lay his head on my chest and I will say “aww! So sweet!”. Then he will pull his head up and do it again just to hear me say it. It’s so adorable. We have also started working with Thomas on his sign language. Currently we are teaching him the sign for milk and I feel like I’ve seen him try to do it a few times. He still isn’t taking a bottle and honestly we have moved past that phase. We are hoping to start trying breast milk in a sippy cup in the upcoming month to see if he might be interested in that.
Lastly let’s talk about some of Thomas’s favorite things right now. Probably his all time favorite thing right now is watching Penelope jump. I’m not sure what it is about it, but her jumping is one of the funniest things to him. He will belly laugh like no other person can cause him to do. It’s so sweet how much he loves to just watch her. This month he has really enjoyed being read to. He is really into Shape of Me and Good Night Moon right now. Some of his favorite toys are anything that he can chew on. Everything goes into that mouth. He also has recently liked when you play with him with movement. For example he likes games like peek a boo, songs that incorporate finger movements, and throwing a ball up and catching it. (Dad note: he also loves waking us up every two hours throughout the night! Loads of fun!)
Month 6 has been a super fun month for Thomas and us as his personality is starting to show more and more with each passing month. Month 7 is sure to be an exciting one. Thomas we are so proud of all that you have accomplished and are loving learning more and more about who you are!
Baby Dust To All,
Cynthia
Joy Comes In The Morning 