7 month update: Starting Solids + Cloth Nappies

Catch up on previous updates:

Loving the warm weather for playtime outside. My mom made this blanket for my brother and I when we were young.

Sleep

Day: Oliver has three 1-2 hour naps a day, in the morning, noon and afternoon. He is pretty close to falling asleep on his own, but I do have to go in and out of the room a couple times to turn him from his back to his tummy and pat his bum a couple times. We have made huge progress from having to hold him to sleep so we are thrilled. He wakes up happy from his naps and always gives us the biggest smile. He does not like sleeping when he is in childcare at the gym. I even got called out of yoga today as he was beside himself. Eeeek.
Night: Ollie sleeps from about 8:00 pm to about 7:00 am every night. He stirs a couple times between 9-11 pm but we often don’t have to go into his room, we just peek and see that he has not rolled over off the bed. In the morning, he chats to himself and bangs his hand against the wall to let us know that he is awake and ready to get up 😉

Feeding

Read about my breastfeeding journey here.

Day: I am still breastfeeding Oliver on demand, about 4-5 times a day. He nurses about every three hours and adds one extra feed at night to power up for his long sleep. He drinks from both sides, takes about ten minutes to feed and burps in about 30 seconds.
Night: Ollie fed once during the night this month and I was shocked but at the same time, I knew it was kind of my fault. Daniel was away on a conference so I put the single mattress down next to his bed so we could keep each other company, but he thought it meant he could get a midnight snack! He did start rolling over from his back to his tummy the next day, so that could have been part of it as well!

A lot of people say Ollie looks like me but when I saw this photo of Daniel as a baby I was amazed – Ollie looks just like his Dada! (Except he has way more teeth)

Milestones

Started solids (more about that below)
Rolls over from his back to his tummy
Has four teeth and is working on his top lateral incisors. Boom! I just Googled that name and now I feel smart.
More mobility but not crawling yet.

Fun Tid Bits

We have started solids with “Baby Led Weaning” but he is literally eating nothing and making me super nervous when he gags so I’m in two minds about starting to mash some of the food up.

We have quite a variety going but will circle back to the same foods as we know it takes a while to develop a taste for something.

Solids: We started solids with a version of “Baby Led Weaning” in that we gave him “proper” food but just a couple of foods at a time. I would roast the veggies lightly so they were soft but not too mushy so he could hold them. It seemed to go really well at first but I keep getting more anxious when he gags. He has four teeth so he bites big chunks sometimes and I’m just sitting there waiting for him to spit them out. I know he is learning to chew but it is concerning because choking can be fatal and I don’t want anything to happen to my baby. In the same breath, I love how he experiments with the food, plays with it, bangs it on the tray and has such fun handling it by himself. He hasn’t choked yet but has gagged a couple times and spat up once. This week’s butternut was a little soft and he could bite huge pieces off so waiting for him to spit them out was pure torture. I tried the butternut in one of those mesh bag thingies and he did not like it, but I might try it again. He loved the banana, probably because it’s the sweetest and it was easy for him to gnaw on.
We have an old nappy box that I use with a reusable liner for our dirty cloth nappies. It has a baby boy on and Oliver loves waking up from his nap to giggle at him. We have even named him “Bryce” and are not sure if we will ever be able to get rid of the box now that he loves him so much.
Oliver sometimes pushes up and away from me after he is finished feeding. He used to just unlatch and chill while I tickled his neck, but now he uses his hands to push away so he can get back to playing. Ummmm, no cuddling?
He can reach for us when he wants to be picked up, it melts our hearts so badly!
His favorite thing to do is to take off our caps (hats) and chew on them. He also loves sunglasses and even popped my lens out the other day.
Cloth nappies (diapers): I started to use a few cloth nappies when Oliver was a newborn but then used disposables when I was in survival mode with his colic and reflux. I have slowly been getting back into it, adding more and more cloth nappies to my stash. I have decided that pocket diapers work the best for us as they seem to be the most comfortable for Ollie with less flaps getting in the way. I still do disposables at night as he sleeps 10-11 hours and I don’t want him sitting in his wee that whole time. He has been getting a very red bum since we started using more cloth nappies and stopped using diaper rash cream. Does anyone know of a cream that works with cloth? I wish I didn’t have to use anything but he gets a red bum. I have been doing some disposables when it gets very red but hope to find a solution for the cloth.

This is a Bam+Boo all-in-one nappy that I picked up in South Africa (at Cascades in PMB) last month.

Mama

I just realized the other day that my hair has stopped falling out! It’s also crazy though that it’s still thicker than I could ever have imagined. Who knew the cure for my thin wispy hair was to have a baby?

But seriously, I am loving being a mom and am realizing that mothers are so special. It was truly a great honor to be a mom on Mother’s Day this past weekend. I also want to thank my Mom for all the hours she played with me, cooked for me, drove me around, sang me songs, rode me around on her bike, held me, cried for me, prayed for me and loved me. I know it’s a pretty thankless job but I’m very grateful and your love means so much more to me now that I know the love of a mother for her child. Love you Mom.