Austin 5-6 Months

Our baby boy is six months old! Up to this point all I could think when I looked at him was how little he looked to me, but just in the past couple of days I look at him and think about how big he looks and how obvious it is that he is growing up! 

Official Stats: 

Weight - 15 lbs 8 oz (14th percentile) 

Height - 26in (45th percentile) 

Head Cir. - 43cm (40th percentile)

Unofficial stats: 

Size 6 month clothes (some are still a tiny bit big, but most fit well.) Size 2 diapers. No teeth. Very little hair. 

Some things I want to remember from this month: 

--He is SO ticklish. It's so funny and his giggles are contagious. If you tickle his ribs, he squirms and laughs and I have to really restrain myself from tickling him all day long. 

-He started out the month by starting to sit while I held him up, then started sitting up unassisted for 30 seconds or so at a time, and now he is sitting up like a pro! It's amazing how quickly he went from only sitting when I was holding him up to sitting all by himself for extended periods of time. 

--So, he's sitting up like a pro but he has only rolled over once. I'm confident that he's strong enough to do it, but I honestly think that he just doesn't want to do it.  If he's laying on his back he'll have his arms by his chest happy-happy-happy, but if I start to help him roll over he will fling his arms to the floor and twist his head to make it almost impossible to roll him over. If you try to roll him the other way, he'll do the same thing but throw all his weight to the other side. 

-He still sleeps swaddled. I've halfheartedly attempted to transition him to our Zipadeezip, but it takes him forever to fall asleep and he always wakes up within just a few minutes. But I realize it's probably time to unswaddle him. Also, we have to strap him into the swing now. 

-He laughs all the time. Lydia especially loves making him laugh. Everything from running around him in circles to waving a spare balloon by his face - he loves it and so does she.

-He's started pursing his lips and blowing air through his lips. It's not a raspberry, it sounds more like a wheeze, but it's fun to know he's learning how to work that little mouth of his. 

--Everything goes in his mouth. If he sees something that he wants, he looks at it intently and reeeeaaaches his arms out. You can almost hear him thinking "That. I need that in my mouth, right now." He's got a much wider reach than I usually expect and I'm always surprised at how many things he can grasp and bring to that gummy mouth of his. 

--Because he's so interested in grabbing everything, especially food. We've started feeding him some food here and there. I played with the idea of doing a hardcore "Baby-led Weaning" diet for him, but have decided that I'm happy with him doing some puree, some handheld food. We took the obligatory first-food experience pictures. I love them. He absolutely loved all of the food, but he especially loved sucking on the piece of apple we gave him. He couldn't get enough.  

--He's still not the best of sleepers out there. However, we have gotten much better at napping during the day. He usually takes a nap at 9, 12, and 3 for at least an hour (sometimes more), and 5 for at least a half hour.  It's wonderful. However, his first stretch at night is getting less reliable. Sometimes 7-10:30. Sometimes 8:30-10. Almost never longer than 3.5 hours. Then the rest of the night we are "up" every 1-2 hours-ish. "Up" meaning: he cries, I nurse him, we both fall asleep within a few minutes. We have gotten a few stretches of me sleeping in my bed lately, so I have hope for the future. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention how much of a help David is. Most nights he takes Austin at least once so I can sleep, often at that 4 or 5 timeframe when I am the most tired. However, now that we've gotten the okay from the doctor that he's growing well and really doesn't need to eat all night we are going to start working on getting into a better routine. (This picture is taken after Austin's totally rocked me in our bedtime routine and I gave up and brought him downstairs while David was working. #futureaccountant.)

--He loves his family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. He's lucky to have so many people who love him back! 

-Austin has always been stiff as a board. He doesn't like to pull his legs up to his chest, but he likes them to be straight down. I think this is one of the reasons that he hasn't started rolling, he is so straight that he can't get any momentum going. But, because of this - he loves to stand! He can bear all of his weight on his legs and can stand just holding onto our fingers. He loves the jumparoo and is super happy to stand on his own and jump around. 

Some more pictures from this month: 

We love you Austin-darling!