7 months

Henry Boy is 7 months old today.

Schedule: We're still going strong on the same schedule. Now that Henry is eating solid foods more, that's been added in. A typical day: 6:30-7:00 wake up, 7:30 nurse, 8:00 breakfast solids, 8:45 nap, 10:30 nurse, 12:00 lunch solids, 12:45 nap, 3:00 nurse, 5:00 sometimes an extra nurse before nap- I will consolidate the 3 and 5:00 feedings soon, nap, 6:00 dinner solids, 7:30 nurse and bed. I no longer do feedings during the night, with the exception of early morning (4:00 am or later) wake ups. This means that I can pump during the night and get almost a whole feeding's worth of milk to freeze. I won't do this forever, but it saves me from having to pump during the day and I will probably pump once a night at least until I go back to work. I don't plan for Henry to ever have cow's milk, so need to make sure I have a lot of milk frozen. 


I did some sleep training last week. After two nights, Henry was going back to sleep all by himself without any crying during the night. The only exception was that he still cried and could not easily fall back asleep in the very early morning hours. If he woke at 4:00 or later he would cry and cry, even with me going to check on him repeatedly, and I would finally just give in and feed him. We decided that he isn't ready to give up that early morning nursing just yet. I don't mind getting up once to feed him, as long as we don't backslide into him waking multiple times each night again. The last few nights he has slept for nine or ten hours before waking to eat, then sleeping again until 6:30 or 7:00. We are both much happier after nights when he sleeps well. I've also noticed that his naps have improved. He used to fight naps sometimes, but for several days now he has gone to sleep almost immediately when I put him down for naps. 

Motor Development: Henry is more stable when sitting, and gets onto his stomach from a sitting position more easily. He rolls from back to front, and front to back. When on his back or stomach he can turn his body around in a circle and scoot backwards. He isn't moving forward yet, but gets all the way up into crawling position. He reaches and holds onto things well, is using his hands better, uses his hands together, and passes objects from one hand to the other. 


Henry is managing solid foods very well now. He likes to eat, and eats everything we offer. He seemed to have a little reaction to apricots, so I'm avoiding those for now. In addition to purees, Henry likes soft foods that are mashed a little- banana, peach, potato, etc. He is now eating three "meals" a day, on schedule with the rest of the family. 

Social and Communication: Henry isn't doing anything new since he started imitating a few things a couple weeks ago. He has become quite a charmer when we're out in public. He's a people magnet.

Cognitive: Henry understands object function for items we use often. He has been taking medicine for thrush, and when he sees it he knows what it's time for. He tries to open his baby food, and when he sees a package of Mum Mums he looks back and forth between it and me, vocalizing to ask for it. The other night he wanted more Mum Mums after they were gone, and he started getting upset that I wasn't giving him more. I opened the wrapper to show him it was empty, and he got a surprised expression and immediately stopped complaining. He understood that it was empty and there weren't any more.

At this point we're really on the way to Henry's first birthday. It's hard to believe seven months have passed.