Elliott: Seven Months

Seven months! Elliott's personality shines through more and more each day and we love watching him grow and change. He is still a smiley little boy- to anyone that smiles at him or talks to him. He loves being in social settings, but can get overwhelmed when the room is too full of people or too loud. That being said he will still fall asleep in the middle of a loud worship service at church! Time is going by so quickly, but we're soaking up every single day and every single new thing he does. His last weigh in about 10 days ago was 20 lbs 5oz and his heights is up to 27 1/4 inches. His weight has leveled off a bit and he's stretched out. He seems leaner in the face and upper body, but is still holding onto those thunder thighs!

Eating: It's been a bit of a slow start for solids. We are forgoing rice cereal altogether and are following a list of first foods that we got from our Naturopath. We started with carrots, which he completely rejected (I doubt he swallowed any of them!) then we moved on to yams which thankfully he loves! I then tried the carrots again which resulted in the worst poop and sore belly ever. It was so sad. I'm still not positive the carrots were to blame, or if he just caught a tummy bug and coincidently his first *ahem* episode was right after the carrots. Either way it caused a diaper rash that lasted over a week, and his tummy wasn't right for about that long as well. I felt pretty cautious after that, and we waited until his poops got back to normal before trying any more solids. We tried yams again (still a hit) and bananas, which he loved. Anyone that doesn't already follow me on Instagram you probably should just so you can see the bananas video. (Do yourself a favour and watch the one where he pinches his own thighs too) Next on the list: peas!

Sleeping (Night Time): Oh boy, this one has been tough the past month. It's like he completely forgot how to sleep at night. Call it a growth spurt (although he hasn't actually had a growth spurt in weight) or call it sleep regression, but either way this kid no longer sleeps like he used to. Instead of waking up once or twice a night the new norm is 2-4. He still only nurses once or twice. If he doesn't fully wake up when he fusses I just pat his back for a minute and he goes back to sleep. There have been nights where this is an hourly occurrence. I know I might be shooting myself in the foot by responding each time and not giving him the chance to self soothe seeing as he is not fully waking and not even crying (just a pathetic little whine) but the truth is that if I don't pat his back he will wake up and possibly be up for an hour +. I've weighed my options and I'm pretty sure any decision I make that allows me more sleep is the right one for me ;)

We started a bath time / bed time routine in the last month that seems to be working really nicely for us. Before this bath time was every couple days and at different times each time (right after dinner, an hour before bed etc) Now we do bath at 8:30, bed at 9. He's never given us much trouble with bedtime, but we just wanted to start a routine early with the hopes of it benefiting us later on if bedtime becomes a problem or if we want to try to change the time of bedtime. He loooooves playing in the bath, and afterwards once we out in his jammies he seems so cuddly and sleepy!

Sleeping (Nap Time):  He still naps either 3 or 4 times a day. First one is still 2-2.5 hours after he wakes up (between 9-10) then the next one around 1 and the third around 4-5. If the third one is too early and too short he takes  quick cat nap around 6-7. Quite frankly he falls asleep when he's tired and won't go down for a nap unless he's ready. I see no point in trying to "schedule" his naps and thankfully I still have not needed to schedule life around his naps because he falls asleep easily no matter where we are. Also, as a note, his naps don't seem to affect his sleep at night. He's had days where he naps more or naps less and nothing seems to make a difference in how often he wakes at night.

Play: Just like I reported last month, he still loves his jumper but not nearly as much as he used to. He will sometimes whine to come out and all he wants is to play on the floor with me or sit with Daddy. He loves laying on his back, on his tummy and sitting, playing with his toys. His favorites this month are his jingly giraffe (he has a lot of different giraffes) his butterfly, his sock monkey and his fishy teething toy. His sock monkey goes with us pretty much everywhere as well as the fishy- both are nice and small and fit easily in the diaper bag!

Highlights/Lowlights: He sits!! He started doing this not long after he turned six months old. So funny how one day they can't, and then the next day they can! I love this stage. He is the happiest little dude to just sit and play with his toys. I'm soaking up this beautiful time where he stays put when I put him down- I know it will be short lived!

Speaking of crawling, he isn't there yet, but he has started to get up on his knees while he's laying on his tummy and squirming around. Only a matter of time!

He has three teeth now. Both bottom in the middle and one up top beside his two front teeth on the left. His front left tooth looked like it was hours away form breaking through the skin last week, and then it disappeared (went back up?) Ridiculous! Both front teeth look like they won't take much longer and have been bugging him quite a bit the past couple days. 

He can stand so easily just by holding our hands- his legs have gotten so strong, and he can stand like that for such a long time without his legs giving out. He sways front and back, but seems pretty sturdy! He always has a giant smile on his face when he's standing- so proud of himself.

He has rolled a couple of times now, both back to front and front to back, but he doesn't seem to really care about it, and doesn't do it very often at all. Looks like rolling is incredibly unexciting to him.

Swim class! All we do is bob around, splash and sing nursery rhymes, but it's super fun. There's a portion of the class where you dunk their heads completely under, which doesn't seem to bother him in the least. He looks a little surprised each time and blinks a couple of times until the water is out of his eyes, but no sputtering or crying.

He discovered Chris' tattoo on his thigh (it's about the size of Chris' hand) and he tries to pick it up, touch it, and scratch at it. So hilarious!

Lately he wakes up between 6-6:30 in the morning but if we leave him and let him grunt for a couple minutes he'll fall back asleep until 7-7:30. So nice!

He's started going into the nursery at church and at MOPS (Mom's group on Wednesday mornings) and so far he's doing great! While he can be a real empathy crier (cries if a baby beside him cries) he seems somewhat unfazed in the nursery setting even when the whole room full of babies are crying. It probably helps that on Wednesdays his Auntie Gloria is one of the childcare workers so he gets extra snuggles ;)

Likes:

• Blowing raspberries
• Being tickled- especially in his ribs
• When Mommy pretends to eat his hands, feet, neck (the list goes on)
• Sitting! 
• Getting thrown in the air
• His jingly giraffe
• Bathtime! So much splashing now that he sits up!
• Being wrapped up in the ring sling, and sitting on my back in my Boba carrier
• Bananas
• Drinking from a straw cup (well, attempting to) He gets so excited about it!
• Staring out the front window at all the cars driving past. Big bonus if the mailman walks up.

Dislikes:

• Hurting gums :(
• Having boogers sucked out of his nose
• Having something taken away from him (my phone, the remote etc) Not a fan of this new development...
• Being left alone for too long in one room. He yells until you return (which yes, I know I am teaching him I responding to his yelling. It's hard not to when he yells so loudly!)

And now, pictures!

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Thanks for stopping by :)

~M