This is Olly brand new on our kitchen scale vs 6 months. You can't even see the scale under his bum anymore. He has pretty much tripled his weight. 6.5 lbs vs 21 lbs. David also has not had a hair cut since his birth.
Solids
We started solids this month and have been experimenting with Baby Led Weaning where you don't give them pureed food but just soft food so they learn how to chew before they learn how to swallow.
Olly loves banana, pear, apple, melon, peas, tofu and fish.
Olly hates broccoli.
Sleep
I thought the Christmas holidays would be a great time to start sleep training. David would be home so even if his sleep got disturbed he could nap the next day. The first night I tried to put Olly in the crib and he cried for 10 mins before I gave up. I was not ready for this yet and didn't want to sleep without him snuggled next to me so I put it on hold.
Once the new year started I thought I had some time to accept the impending separation so I started up again. From what I could gather from the internet you need to wean your baby from all sleep crutches first. Olly was still swaddled to sleep and nursed to sleep at night. My plan was to first break the swaddling association. I lay him on our bed as usual and didn't swaddle him. He would cry and I would reassure him with my voice and pats. If he got too upset I would pick him up and once he was pretty calm I would lay him down again. The first time I did this it took 2 hrs before I quit and nursed him to sleep because I didn't want his bedtime to be too late. The next day was a little better so I stuck with the plan until it was down to about 15 mins, which took 5 days. By then I was confident he didn't need to be swaddled.
During that week he was so determined to reach me during his crying that he learnt how to roll from his back to his front. This completed the second half of his turning skills and thus he started to roll to wherever he wanted. He became really good at rolling towards me on the bed. It was so cute but I had to stay strong and not pick him up unless he really needed it. Now that he knows how to roll he will only sleep on his tummy.
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| Tummy is best |
Next up was putting him in the crib. That was the worst because now that he knows how to roll he would roll towards me and bang his head on the crib. There were tears for both of us. It broke my heart to hear him cry harder after hitting his head but he has to transition to the crib eventually and I really needed the sleep. I was starting to get really sleep deprived from waking every 2 hours. I kept reassuring him that learning to sleep on his own is good for both of us and I'm so proud of his progress so far. It took another 5 days before I was confident he can sleep in the crib without me beside him and I would just periodically check on him.
His bedtime was at 7pm and I would wait until he woke somewhere between 12 and 1am for his last feed before I went to bed. I would still wake up at 4am because I hear him wake up through the monitor but I just go back to sleep until 7am. So the whole ordeal took about 2 weeks and in the end I can get about 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I felt much more energetic in the morning and no longer woke up with a backache from contorting my body to weird positions to make space for the baby. He liked to sleep like a starfish. Totally worth it! If I were to do it again I would start earlier, maybe around 5 months so that it's before they can roll around. I'd imagine it would be easier if they can't move.
Here are my logs. The time in brackets indicate how long it took him to fall asleep after I put him down:
Random Moments
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| Chillin |
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| Devouring cubebot |
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| I found the wires |
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| Hmm |
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| First successful transfer from car to crib |
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| Rolling is tiring mom |
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| Visit from aunt and grandpa |
