7 month old baby girl

Dear Elyse,

You are now officially over half a year old, which makes me feel like you are basically a year old and time is going by so fast. However, you are still not crawling and have no teeth. I’m totally okay with your body staying young for a while! You are a very sweet girl with a big, gummy smile. You love your mama and sometimes I’m the only person you want. Like last weekend. You cried almost all day unless someone was holding you and most of the time you only wanted me. It is sweet, but also very draining.

Two weeks after your 6-month birthday we started sleep training you in your own room with the Ferber cry-it-out method. The first two nights, you cried for 40 minutes and we checked on you periodically. The third night was only 20 minutes of crying. The fourth took 8 minutes and the fifth was only 2 minutes. After that, you have been sleeping pretty well, but there have been a few nights where it took you another 40 minutes.

However, you have also completely slept through the night 7 times! You fall asleep around 8-8:30pm and wake at 6am. I think you need more night sleep, but I already don’t see you very much at night.

Sleeping in the cradle your great-great-grandpa, Clarence made your dad.

Dad, Justin, or Caleb pick you up from daycare. Sometimes you need a nap and sometimes you cry in your exersaucer while Dad gets dinner ready.

I come home a little after 6pm. We feed you solid food that dad has blended (and hopefully cooked). This month he blended raw carrots for 20 minutes without thinking they needed to be cooked. Since the carrots were well-blended, we thought it was okay, but at daycare you choked a little on a chunk. They thought we were earthy enough that we purposefully fed you raw carrots! Haha. Your dad has been amazing with the food though. I haven’t blended any solid food in the 2 months you have been eating it. He’s a wonderful partner.

Drinking your milk while out to dinner with mom, dad, and Caleb.

So far, you have eaten avocado, sweet potato, squash, peas, banana, and applesauce. You like everything! We don’t give rice cereal very often because it’s basically just chemicals, not real food.

At 7:15pm I start the bedtime routine: nurse, bath, vitamin D, lotion, PJs, books, bed. This takes about an hour. We could probably speed it up, but it is nice to spend time with you after work.

Sherman wanted to join us for storytime one night. You were so happy.

Two days ago I left work at 4:15pm because I finished most of my work for the day and that’s close to when I normally do. I work at least 7 hours in the office and 2 hours on the train. Since I come home at 6pm, I only get to see you for an hour or two. Well as I was packing up, someone from another team said to me, “Oh. Half day?” I’m trying hard to figure out the balance of work and home, being a great employee and mom, and someone has the nerve to make me feel bad about it. Realistically, she probably didn’t mean anything by it, but I felt horrible.

Your dad worked late that following day for a windstorm, so I had to leave even earlier – 3:30pm – to pick you up. Dad didn’t come home until 4:30am the next day. I put you to bed in your room and went to bed in my room with the monitor on and plugged in. When he came home, he told me the monitor was off. Since I was so tired I just tried to plug it in again. Something wasn’t working and I didn’t realize until 7am when I woke up again. You were already awake with snot all over your face. I felt bad, but you didn’t seem too upset. Surprisingly!

You are enjoying sitting up by yourself with toys around you, rather than sitting in bouncy chairs or other toys. You love us so much and want to be held or played with most of the time, but are becoming a little more independent. You still love to be in your carrier and go for walks. Sometimes you even think you can control Sherman! Newman stayed at Aunt Julie’s house for a few weeks while we got our backyard redone.

We love you so much little girl,

Mom