Anna has entered a very vocal stage. Since she has been such a quiet baby I wasn’t sure what to expect from her as she entered the more vocal babbling stage of babyhood. Though she is still a pretty quiet baby things have certainly gotten a lot louder around this house lately.

She has discovered a lot of new sounds and plays with a lot of different sounds. Her preferred form of vocalization is still squealing, however, she has discovered that she can make her voice very, VERY loud so the squealing around these parts has reached new ear-piercing levels. My favorite is when she decides to wake in the middle of the night and squeal to herself for close to an hour (can you sense the sarcasm).

Over the last couple of weeks she has really started to discovered a lot of new noises and sounds she can make and spends much of her day practicing one form of verbalization or another. Today it has been all about “mmmmmmma mum”. Yesterday it was little fake coughs over and over and over again. A few days ago she was all about blowing raspberries.

You should see the delight on her face when you copy a sound back to her. You can just see her thinking “Hey, that is the sound I just made!!”

Maya was a very vocal baby. She switched from cooing to babbling very early. By 4 months she was babbling with ma, ba, da, and ga. Anna has been a much quieter baby. She spends a lot of time observing and absorbing what is going on around her in her quiet little way. I love all the new little sounds she has developed. I love how she creates this perfectly adorable mix of peacefulness and sweet little babbling and crazy loud squealing as a soundtrack to her day.

I leave you with a small taste of Miss Anna’s crazy loud squealing. Happy Weekend

Look who is looking at the world from a different perspective these days.

She still isn’t super stable sitting up on her own, and in the blink of an eye she will topple over. But, each day she seems to be sitting up better and for longer before she face plants.

The girl likes to keep us on our toes with a little game she has developed to make sitting practice more fun. She loves to throw herself back as fast as she can. If we don’t have a pillow, or ourselves, behind her she would smack her poor little head super hard. You can’t see it coming either. She’ll be sitting smiling, reaching for things, having fun and then in the blink of an eye she has flung herself back and is giggling at herself.  Luckily, we’ve avoided injury by always making sure that there is something, or someone, behind her.

I can’t believe she is already old enough to be sitting up by herself. She is my little big girl.

Rhythm pulses through her veins. Melodies fill her brain. Her days are filled with music and dancing. A day without dancing isn’t a day worth living as far as she is concerned. She is a musical soul.

Dancing to her favorite Dragon song

There isn’t any one type of music that she gravitates towards, although a good beat does seems to help. The only requirement for making the list is that the song speaks to her and makes her want to dance. If she can’t not dance to a song it will become an instant favorite and very quickly makes its way onto her iPod. Her favorites range from Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape, to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, to Forbidden Friendship from the How to Train Your Dragon Soundtrack, to OneRepublic’s All the Right Moves, to Led Zeppelin’s Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, to Eminem’s Like Toy Soldiers.

Her musical tastes are beautifully eclectic. And, there is just no swaying her opinion, no matter how hard her daddy tries You can’t convince her she doesn’t like a song once she has developed a taste for it and you can’t convince her that she likes a song that hasn’t spoken to her. She usually knows the very first time she hears a song whether it is a keeper or not. There is no telling what her next favorite is going to be either, she will hear a song on the radio or in a movie or something, it makes her want to dance and is an instant new favorite.

I love her love for music. I love how she sings to her self a random times throughout the day and will just start dancing to some tune playing in her head. I’m pretty sure there is always a song playing in her head.

Anna celebrated her half birthday over the weekend. That’s right, my baby girl is already 6 months old.  It feels like she just joined our family but at the same time I can’t remember life without her.

6 Month Stats:

Weight: 14lbs 15oz (28th percentile)

Height: 25 3/4 inches (50th percentile)

Head Circumference: 16 1/2 inches ( 34th percentile)

I cannot even begin to find the words to tell you how absolutely incredible Anna is. If you were to send up an order for the perfect baby it is quite possible you would end up with Anna. She is just so good and so happy all the time. The girl loves her sleep and takes at least 2 really good naps every day and sleeps 11-12 hours straight at night. She radiates peace and joy. It doesn’t really matter what she is doing she is pretty much always content and happy (unless you keep her up past her bedtime, of course!). She brings out the best in people.  You can’t help but smile in her presence, as a smile lights up her whole face and she babbles or squeals or giggles away. Her sister is completely enamored with her and she with her sister. Watching the two of them interact is often the highlight of my day, they are so cute together.

Anna has “grown up” a lot this past month. She has become quite the skilled little baby. She is sitting for short periods on her own and every time she practices sitting she seems to get better and better at it. Toys are her new best friends, she definitely has her favorites, but she hasn’t met a toy she doesn’t like yet She can reach for things so well now and pass toys back and forth between her hands. It is so cute to watch her hand movements becoming so much more deliberate and controlled. Gone are the days of just swiping at things, now if she see something she wants she doesn’t whatever she can to get it. Her tummy time is becoming more fun since she can pull things towards herself to play with now and has so much more head control. Her “talking” abilities have really grown this month too. We are hearing more consonant sounds like ba, ma, etc. and she is learning to blow raspberries and make funny sounds with her mouth.

Breastfeeding is still going really well. She eats on demand, usually every 2-3 hours, during the day and, as I mentioned early, is going about 12ish hours at night. We just started solids and though she isn’t a big fan we’ll keep trying. She did enjoy the bananas she had last week but wasn’t too fussy on the squash or peas. I’m guessing she is going to more a fruit girl like her big sister.

I love this age. It is so fun to watch them grow and change as they begin to more aware of the world around them and develop a desire to explore their little world. I know this next month is going to see a lot of changes again. It will be interesting to see what she is like as she turns 7 months old.

Love you bunches my beautiful baby girl

Anna had her first taste of “real” food this week, and by “real” I mean food other than the boobie milk she has been consuming for the last 6 months. And, just like her sister before her, she doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of the non-boobie milk food so far. Although, each time she has tolerated it a little better than the previous day, so there is hope yet

Her first bite of food was a little piece of a very mushy carrot that she had the other evening while we were eating dinner. I just gave her a steamed carrot to see what she would do with it. She played with it for a bit and then I put a little mushed up piece in her mouth. She let it sit on her tongue for a minute looking at me like I had three heads and was trying to poison her before spitting it out. We all got a few giggles out of the ordeal.

A couple of days later I gave her some oatmeal. She was not a fan, not in the least! I had originally planned on foregoing the mushy baby cereal all together and just going straight to veggies and fruit, but decided at the last minute to give her a little bit of oatmeal as a way to test if she was even ready for solids yet and to see if, maybe, she would like it. Turns out, nope, she’s a fan.

So, since cereal wasn’t a hit I went back to my original plan and started with a veggie. I’ll wait and give her oatmeal again later on when she is ready for regular consistency oatmeal and when I can mix it with something yummy like peaches or applesauce. Yesterday was her first shot with the veggies. I gave her some roasted butternut squash and though she wasn’t a huge fan, she certainly didn’t seem to hate it, so I’m counting it as a success. She had some again today and did even better than yesterday. I think we can safely add squash to the list of foods that she considers somewhat tolerable at this point

I have to say I love her “Mommy, what the hell did you just put in my mouth!” facial expressions. They make me giggle EVERY time. Between the silly, yet adorable, faces she makes and how darn cute she looks sitting in her highchair, I’m really enjoying this whole introducing food business even if she isn’t completely on board with the whole idea yet

As Anna quickly approaches her half birthday she is learning all sorts of new tricks. The babbling has really picked up, she can roll easily from her tummy to her back and she is even starting to be able to sit unassisted for very short periods of time. One trick that I thought for sure she would have down by now wass rolling from her back to her tummy. I mean, for a couple of months now she has been rolling all the way onto her side and has even started rolling her lower half all the way over. But, alas, she has only done it once and I’m pretty sure that was by accident.

I’ve decided that she is purposely  not rolling from back to tummy because she doesn’t want to She can contort her body in all sorts of crazy ways to accomplish whatever it is she would need to roll over for. If there is a toy out of reach and rolling over would allow her to reach it she just rolls the bottom half of her body and then reaches with all her might to get the toy, mission accomplished. If there is something she wants to see that she can’t see from her back, ditto, body contorted and bam, thing she wanted to see is now in view. I’ve started referring to her as our little contortionist, because, well, look at her moves

It is funny, because people will see her in one of her contorted poses and will say things like “Oh, she’s going to be rolling over any day now.” I just smile and nod, she has them so fooled. Anna isn’t going to roll over until she has too, until that one day when the toy is just too far out of reach for her to get by using one of her adorable little contortionist poses.

Until she’ll just keep being her adorable little self looking at the world sideways and upside down

The darling, beautiful, wonderful Miss Anna is 5 months old today. That’s right, 5 MONTHS!! Wasn’t she just born yesterday Time flies when you’re having a blast raising the sweetest baby on the planet (I may be a bit biased, but damn is she ever sweet!).

Weight: approximately 14.5 lbs

Height: approximately 25 inches

I didn’t think it was even possible, but, Anna has some how become even sweeter in the last month. She truly is the calmest, sweetest, most peaceful, joyful baby I’ve ever met. She is so easy going, as long as you don’t make her stay up past her preferred bedtime of 6pm A smile brightens her face so easily and often. Little giggles and squeals of delight erupt from her with great frequency. Her sweetness and constant smiles make every day a little brighter.

Babies this age seem to grow and change every day and Anna is no exception. She definitely seems bigger to me, and stronger too. She is working really hard on rolling from her back to her tummy and can get almost all the way over. I’m know one of these days I’m going to leave the room with her playing on the floor on her back and come back to find her on her tummy.

Squealing is still one of her favorite things to do. We get such a kick out of listening to her. She is sitting up almost on her own. I still need to support her, but barely so I’m sure sitting by herself is just around the corner. We’ve had her in the jolly jumper a few times. Maya loved that thing but Anna, so far, seems a bit indifferent to it. She likes it for a few minutes but then wants out.

One of Anna’s favorite people in this world is, no surprise, her big sister Maya. They get such a kick out of each other. Maya is constantly trying to make Anna laugh and Anna giggles easily at her sister’s crazy antics. I hope they always get along this well.

Anna truly is an incredibly easy baby. She eats like a champ (I could do without the constant spitting up, but hey, if that is my only complaint I’m pretty lucky). She sleeps so well both at nap time and bed time. We love her to pieces and love watching her grow.

I feel like I was just writing about Anna’s sleep regression and the resulting lack of sleep for both her and I, and now here I am about to tell you how amazingly she is sleeping. Something clicked for Anna in the last couple of weeks and now she is sleeping like a total champ.

Her sleep regression lasted for about 3 weeks. I wouldn’t say she was a terrible sleeper even on the worst days. But, I’m certainly thankful it seems to be over. At the height of her sleep regression she wasn’t napping well, only taking short 30 minute naps and never seeming particularly rested. She was getting up 2-3 times a night, which, as I mentioned in my previous post, was so uncommon for her. The lack of sleep made her a bit fussy and she just always seemed tired. I was hopeful our sleep troubles would be short lived as that had been my experience when Maya went through a similar phase during her babyhood.

As luck would have it, it was short lived. Something all of a sudden just seemed to click for her. It all started with her being able to soothe herself to sleep. Up until a few weeks ago I was rocking her to sleep for naps and bed time. One afternoon rocking her wasn’t working so I decided to just put her in her bed and see what happened. To my amazement she fell asleep on her own. I listened to her over the monitor cooing to herself for a minute or so and then she fussed a little, no crying just sort of whining and then silence. When I hadn’t heard anything for a couple of minutes I cracked her door and checked on her, she was sound asleep. She slept for over an hour. The next day I did the same thing for naps and she napped over an hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. Since then she has been napping wonderfully and seems so much more rested and her awake times last a little longer.

Once she was napping better she started sleeping a little better at night too, there is a lot to that whole “sleep begets sleep” thing. She returned first to getting up only once at night and each night her first stretch of sleep was a little longer. Then last week she started sleeping 12 hours straight through. I’ll hear her on the monitor occasionally some nights. She’ll coo a little for a minute or two and then falls back asleep. She goes to bed between 6-6:30 and gets up between 6:30-7, it has been wonderful.

Between the great napping and the super awesome night time sleep I finally feel like she is getting the sleep she needs, and I am too The girl loves her sleep.

So, for all you other mamas out there with kiddos going through sleep regressions, hang in there, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

When Maya was about 4 months old she started having trouble staying asleep at night. She would go down fine but within a couple of hours would be awake again. She had previously been sleeping long stretches of 8-10 hours, and even sometimes completely through the night, so to have her wake up after only being down for a couple of hours completely threw me. I distinctly remember one week that was particularly bad, she was up every hour or two for several nights in a row. At the time I had attributed it to the fact that I had just started trying to put her to bed without being swaddled and I figured maybe she was going through a growth spurt. I went back to swaddling her and her sleep seemed to get better after a week or two so I didn’t think anything of it and didn’t really research it at the time.

Enter Anna at 4 months. Low and behold her sleep has also started going haywire. Last week in particular was bad with her getting up 2-3 times at night, sometimes as often as every 3 hours. This is completely unheard of for her. Since the day she got home from the hospital her first stretch of sleep has never been less than 5 hours, most nights she sleeps 8-10 hours and pretty regularly sleeps 12 hours straight through. When she started getting up more frequently I began having flashbacks to when Maya did the same thing. This time I hadn’t changed anything. Anna is still swaddled at night, her bedtime routine is the same, I really couldn’t think of anything different. I, again, thought maybe growth spurt, but figured I do a little research.

Well, apparently 4 months is the magic time for changes in sleep habits that “experts” often refer to as sleep regression. At around the age of 4 months a baby’s sleep patterns begin to change. The length of their sleep cycles and how frequently they cycle through them changes. A baby’s sleep cycles at 4 months old are 45-50 minutes long, which means that every 45-50 minutes they come out of a deeper sleep. They don’t always wake up completely but often will every few sleep cycles. If your baby hasn’t figured out how to self-soothe they will often cry and require attention from mom or dad in order to fall back asleep. That may mean they need to nurse if they are used to nursing to sleep, or they may need to be rocked, etc. Over time, and each baby is different some take only a few weeks while others take months, your baby will begin sleeping better again.

There are ways you can help your baby get used to this new sleep pattern including establishing and sticking to a bedtime routine, helping your child learn to self-soothe by giving them a few minutes before responding to their fussing to give them a chance to fall back asleep on their own, making sure your baby is napping well during the day as being overtired can mess with nighttime sleep as well. It is frustrating when a baby who normally sleeps very well at night all of a sudden is waking frequently, just remember that it is just a phase and eventually (hopefully quickly) he or she will return to better sleeping habits.

Maya returned to her regular, good sleeping habits within a few weeks and Anna seems to be doing the same since this week has started out with much better sleep than last week. I know Anna is putting herself back to sleep already because I’ll hear her on the monitor for a minute or two either fussing or just talking to herself but she quickly falls back to sleep. Plus, I’ve started putting her down for her naps drowsy but still awake and she is falling asleep on her own.

Doesn’t it always seem like babies throw us a curve ball just when we are getting used to their little routines.

Maya has been dying for Anna to be old enough to actually play with her. Every day she talks about how much fun it will be when Anna is a “bigger baby” and can play with her princesses with her. Seriously, when that does happen, my heart, oh my heart, it will melt completely.

Until Anna is that “bigger baby” Maya is making do with playing with her the best way she can. Which, either involves just playing beside her and pretending Anna is involved or reading to Anna or playing with Anna’s baby toys with her. It is adorable to watch them interact. Anna adores her sister, and smiles whenever she sees her. Giggles and squeals abound when the two of them really get going.

The other day I put Anna in the doorway jumper for a few minutes to give her a little something different to do. Maya decided that it was time that Anna learned all about the world of dress up. When I said Anna may be too young to play dress up her response was “Mom, Anna isn’t too young, she’s just the right size”. How could I deny her the fun of dressing up her sister in tiaras, fairy wings and princess trucker hats with a response like that

I’m not too sure Anna enjoyed herself as much as Maya had hoped, but Maya sure did have fun. Oh the fun these two are going to have together.