Ben: 6 Months Old!

The past 6 months have flown by! I can hardly believe our baby will be 6 months old tomorrow! I have not been updating my blog as life has become quite crazy and busy now with another little boy in the mix.  Ben is a very happy baby most of the time. He is round and short in size, just finally fitting into his 6 month clothes now at 6 months old!  Oliver was always a size or two ahead of his age as a baby and was much taller and heavier than our little compact Benny. He is definitely growing though because his car seat feels heavier and heavier.  6 month stats: 16 lbs, 13 oz and was 26 inches long.

Eating: Ben is still mainly being nursed/getting breast milk as his main source of food, but we began to supplement a little with formula around 4.5 months. I felt like I wasn't pumping as much as he was eating and when I started back at work this just stressed me out.  So I gave in and bought some formula for him to have when we run out of my pumped milk. This has eased my stress levels quite a bit.  I was always so afraid one of his grandmas would run out of milk while I was at work!  

He is still a very good nurser and he also takes a bottle very well too...from me or anyone else.  He usually drinks 4-5 ounces at a time but not more than that.  We introduced him to a little brown rice cereal last week and he seems to like it.  I made some sweet potatoes for him too and he liked those better than the cereal. I think I will try a new veggie each week and then try fruit later on.  We are using our immersion blender or food processor to blend up steamed veggies for Ben. Then, freezing small portions in ice cube trays. This is a pretty easy thing to do and probably healthier and cheaper than buying baby food. 

Sleeping: Sleep has been a major issue for about the past three months. Ben continues to want to nurse many times during the night.  He wakes up every couple of hours. Still.  We have been bad about bringing him into our bed so I can just nurse him there. Then we usually fall asleep and he spends most of the night with us. He has been good about us putting him down around 9 or 10 at night, in his crib. But then he will wake up around 12 or 1 wanting to nurse.  We need to sleep train! I think my body is just getting used to this wake-up/nurse/go back to sleep pattern but I know it isn't healthy for either of us. We will see what his pediatrician says next week.  We may have to go cold turkey and let him scream it out for a few nights. The problem with this though, is that we are afraid he will wake the other boys. And...we just feel so bad hearing our baby cry so hard!  : (  

Development: Ben has not yet rolled from his back to his stomach. He will roll from his stomach to his back, but only once in awhile. He doesn't enjoy lying on his tummy so we usually don't put him on it. He is sitting up though!  He started sitting up at 5 months old, just a week after his big cousin Micah did! He wants to keep up!  : )  He looks very cute and funny sitting up so straight because he is still so little, but very strong!  It is so nice having him sit up now because he can grab toys or bang on toys or freely flap his arms.  He also has been making more noises over the past couple of months. Yelling, bellowing and chatting with us. 

 Something funny he started this last week was putting both of his hands over both of his ears when he would hear something different or loud. We aren't sure what this means....did he just find his ears?  Do they hurt?  He shows no other signs of pain or fever so we don't think they are infected. He does this quite a bit now though. It is very cute but I hope it isn't something we should be worrying about!

Ben had been drooling a lot off and on over the last couple of months but I haven't noticed it as much now. He doesn't have any teeth or show signs of getting any soon.





Cloth Diapering: We are still enjoying cloth diapering. They fit his chubby little bod very well and rarely seem to leak. He can spend a whole night in one without leaking usually. The smell of ammonia is starting to get to me though so I've been looking into ways of getting rid of it and stripping the diapers. I know we are in for some very smelly diapers soon, now that we are introducing real food into his diet.Yikes.

Ben's first Christmas was so fun!  He obviously didn't get it or what it was, but it was cool because last Christmas was when we told everyone we were expecting a baby and this Christmas he was here!  It is crazy to think that a year ago around this time we had no idea that we had another little boy growing in my belly, waiting to surprise us. It was fun having him and Micah together sitting next to each other. They are too cute.  Grace was gone this Christmas but next Christmas it will be so fun having two one year old's running around on Christmas Eve. All of the new babies are so sweet and different in their own way. It will be so fun for Ben to have a cousin on both sides of our families to grow up with and play with. 

Big Brothers adjusting:  Calvin and Oliver have both adjusted very well to their new baby brother. Calvin has probably adjusted easier than Oliver, but we expected that.  He carries him around and plays with him and talks to him, it is very sweet.  Oliver is also very sweet to his baby brother. He always wants to hold him and pats him on the head and back a lot. I do feel like I'm not able to give Oliver as much attention as I did before (obviously). Erik and him have gotten a lot closer since Ben was born. Oliver just cannot wait until Daddy gets home from work. I have been trying to keep him busy with painting, math, and playing out in the yard. He and I had a "mommy/son" date over Christmas vacation and went to Perkins for breakfast, just the two of us and he loved that, so I think I will try to do more things like that with him.  He had his Christmas program for his pre-school again this year and was just so cute. Next year he will be in Kindergarten!!!

Happy Half Birthday our little Benny Boo!  We love you soo soooo much!!

Benjamin Button

Happy 8 weeks Ben! I have not been good at keeping track of your development....I meant to blog about you weekly but now I think I'll shoot for monthly because you keep us very busy!  Time is flying by and you are growing and changing everyday. I'm really loving that you are becoming chubbier and more sturdy, I'm much more comfortable with babies once they have some chub on them.

You are a pretty easy baby most of the time....nursing went a lot better with you in the beginning than it did with Oliver. We had some latch issues right away but you caught on pretty quick. Unfortunately we have had Thrush now twice, which is quite painful (for me). It doesn't seem to affect you, you don't really  I'm hoping it doesn't come back after this round of meds. I nurse you most of the time and then you get 1 or 2 bottles in the evening, during your crabby time. You get ornery between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.  Usually overtired and wanting to cluster feed.

You slept a lot during the day as a newborn but now you are starting to stay awake a bit more during ...taking 2 longer naps and a couple short ones.  You are still waking up 2-3 times during the night to eat. I'm wondering when you will stop this? Usually you just eat and then go back to sleep, but sometimes you'll want to have some awake time.