Week 31: August 12 - 18

Madeleine had her MonthDay this week! 7 months old!! And this post seems really short, but I guess we were just busy. :)

Nursing
We are doing well on 4 meals a day!

Sleeping
She's having trouble falling asleep for bedtime and waking early. Still trying to figure out about her sleep needs. Turns out she may need to keep the catnap a little while longer, but she doesn't actually SLEEP. LOL.

All right. According to "The Sleep Easy Solution," if a baby resists the catnap for four days in a row, then she is ready to drop it. So Madeleine has dropped this nap. Now we are focusing on an early bedtime to compensate for the lost sleep. I try to feed her at 5:30, to get her in bed by 6pm. She may wake early for awhile, but this won't be a permanent change. We've also extended her first 2 waketimes by 30 minutes to push her schedule back, so that her last waketime (before bed) isn't too long. We'll see how it goes!

Solids/Food
(need to get better about her eating with us! We aren't used to thinking about her and meals with us!)
Thursday: We went out to lunch with Mimi to Ruby Tuesday. Madeleine tried broccoli (not a hit) and beets, plus ate ("ate") green pepper and zucchini. For dinner, she had some chicken and maybe got some down. She's able to tear a little bit with her tooth nubs.
Friday: Peaches. Busy day.
Tuesday: Green beans, chicken, carrot, peaches, cucumber. Did great with green beans and peaches and cucumber.
Wednesday: Apples, yogurt, and a piece of chicken for lunch, then some cucumber for a snack. She did GREAT with the apples!

By the book...
According to "Your Baby's First Year, Week by Week," during this week, Madeleine:
1. May crawl, with tummy off floor, rather than creep (no, she's still army-crawling. Hasn't figured out the classic crawl maneuver)
2. May bang objects together (check!)
3. Transfers objects from hand to hand (check!)
4. Feeds herself crackers of small pieces of food (we still do big pieces... wonder if she could handle small ones...)
5. Tastes everything (YES!)

Special Topic: TEETHING
Madeleine has been totally awesome with this teething thing. Her behavior was such that I didn't even know she was cutting teeth until last Thursday, when I felt them. Since that day, there have been a few days where I've seen her affected by the pain. I just hate it! Poor little one.

She's getting her two bottom teeth at the same time, and it seems the same rate. They are emerging together. In some ways, I suppose this is a good thing--the difference in discomfort between 1 and 2 teeth is probably not much. But I still feel for her! Especially when she just cries for no apparent reason. I don't really mind, though, that she wants to be closer to me. :)

The new teeth, even just as little nubs, are useful now for biting. Tuesday for lunch she had some green beans and bit off little chunks! They made her gag and spit up most of what she'd eaten, but still! Biting is exciting!

...... except when it comes to nursing. Also on Tuesday, Madeleine bit me a few times. MAN, that hurts. At her third feeding, she just kept doing it. I'd suck in a breath, making a sharp hissing (just as an instinct!) and say "Ow. No biting mommy, please." She's pull off and look at me, her eyes wide, as if trying to figure out what was wrong. After a few times, it made me cry. And it kept startling her, so she started crying. But I knew she wasn't finished, so I took her to Matt and kind of got my composure (and built my courage!), then fed her again. She didn't bite again that meal, or the next. I sure hope there's a very short learning curve with teeth and nursing!

Madeleine's taste in toys has been altered due to teething. She no longer seems to love the softer, crinkly toys as much as the harder ones. Sometimes, she chews as though her life depends on it, frantically. I try to give her tylenol when I see that happening. I've also been using Baby Orajel before naps, but she really doesn't like it. First off, it's SUPER hard to get it on her gums. She licks my finger, and then her tongue goes numb! Sometimes she cries because of it. When I do manage to get her gums, she tends to sleep longer, so I think her gums have been bothering her for a while.

Finally, her interest in "real food" seems to be suffering. Mealtimes are more playtimes than they once were. Sometimes, she'll just take a long time to try eating.

I sure hope they fully emerge soon, so we can get on with crawling!!

You can see the teeny, tiny little bumps in this image. I've kept it full-sized (when you click) to aid in viewing them.



New Things
She is really and truly on the verge of crawling. She woke up one day with an agenda: CRAWL! She managed to move across the floor, but it wasn't true crawling that you think of when you hear the word "crawl." But she is really, really close. Could be this week!

Okay. She definitely propels herself across the floor. Her favorite motivation to do so thus far: "Snappy Little Bugs," the lens cap for my camera, the camera strap, mommy's and daddy's old cell phones, and daddy's hand. (one of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong...)

Misc
This baby girl is CURIOUS. We can no longer simply hold her. She's always leaning out to see or touch something. It's awesome, but I feel like we need to provide more mental stimulation for her. Not sure how to do that yet.

On Saturday, I was holding Madeleine in her room before bed. She was looking in the mirror at me, but then she did something remarkable. She started reaching for my face, my glasses, my hair, by looking at our reflections. Such a great baby she is!

Madeleine's favorite book right now is "Snappy Little Bugs," a pop-up book given to her by Lesli Chapman. Few things motivate this baby to army crawl across the rug like this book, and her "reward" is reading the book!

She also really likes the touch and feel books. For awhile, these did nothing for her, but she gets into them more now.

Slideshow

Video of the week!