7 months

Owen turned 7 months old! (10 days ago, but better late than never) He is growing and doing so well. At seven months, he weighed around 17 pounds. One of the biggest changes in the past month has been the introduction to solid foods. He took a little time to get adjusted, but he is doing great and will easily eat 4-6 oz. of food at a time. He loves: Sweet Potatoes, Squash, Applesauce, Pears, Carrots, and Rice Cereal He tolerates: Peas and Prunes He hates: Green beans and anything homemade (so far cauliflower and squash) I'm hoping he gets over his hatred of homemade baby food. I'm thinking it's a texture thing and he just needs some time to get used to it.


Another big change has been the start of "sleep training" (basically crying it out). The Mommy in me hates hearing him cry and wants to run to him. But the behaviorist in me knows that it's for the best in helping him to learn how to self-soothe and go to sleep on his own. Luckily, I have gotten off easy. We first worked on Owen going to sleep at night on his own. This only took a few days. The first day he cried for 20 (agonizing) minutes. The second and third he only cried for about 5-8 minutes. Often he will now just go to sleep without much of a peep. Occasionally we get a fussy night and he cries for a bit, but it's never been long. (Thank goodness...I'm not sure I have nerves of steel to go any longer). Next we worked on getting him to sleep through the night. This was WAY easy. *Hallelujah* He woke up one time, cried for 10 minutes and went back to sleep. The same thing happened about two weeks later, but besides that, he now sleep from about 7:30 or 8 pm until sometime between 6 and 8 am. Oftentimes if he wakes up on the early side, he'll eat and go back to sleep for another hour or two. So we are in a much happier state these days. His naps are still short and irregular, but I'd rather have that than him waking up multiple times at night.


Owen likes to sleep on his tummy and within seconds of being laid down in his crib, will roll over. He is also all over the place in his crib and I'll find him in the corners of the crib, with his arms sticking out of the rails, or totally flipped around from where I laid him down. He's a crazy sleeper. He started jumping in his exersaucer, so we brought out this jumper thing that hangs in the doorway. It took him a few times before getting the hang of it, but now that he's got it down, HE LOVES IT! It is so fun to watch him go crazy jumping up and down in it.

Owen is very grabby and loves to reach out and grab hair, glasses, shirts, faces, eyes, noses, necks, or whatever he can get his hands on. Sometimes it's pretty painful when he gets a good hold on you and squeezes with his little fingers and nails.
He just must love to explore things however, because he also gets distracted when nursing and wants to reach out and grab whatever is around him...including the book I'm reading. So reading while nursing has declined. He has started to become more active during bath time and loves to splash and kick. He also likes to grab the cup I use and practice drinking out of it.

Owen has been sitting up for a while now. I don't really remember when he first did it unassisted...probably last month. But he's doing great at it and only falls over when he's reaching for something to the side.

He has started whining. I don't know why, but he has decided that his normal fuss wasn't good enough, so he whines. But what we really love is this silly growl he does over and over. I guess he's experimenting with his voice.
We sure love our little boy. He is so much fun and such a good baby!