Carter - Seven Months

**There were several good pictures from his 7 month pictures that I wanted to post.  I couldn’t pick just one!**

Diapers

Still rockin’ the 2’s.  I really thought he’d be in 3’s by now, but 2’s are still fitting pretty good.  I haven’t actually tried a size 3 on him yet, but they look huge so as long as he’s still fitting into 2’s, we’ll stick with those.

Clothes

Baby boy is still on the small side!!!  He still wears a lot of his 3 month clothes and is just now fitting into some 6 month clothes, though most still swallow him, especially pants/shorts.  Even three month shorts fall off of him for some reason!

Nursing

Carter still likes nursing and eats so much more quickly now than he did when he was a newborn. I remember the days of nursing for 45+ minutes. Now he only nurses for maybe 10 minutes! He has certainly gotten more efficient with eating. Of course, as was the problem last month, if Daddy is in sight, Carter loves to stare at him and laugh which makes the meal take a bit longer.

Carter eats cereal and a 5-6 oz. bottle for breakfast, then a solid with another 5oz bottle for lunch, and his 3rd meal is a bottle only (usually 7oz). Finally he has solids for dinner and then I nurse him right before bedtime. I should specify that he eats from bottles during the week when I’m at work, but on the weekends he rarely gets bottle and is mainly nursed.

On the pumping front, I’ve decreased the number of times I am pumping at work from twice every day to only once. I can’t handle that much pumping anymore. It’s too much of a hassle when I’m at work, particularly when I have to go to a client’s office. As of now, I pump in the morning when I wake up, then again after lunchtime and then I nurse Carter before he goes to bed. I plan to keep this routine up for as long as possible. Once I made this decision, the amount of milk I was producing decreased. Because of this, the 7oz bottle that Carter gets when he eats from a bottle only is sometimes a formula bottle. The rest are always breastmilk.

Solids

So far, Carter has been introduced to all stage one foods: carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, bananas, peaches, pears, prunes and apples.  He loves them all except for peas.  He’ll eat the peas, but they are definitely not his favorite.  We’re almost done with all the stage 1 foods we have in our pantry.  My next round of purchasing baby food will include only stage 2’s.  Most of the foods are the same, there’s just more.  Stage 1 is 2 1/2 ounces and stage 2 is 3 1/2 ounces.  Though there are some additional foods in stage 2 that I’m interested to see if Carter likes.

Sleep

He is still the best little sleeper in the world.  He sleeps anywhere from 11-13 hours at night and his naps are, for the most part, pretty good.  He’s gotten to where he can stay awake longer, so his naps are little bit shorter.  Right now he takes two naps a day, both of which are usually 1 1/2 hours, maybe more, depending on how tired he is.  Very rarely do we have a 3rd nap but sometimes it will still happen.  I’m trying my hardest to get him to drop that 3rd nap all together.  I’m also doing everything I can to keep him awake for longer during his first waketime, but he seems to want this waketime to be the shortest.  I’m trying to do this because starting next month, he will be going to Mother’s Day Out at our church from 9am-1pm two days a week.  They do allow for a nap during this timeframe, but my guess is that it won’t be until around 11am and right now, Carter is doing good to make it to 10am without needing a nap.  So I have a month to get him used to making it longer in the morning!

Waketime

No major changes to the waketimes this month.  His favorite things to do during waketime are still watching Baby Einstein DVD’s and taking strolls around the neighborhood or running errands out and about town.  My kid LOVES to be outside.  LOVES it.  If you try to make him play with toys inside for a 2 hour waketime, he’ll get extremely fussy.  But the second you take him outside, he’s golden.  He loves trees and grass and the sky and animals he sees outside.  This is a pain for us right now because it’s friggin 100 degrees outside so it’s hard on US (heat doesn’t seem to bother him) to keep him entertained outside.  But I will love this later in his life.  I would much rather have a child that loves being outside than one that does nothing but play video games all day.

Statistics

Carter didn’t have a 7 month appointment and, in fact, won’t have another doctor appointment until he’s 9 months old.  I have a copy of the pediatrician graphs for weight and height percentages though (they come in the back of the “What To Expect The First Year” book)  so at least I have an idea of where Carter is on the growth scale.  At seven months, Carter weighs 17lbs, which puts him in the range of the 35-40th percentile.  He is around 27 inches long (extremely hard to measure a squirmy baby) which puts him around the 60th percentile for height.  Still relatively tall and skinny.

Abilities

Things he’s doing:

• Sits up extremely well on his own, but will still sometimes tip over and fall.
• He is very capable of holding his own bottle now and is even starting to figure out that in order to get the last bit of food in the bottle, he has to tip it up so the food can come down into the nipple.
• He finally figured out how to get on all fours when he was about 6 months and 1 week old.  He keeps rocking back and forth, testing the boundaries of his balancing abilities.  His favorite place to practice used to be in his crib.  He hated doing it anywhere else, but now he likes to practice anywhere and everywhere, thankfully.  He is definitely mobile now.  He is ALL OVER THE PLACE.  You put a toy in the corner of the room and he will get to it, he just doesn’t do it on his hands and knees just yet.  He uses a combination of scooting, rolling and army crawling to get there.  It’s actually pretty hilarious to watch!
• Last month, when we started rice cereal, I mentioned that Carter likes to suck his thumb in between the times when there’s a spoon in his mouth (I’ll put solids on the spoon and put it in his mouth, he swallows it then puts his thumb in his mouth until I get the next spoonful in there).  Well, I’ve been working really hard with him on this and on banging the tray at mealtimes.  I’ve told him “no” numerous times (and had a serious look on my face when I said it, which was hard) and now Carter never tries to suck his thumb during mealtime!!  In fact, my husband and mother-in-law pointed out to me that Carter’s thumb sucking has significantly decreased (he used to have that thumb in his mouth ALL THE TIME).  I’ve noticed it too….the only time lately that I’ve seen him suck his thumb is at bedtime.

Teeth

Carter still only has his bottom two teeth, the central incisors.  I swear, everyone I talk to about his teeth have asked me how I’m still breastfeeding since his teeth have come in.  Teeth (at least the ones on the bottom) don’t affect breastfeeding because their tongue goes on top of the teeth, so you shouldn’t feel anything….unless they bite you on purpose.  Thankfully, Carter hasn’t quite figured that out just yet :)  As far as teeth up top, I’m not sure how that affects breastfeeding, but usually the top teeth (according to APA) don’t usually come in until 8-12 months.  That might be a good time to stop nursing if he does learn to bite!  I’ve also purchased some baby toothpaste (already had a toothbrush that I got at a baby shower) and started brushing Carter’s two teeth, once after breakfast and then again during bathtime right before bed.

Likes

• Sleeping on his tummy, but now switches up between sleeping on his stomach and his back.  He also loves sleeping on his side.  He just loves sleep, no matter the position!!
• Loves playing with a water scoop in the bathtub.  This is not even a toy!!  It’s meant for me to use to get the shampoo out of his hair.  But he loves it!  He also loves being in the bathtub BEFORE you fill it with water.  He likes seeing water come out of the spout.
• Being put in the Baby Bjorn and taking golf cart rides.  This has become a nightly event in our household.  Riding the cart over to Ross Bridge is his favorite thing to do by far.
• Being outside
• Animals, particularly dogs
• Sitting up in his crib and playing with the music mobile attached to the crib
• Being thrown in the air
• Playing on all fours
• Going to the pool
• Riding in buggies at the grocery store and other stores.  We just started letting him sit in the buggies at stores this month and he loves the freedom to look at the whole store without the confinement of  the car seat.

Dislikes

• Still doesn’t enjoy being strapped down in the car seat, but he doesn’t always cry anymore.  He just kind of whines until we’re done strapping him down.  He also doesn’t love being strapped into the highchair for meals, but just like the car seat, he doesn’t always cry.
• Despises having clothes put on him. 
• Getting bored if he’s been doing one activity for too long.
• We bought him one of those bouncy swings you hang in a doorway recently.  He does NOT like it.  AT ALL.

Like I mentioned above, we’re trying to keep Carter awake longer in the mornings before his first nap.  Today, he woke up at 8am and my goal was to not have a nap until 11am.  In order to keep our sanity, that meant we had to take a golf cart ride.  We rode over to Ross Bridge this morning and there’s no telling how long he was asleep in the Baby Bjorn before Justin and I realized it:

See.  It’s hard to keep him awake that long, but we’re trying.  I think he fell asleep around 10:30ish.  He stayed asleep until I took him out of the Bjorn and just held him the rest of the ride home.  Sweet boy.