This past month our biggest adventure was introducing solids to Everton. I’m feeling much more confident this time around and am letting him lead and experiment much more than I would have let his sister do at this age.
We first started with rice cereal and fruits, followed by some vegetables. It seems he isn’t a fan of thicker textures and would rather stick with the more watery based ones for now. He LOVES all fruits but has made many faces at sweet potato, carrots, avocados and peas. Shortly after we started giving solids at breakfast, I cut out breastfeeding during that session as he didn’t seem to need it anymore. I am now breastfeeding four times a day: when he wakes up, around lunch, supper and bedtime. Just after his 6 month appt. he weighed a bit over 18 pounds. He is now back in the average spots for both length and weight.

Shortly after thinking I had nipped the early morning waking problem by moving up his bedtime to earlier (see my 6 month update), I realized that it wasn’t accomplishing as much as I had hoped it would. I did some more reading which led me to believe that our lack of consistency with his nap routine was causing Everton to wake earlier as well. He was likely getting about 12-12.5 hours of sleep on average per day instead of the recommended 14 hours per day. I played around with the naps and started to train him to do a second nap later in the day; even if he didn’t appear fussy or tired. His first nap has always been fairly long, around 2-2.5 hours, so I started napping him around 4:00 pm for the second nap which would typically be around an hour in length. Once he started to get 14-14.5 hours of sleep each day, it did WONDERS for his early waking issue! All of sudden he was sleeping 10.5-12 hours per night. Waking no earlier than 7:30 am but most days at 8:00 am. We’ve even had sleep in days as late as 8:30 am! Since Miss Lace wakes at 8:20 am on a typical day, this new routine has made this momma bear very happy!

This past month we travelled as a family of four to Minneapolis for 5 nights and he did awesome during the trip! I’ll talk a bit more about that in a different post soon since I’ve had lots of people ask me questions related to it.

This past month we have also experienced lots of screaming and pteradactyl sounds coming from Everton’s mouth. He’s found his voice and there’s no turning back! Sister loves it and the two of them are always “conversing”.

Crawling has ALMOST been achieved. He’s so incredibly close; always hanging out on all fours, rocking back and forth. He’s mastered rolling and dragging himself to get his needs fulfilled but never gives up on trying to crawl. It’s definitely coming very soon!

Mornings are still spent mostly hanging out in the family room, rolling and playing with toys on the floor while sister buzzes about around him. He’s so happy when he’s there and will play contently for an hour or so before getting bored. The Jolly Jumper is still our go to late in the evening and we sometimes bring it out on the deck while sister plays in the grass. The Skip Hop Table and Jumperoo are also still being used a lot. We use our hanging toy play gym from time to time, although he’s becoming more and more tangled in it when he rolls around. He laughs the most when we say “no, no, no, no, no” repeatedly in a silly voice to him (this was actually the first thing to make him laugh) and he’s the most ticklish on his ribs. He loves being spun around in my arms or thrown up in the air and will let out big laughs when we do this! We love our little/big smiley guy to pieces and can’t get enough of him!

Happy 7 Months Ever!