Wallace | Seven Months

Closer to a year than his birth, Wallace is officially seven months old. How? I do not know, my friends.



It was a huge month for our little caboose: he went from army crawling, to four-point crawling, to pushing into sitting alone, and then pulling to stand. Yes, it's super early for him to be this mobile and I have no idea WHY he's this insane. We've done nothing different with him compared to our sweet Porter boy who didn't roll or crawl or pull to stand until almost a year old. It cracks me up to compare these two dudes, who are polar opposites when it comes to motor milestones!





But anyway, Wallace is all over the house now and it's a whole new ballgame. He's pulled up on our bottom stair and stands there, looking over at me with a smile. He's trying to climb on top of our mini-trampoline (the centerpiece of our decor during winter months), and will stand at Porter's train table until he's tasted every train. We are doing our best to 'baby proof' the house but it's no small feat, when tiny Shopkins, miniature trucks, and other choke-worthy items seem to end up on the floor at all times. The big kids are really helpful with intercepting foreign objects from Wallace's grubby little hands, and I'm feeling more inspired to capture the dust bunnies living in our corners.

Was getting stuck under things for awhile, now can free himself!




I'm going to schedule the regular cleaning lady soon, mark my words.

We had to drop the crib mattress this week, as Ace started pulling up in the crib and is a man obsessed with standing instead of laying down. He 'sort of' knows how to sit back down but not really, because he mostly just bails and falls to the side when he wants to move on. Once he masters sitting down gracefully he will probably be a lot happier and less frustrated.





Because also, he STLL hasn't cut his first tooth, which seems to be a source of great irritation for him. I haven't looked back at the archives to be sure, but I remember the other three cutting teeth at 6 months. I keep jamming my finger in his mouth and praying I'll feel a little nub, but so far no dice. He's not THAT cranky but he has his moments, that for sure. I will continue to blame teething/a growth spurt for about....two more years?

Sorry, not sorry.




Speaking of growth, this baby is moving into 12 month outfits. He's between 18-19 pounds and looooooves to eat solids now. We are feeding him purees 2-3 times per day and he can easily slam 4-6oz of baby food in a sitting. I think he will keep going if I let him! He can also grab puffs and Baby Mum Mum crackers and some yogurt melts, which is great because it keeps him busy in the high chair while I'm making dinner. I haven't been really strict with introducing new foods one at a time, because #fourthbaby, but so far he seems to love mangoes and bananas the best. I'm really into the Plum Organics brand of baby purees this time (not sponsored!) and some of their flavors seem  downright delicious. Raspberry, banana, barley? Turmeric and Cardamom? Yes, please!



Henry is a huge fan of babies at this age.


Because Ace is eating so much 'real' food, he's adjusting to his new poop schedule and has to really push them out now. I won't go into detail and don't think he is truly constipated, but he has to work harder than when he was only consuming breastmilk. And the diapers are much more offensive now, so sad!



He's still nursing really well, although we are playing around with our nursing/pumping schedule and I think my supply is finally dropping down from where it was a month ago. Right now Wallace nurses around 7:30 am before I go to work, he takes a 5 oz bottle of pumped milk around 11-12am, nurses again when I come home around 2:30, sometimes a snack around 5pm, and now we do a 5 oz bottle of breastmilk before bedtime around 6:30pm. He also has solids at lunch and dinner, and then I pump at work one time and before I go to bed. I HATE pumping and am toying with the idea of dropping the work pump session, but we will see. I do still have about 250-300oz of milk frozen from my maternity leave/early return to work when he refused a bottle. I also find myself less psychotic about avoiding formula, because Porter had already self-weaned at this point and did just fine on formula. Of course, I worry Ace won't even drink formula if we offered because he's so darn picky, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, just celebrating an awesome nursing relationship for the past seven months!





He IS starting to clamp down/bite my nipple and whip his head around in distraction, which causes me to scream in pain----not fun at all, and hopefully he stops that soon. I want to continue nursing as long as he wants to nurse, and I could see this guy nursing well beyond a year. We will see, I suppose!





Now for sleep talk: I just finished the book Precious Little Sleep and seriously love it, you should definitely read it if you are struggling with sleep issues in your baby/toddler. I started off by devouring her blog and then her FB page, and then finally bought and read the book this month. I am a big fan of the author's take on sleep training---it gets right to the point, saying it's necessary to teach kids how to sleep independently so that they can be well rested and healthy, and she throws in a little bit of sarcasm/humor to lighten the topic. Really, it's a great read and I'm not sure why I haven't heard of this book before now!

Wallace is most definitely NOT sleeping through the night but we have come so far from the days when he needed to be glued to my boob all night long. Having his own nursery was a huge step. And now we have solidified a bedtime routine to include bottle (so he stays awake during the last feed, and also gets really full), then bath, lotion and jammies, books and singing, then GOODNIGHT at 7pm! Sometimes he fusses around for about 5-10 minutes in protest, but some nights he goes down without any grumbles. This. Is. Huge.

Then he consistently wakes about twice at night to eat, around 12 or 1, and then again around 4 or 5. I'm starting to try the PLS method of night weaning by shortening our nursing sessions at night, and I won't feed Wallace if he wakes before midnight. Usually he will nurse for about 15 min and then I'll lay him down without issue, but sometimes he is super pissy to be removed from the breast. Last night he was only up once at 3 am, and he kept falling right to sleep nursing. I doubt he's truly hungry at night as he's plenty big/old to make it without night feeds, but I know he's just used to eating at night and loves to nurse for comfort. We will get there, as I'm more than mentally ready to sleep longer than 5 hour stretches. I'm super proud of Wallace for how far he's come with sleeping at night and can absolutely see a difference in his demeanor when he's slept well at night. It makes for a happier mom, happier baby, and happier family life when we sleep. Who knew?

Naps are getting more consistent, too. We try to follow the 2-3-4 rule, which means he is awake for 2 hours in the morning before his first nap. That puts him going down around 9 am, and then he will sleep anywhere from 45 min to 1.5 hours. Then we keep him up for 3 hours before nap number two, usually putting him down around 1-2pm. That second nap is usually only 45 min or so, but sometimes longer. Then he can make it for about 4 hours before bedtime, assuming he wakes from his second nap around 3 and bedtime is 7pm.

I'm sure this sleep talk is not nearly as fascinating for you as it is for me, but I'm definitely becoming obsessed with getting more sleep these days. I'm going to be 37 in a few months, and with four kids and a part time job outside of the home (and everything else in life), mama needs some freaking sleep!! Who doesn't, right?

What else? Oh, this past month Wallace also had his first double ear infection and therefore his first round of Amoxicillin. He was up from 10-2am one night and then the next night was just as bad, so I trusted my gut and took him in to the doc, hoping for answers. Sure enough, double ear infection. BOO. He truly hated the amoxicillin and spit most of it out for the first 5 days, then started to accept it better in the final 5 days.





We've also been hit with a wave of illness in this house beyond the ear infection, as Truman had a fever and missed a day of school, then he started puking a few days later and missed two more days of school. My stomach has NOT been right since then and I've been kind of stressed about everyone else getting sick. I think about 1/3 of the kids are sick at home at the kids' school, as this winter has just SUCKED for sickness! Truman and Cecelia had their first ever snow day yesterday, though, which is very unlike Wisconsin to call it after just 5-6" of snow! But we will take an extra day at home, and luckily Tony didn't mind having them home while I worked my usual 5 hours.







Wallace's personality remains the sweetest, happiest, and most curious little baby around. He loves watching his siblings and now follows them around the house. He sometimes cries when I leave the room so I think separation anxiety is beginning, but usually he's just fine as long as he's entertained. And he's a BUSY BOY, constantly crawling around, standing, putting things in his mouth, squealing, etc. His smile and giggle melt us and it's hard to feel stressed when starting at this face.

The month of January was a good one around here. And not related to the baby, the house addition is 99.99% finished and I expect we will officially sign the completion papers this week. Nate also turned in his notice at his job and is opening his own PT clinic through a Detroit-based company. We expect his new doors to open mid-March and it's quite surreal for him to OFFICIALLY go this route! It's been a long time coming and we are excited for all that's to come. I've been in my supervisor position for a year already, too. Time flies!

Back of house, cannot WAIT to have the entire thing painted this spring!




Life is wild but it's incredibly good, too.