Sophie’s 7 Month Update

Solveig Brynn is 7 months old!! Can you believe it?

I feel like we literally just celebrated her 6 month birthday. It’s crazy how quickly these months are flying by!

Sophie’s 7 Month Update

Nicknames: Sophie B, BB, BeeBee Bonnet, Dolly, Baby, BeeBee Brynn…and we like to call her Sophie Brynn or Solveig Brynn a lot, too!

Size: I honestly haven’t weighed her since her 6 month doctor’s appointment. She was 13 lbs 7 oz at that appointment and in the 6th percentile for weight, and 13th percentile for height. She keeps putting on cute little baby chunkiness that we just love! She has those squishy baby legs, full cheeks, and what we call “rubber bands” around her wrists! 🙂

Sophie is in size 3 diapers, and will be for a while, since size 3 covers quite a range. I’ve broken out a lot of her 9 month clothing by now, but I’m still definitely mixing 9 month sizes with 6 month sizes. Anything between 6 months and 9 months seems to fit fairly well right now. She has some great 6-9 month pajamas from Gerber, but the arms are long on her and she loves to suck on the sleeves, so I cuff those up.

Fun milestones: 

This past month has been insane when it comes to all the changes in Sophie’s awareness and behavior! I can hardly leave her in a room alone because she’ll end up at least 7 feet away from where I set her down!

^^ super typical, haha! I put her down on that pink blanket and she was OFF on an adventure! ^^

We have a Pack ‘n’ Play in the living room now that she plays in if I have to leave the room. Sophie is rolling like crazy (think: multiple times all in a row!) and pivoting and stretching and pushing up on her arms…all to get to where she wants to go! I joke that she’s being a sky diver because of all the Superman arching and pivoting she’s doing! (Usually accompanied by exciting yells and squeals!) We’re not officially crawling yet – she still has to figure out how to get her knees up underneath her, but I’m sensing it’s right around the corner! It’s so amazing how well she can roll and rotate to get to what she wants! I’m thrilled and we’re so excited, of course, but part of me is a little sad, just because she’s not my tiny little infant anymore. It just reminds me how quickly time goes by. I can’t just lay her down and stare at her peacefully stretching and looking around the room…she is on. the. go!!! 🙂 It’s so fun, though.

Sophie has gotten extra chatty this month, too. Besides her louder voice moments, Sophie has recently started talking to people (or herself!) in a high-pitched, sing-songy tone! It is too darn cute. It’s like she’s singing a song or mulling over a decision with herself. Sometimes when I’m on the phone with my mom, Sophie will be squealing and singing so loudly, I can’t continue the conversation! 🙂

She has continued to eat pureed baby food (and I’m planning to make some of my own pureed food before long). At this point, she still has one meal a day of some baby cereal mixed with breastmilk, plus some pureed vegetables. Sophie is still breastfed, too (what a blessing that it is working out this long for us!).

Sophie loves her toys, she loves listening to conversation and having books read to her, and she is quite interested in things like birds and our fish tank at home. Wherever you hold her or set her down, she is now constantly reaching for anything within arms’ reach, and I know that isn’t going to slow down anytime soon! She is so curious about the world and people around her – it is so fun to see! She’s officially to the stage of pulling her headbands down so they hang around her neck, and chewing on them, so we’ll see how long we can keep wearing those! I just love them on her so much!

Sleep:

This is one of my favorite updates to share: we FINALLY hit an 8 hour stretch of sleep!! It was her longest (ahem, also MY longest) stretch of sleep since October 16…not that anyone’s counting, haha. I’m so proud of her. Sophie slept an 8 hour stretch around May 7th or so, and has continued to sleep about 8 hours each night since. She goes to bed at 7:30 pm and I dreamfeed her at around 10:30 (a feeding which I may or may not drop soon). Then she’s been sleeping from 11 pm till at least 7 am. (I have an alarm set to go wake her and feed her around 8 am, if she’s not already awake. I feel it’s important to start our day at roughly the same time each day.) Sleep is the thing that most parents just ache for the most…and it feels like some crazy unattainable thing for so long. I know some babies her age have slept an 8 hour stretch earlier on in life..and other babies much older than Sophie still don’t sleep that long. I truly don’t know the perfect scientific reason for that. But all I know is my daughter has started to do this and I’m immensely thankful! 🙂 Side note: I’m thinking of writing a blog post with some of our thoughts/strategies on the topic of sleep. Let me know if you’d be interested in that or if you have any specific questions I could try to answer!

Before having Sophie, I was one of those people totally adamant that I needed my 8 hours of sleep every night. It was utterly mandatory for me, and it was something I got anxious about if I knew that a full night’s sleep wasn’t going to happen. But motherhood has taught me that you really can get by on less sleep if you have to. I’ve fought through all of that, and a lot of sleepless nights, so I can say it really is doable. However, the fact that I’m starting to get sleep again is reminding me just how much I love getting a night’s sleep!! I’m so so so thankful.

Regarding naps: Sophie takes a 90-120 minute morning nap each day, and then a 1-2 hour nap each afternoon. If her afternoon nap is super short or not very restful for her, then I’ll have her take a shorter cat nap later in the afternoon. I’m a big fan of the schedule we’ve worked out. I know that everyone says as soon as you nail down a schedule with a child, then things change…but for now, our schedule has remained the same for a good while, and I’m grateful. I think Sophie really relishes the predictability, too!

Sophie likes: 

Birds (hearing them and seeing them through open windows or on walks), our fish tank, her toys… We also bought her a doorway jumper and put her in it one evening. It was so funny! She had the cutest little unsure smile frozen on her face, like she knew she should try out this new present from her parents, but she didn’t really like it that much. We’ll bring it out again in the future and see what she thinks. 🙂

Sophie really likes to see all that’s going on when I go on a walk with her now!

She loves music, and when people hold her and dance around. She loves her baby cereal (probably more than pureed veggies at this point). She loves nursing still – always has! Sophie listens so cutely when we read books to her.

She likes hearing happy conversation and laughter around her. Baths are becoming even more fun for her, now that she doesn’t just sit there – she wants to kick and stretch and splash! 🙂

Sophie also LOVES her daddy so, so much!

It’s pretty much her favorite part of the day when he comes home and scoops her up for a hug and a kiss!

She doesn’t like: 

Wind in her face when we’re on walks or walking through a parking lot to get into a building. She really doesn’t like pureed peas. At all. I wish I would’ve gotten a video of her reaction! 🙂 She’s not a huge fan of pureed carrots either, so far.

This month, Sophie:

• Went grocery shopping with me and tried the “adventure position” (facing out) in our Baby K’tan. She really liked it, since she loves to look out and see what’s going on!

• Had a playdate and supper at my friend Jordan’s house! It was so sweet to have all of our baby girls hanging out as we made supper.

• Went to a bunch of the city-wide garage sales with me at the end of April!
• Went out to lunch with my friend Courtney and baby Finley! (For some reason, Sophie laughed a LOT at a potted plant hanging up in the corner of the restaurant – it was hilarious!)
• Got to visit a local county park that is finally open for the season! I’d been looking forward to taking her there for a long time!
• Saw her Uncle Tyler graduate from college! The ceremony was from 6:45 pm till 9:30, which is totally after her bedtime, but she did so well and I’m so glad we were able to be there to celebrate my brother! My sister Maddie was also in town, so it was special for us “Martel kids” to spend time together!
• Tried out sitting in a stroller like a big girl! We’re borrowing an umbrella-type stroller from Sophie’s Auntie Amy and other Uncle Tyler 🙂 and it’s working out well! We used it to stroll around the mall with my brother and sister last weekend!
• Slept in her Pack ‘n’ Play overnight for the first time when we were at my parents’.  She did really well! And she has learned to enjoy playing in it too.

• Missed Daddy when he had additional army training this month. Bjorn was gone on a Friday through a Tuesday evening, was home for Wednesday, and then left again Thursday through Sunday. I know it’s really not long in the grand scheme of things, but we still missed Bjorn over that 9 day stretch when we hardly saw him!
• Celebrated my first Mother’s Day! 😉