The Sixth Month

 I can not believe we have made it to the sixth month already!  This month started my summer break.  So, I am home with Farrah until August!  Farrah has been a busy little baby this month.  She is much more active and grabs for her toys and bottle now.  Farrah also started noticing one of our cats this month.  His name is Mouse, yes a cat named Mouse.  We have two, but for some reason Farrah really only pays attention to one of them.  She loves to watch him and smile at him.  However, he pays not attention to her other than the occasional sniff of her head.  We also added a Bumbo seat to our collection of baby items.  Farrah seems to enjoy it.  As far as milestones go, Farrah rolled over this month.  So far she only rolls from back to tummy to her left.  She did roll from tummy to back a few times, but she doesn't exactly have the hang of it.  The rolling has not caused a huge problem in her sleeping.  Farrah sleeps swaddled.  I have been swaddling her with her arms out so she can hold her head up if she does roll over.  She is having a difficult time adjusting to sleeping with her arms out.  This seems to cause more disruptions in her sleep then the rolling.  The last few days she has been having trouble sleeping though.  For naps, I typically just hold her when she starts to act sleepy and she falls asleep.  Then, I take her to her bed and swaddle her.  We typically have no problems.  At night, I swaddle her, then rock her to sleep.  Again, we typically have no problems.  But, for the last 4 days as soon as I put her in her crib (for naps and nighttime), she wakes up and can not get herself back to sleep.  She seems to only want to sleep if she is being held.  Last night was the worst.  We tried several times to help her get back to sleep with no success.  They only way she would sleep was if we held her or put her in our bed with us.  I have no idea what is causing this.  Any suggestions?  

As far as solids, Farrah is up to two meals a day.  We had already introduced rice cereal and squash.  Now we have added bananas, prunes, apples, peas, carrots, and oatmeal.  Farrah is a really good eater! I am also still making a lot of her baby food.  If you didn't see my post on making baby food, check it out.  Baby Food - Zucchini

Enjoying the sun.

Loving her Bumbo!

Homemade Baby Food

Farrah's Schedule 

6:30-7:30 - Bottle and Wake-time

7:30-9:00 - Nap

9:00-10:30 - 1-2 Tbsp. Oatmeal plus 1- 2 Tbsp. Fruit and Wake-time (plus a 2 oz. bottle)

10:30-12:00 - Nap

12:00-1:30 - Bottle and Wake-time

1:30-3:00 - Nap

3:00-4:30 - Bottle and Wake-time

4:30-5:30/6 - Nap

6:00-7:00 - 1 1/2 - 2 Tbsp. Rice Cereal plus  2-3 Tbsp. Vegetable and Wake-time

7:00-8/8:30 - Nap (sometimes)

8/8:30 - Bottle and Bedtime

Baby Food - Zucchini

Since Farrah is now eating solids, very well I might add, I decided it was time to get out my Baby Bullet and start making some baby food.  Now, I in no way intend to make all of the baby food Farrah will eat.  I simply want to make food for her when I can.  To my surprise, it was very easy.  I have made yellow squash and zucchini at this point.  I decided to share my zucchini making process to show just how simple it really is.

What do you need?  Not much really.

• Something to prepare the fruit/vegetables in
• A blender/food processor of some type.  I received a Baby Bullet as a shower gift, so that is what I use.  Any blender, food processor, stick blender, etc. would work fine.
• Containers for storage if you plan on making more than just one serving

Ingredients: Fruit/vegetable of choice and water. I used Certified Naturally Grown zucchini from Jack-O-Lantern Farm (a local farmers market).  Zucchini is $1.50 per lb there.  These two zucchinis were not even a pound.  So I made 5 servings of baby food (at 3-4 TBSP each) for less than $1.50!

Step 1:  Slice or chop the fruit/vegetable.  It is not necessary to remove the skins from most fruits/vegetables.  I did read that babies under 7 months have a difficult time digesting the skins, so I peeled my zucchini.

Step 2:  Cook the fruit/vegetable.  You can bake, boil, or steam.  I steamed the zucchini with a little water in the microwave for about 5 minutes.

Step 3: After the fruit/vegetable cools some, blend adding a little water as you go, until you reach your desired consistency.  I added about a tablespoon of water.  From the two zucchinis I used, I ended up with just over 1 cup of baby food.

Step 4: Place your baby food in storage containers.  Any baby food stored in the refrigerator needs to be used in 2 - 3 days.  You can freeze the baby food in ice-trays and store in a Ziploc bag for up to 30 days.

Of course the last and most important step is to see if your homemade baby food passes the test.  Farrah loves her squash and zucchini!

There you go.  It is really that simple!  I have found that yellow squash and zucchini contain so much water that you really do not have to add much, if any, while you are blending.  If you do need to add water, use the water you cooked the fruit/vegetable in since it contains nutrients pulled from the fruit/vegetable.  I plan on trying green beans next.  Check back to see how that goes!

The Fifth Month

With Poppa and GiGI

The fifth month has been another exciting month (like I am sure they all will be)!  This month was our second round of vaccines.  Farrah did very good.  She only ran a low fever for one day which was much better than the two days with the first round.  She did have bruising from the shots this time though.  I was finishing up the last little bit of the school year and looking forward to my summer off with Farrah.  Farrah was busy finding her feet, figuring out how to get her new found feet in her mouth, and trying new foods.  She also started making a new noise and grabbing/holding things.  But, the big excitement was starting solids this month (around 19 weeks).  We started with a tablespoon of rice cereal at her 6:00pm feeding.  Our doctor told us to replace a bottle with a solid.  For the first few days, we still gave her 2 ounces of formula after the cereal since, from the look of her bib, she may not have been swallowing all of the cereal.  She quickly got very good at eating from a spoon.  After about a week, we upped the cereal to two tablespoons and stopped giving her the formula.  After two weeks on the cereal, we added in squash.  She did not seem to like it at all for the first couple of days.  Now, she loves it!

Farrah's First Solid

Got it!

Farrah's Schedule 

6:30-7:30 - Bottle and Wake-time
7:30-9:00 - Nap
9:00-10:30 - Bottle and Wake-time
10:30-12:00 - Nap
12:00-1:30 - Bottle and Wake-time
1:30-3:00 - Nap
3:00-4:30 - Bottle and Wake-time
4:30-5:30/6 - Nap Sometimes (This is around the time we are getting home.)
6:00-7:00 - 2 Tbsp. Cereal and Wake-time
7:00-8/8:30 - Nap (sometimes)
8/8:30 - Bottle and Bedtime