Zoe at 6 months

April 30, 2018 4 minute read

Baby 6 month update

Zoe is 6 months old and just shy of delightful! While she still cries, it is a whole lot less than it used to be. We even managed to take her on a road trip to New Jersey to visit Aaron’s extended family! If you noticed the major upgrade in photo quality this month, some pics (the obviously good ones!) were taken by Aaron’s uncle who is a photographer (@davidagrogan). Thanks Dave!

Sleeping

We finally sleep trained Zoe after two nights of constant waking. Maybe we were just used to hearing her cry, but it was SO much easier the second time around. I’m almost embarrassed to say how easy - on one night Aaron, Max and I watched the Lion King in the loft outside her room. Contrast that with Aaron and I huddled anxiously outside Max’s room, iPad streaming Nest Cam, each of us googling variations of “baby crying damage vocal cords” and “long time emotional damage sleep training”. But just like with Max, Zoe was putting herself to sleep after a couple days. If you want to read about our sleep struggle with Max, this post from his first year and this post when we moved him to a big boy bed.

Sleeping through the night!

Currently Zoe’s bedtime routine looks like this:

Swaddle her and put her in her crib between 6-6:30 pm. She doesn’t nap well at school so she almost always falls asleep within a couple minutes.
Wakes up once between 11-3 am. We let her cry for 15 minutes. If she doesn’t put herself back to sleep then we give her her pacifier, which immediately lulls her back to sleep. (Love that pacifier!)
We wake her up at 6am for school. On days she wakes up before 6 am, she happily sits in her bumbo on the counter and watches us make breakfast. And when she occasionally wakes up grumpy, we take her legs out of her onsie and she is happy again.

On the weekends, Max runs the show around here. That means Zoe is shuttled to soccer games, birthday parties, playgrounds, etc. At best she has a few 10-30 min unstructured naps throughout the day. It’s not ideal but it works for now.

Eating

I struggled breastfeeding with Max, to the point where I was stressed out, cranky and exhausted (I wrote about that struggle here). With Zoe, I decided not to be so hard on myself. So when Zoe started sleeping through the night and my supply dropped, we immediately upped her formula intake. As a result she is happier, we are happier and everything is still okay.

Doing

Zoe has been smiling more intentionally at Aaron and I. When we pick her up from school, she looks at our faces for a couple seconds then gives us a big dimpled smile. Of course the day I wrote that was followed by a pick-up that resulted with her crying instead of smiling. Kids are the worst!

Zoe has gotten more vocal with trying new sounds. A lot of mornings we find her repeating “ooo” or “aaa” to herself in her crib. Almost as it she is diligently doing her vocal exercises.

Zoe has started to grab whatever is in her radius. For Max this has turned into his favorite game. He dangles a toy in front of her, then updates us every 15 or so seconds to tell us “She didn’t get it yet,” or “She got it” or “She got it but she dropped it”.

You’d be surprised how long this can go on for. Zoe hasn’t mastered depth perception so it still looks like she is moving her arms in slow motion through space as she tries to grab her target.

Baby items we love at this age:

Lucy - Aaron’s aunt gave Zoe this adorable lamb. It’s one of the first toys that Zoe has shown a preference for, and she loves giving it hugs and kisses.
Ball - Now that Zoe has discovered how to bring objects to her mouth, she loves this ball. It’s easy to grip, soft and contorts as Zoe tries to stuff it in her mouth.
Jumperoo - Now that Zoe’s legs finally touch the floor, she is starting to like this a lot more. She hasn’t figured out how to jump yet, despite Max, Aaron and I jumping ad nauseum to show her.

With pool season right around the corner, I’ve been loving all the adorable baby girl swim suit options! The selection is infinitely better than the baby boy selection!

Latest Milestone

Zoe has started sitting up! She doesn’t do it for long and she is equally happy falling over. She is close to rolling from her back to her stomach, but seems to give up when she is in the home stretch. That milestone for another month.