half of a year has gone by

As of January 2, Raina is now six months old. This month she has changed so much and is learning so many new things. She's so interested in watching the world around her and especially in watching every move her brother makes. She spends most of her awake time on the floor or in her snugseat as close to Riggs as possible. She does play with toys and especially loves her little fawn, which is perfect for chewing on.

We haven't been to her appointment yet, so I'm not sure on weight or length yet, but I'm guessing she weighs around 18 pounds. She's in 6-12m clothes and size three diapers and she finally grew out of her newborn and 0-3m shoes this month. She can sit up on her own for much longer now and her newest skill is getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. She can take her passi out of her mouth but is still working on putting it back in on her own the majority of the time.

The biggest change this month is moving from sleeping swaddled to unswaddled. She sleeps in her crib or pack n play (in our room) for her naps all the time now (no more rock n play) and we lay her down unswaddled and don't pick her up again until she wakes up. Most of the time she drifts off on her own with a little music playing or just listening to our voices as we do our thing in the other room. Occasionally she needs a little soothing, and patting her, rubbing her cheek or gently 'rocking' the pack n play for a minute usually does the trick.

She's still taking at least three naps, usually a long one in the morning and then two shorter (45m-1hr) naps in the afternoon. At night she 'sleeps' from 7pm to 6:30am, usually waking 2-4 times to nurse. She starts out the night in the pack n play and then ends up in bed with us by midnight usually. My goal this month is to try and nurse her in the chair in our room in the night and put her back to bed in the pack n play instead of bringing her into bed with us. But if it doesn't happen I won't be too broken up...I love cuddling her in the night too.

We haven't started any solids with her yet, and don't have any big plans to. I think we'll start with giving her little tastes of what we are eating and move on from there.

 Happy half birthday baby girl, we love you so much!