Happy Half Birthday, Baby!

I spent my entire Saturday & Sunday with Morgan and I couldn’t imagine a better weekend! As a working mom, evenings alone don’t allow me the time I wish I had with my baby, so weekends are even more important than they used to be. And oh, have they changed!

I can still [kind of] relax on the couch while I watch the morning news, but I am hooked up to a breast pump. Rather than drinking a hot cup of coffee in one sitting, I am sipping cold coffee in between attempts to keep Morgan occupied and happy. Weekends are no longer full of spontaneous plans – the days revolve around pumping, feeding, and nap times!

In this stage of my life, weekends aren’t much about relaxing anymore. But the chaos is all worth it and if you’re not a mom or dad already, you will find that you crave the time with your family on the weekends more than you do relaxing. Or if you are lucky, maybe you get to experience both!?

This weekend is an extra special one because Morgan turned 6 months old today! I remember seeing mamas posting about their 6-month-old babes whenever Morgan was a newborn and I remember thinking, wow those babies are so old! It’ll be forever until Morgan is that old! Yet we are are, what seems like just a couple weeks later.

Morgan and I have both learned and grown over the past 6 months.

Here’s what Morgan has to say about the first 6 months of his life:

When I was just a few hours old, I was already really strong and could look my dad in the eyes when I laid on his chest. Now I am even stronger! I am really good at tummy time and can hold my head really high for a long time.

My arms and legs are really strong, too, and I love to stand with just a little balancing help. With my strength and activeness, I will be crawling in no time!

I have given some soft foods a chance, but there is nothing I want more than milk right now. I am pretty good at using a spoon, but I think I will just stick with a bottle from now on.

Something that my mom is really excited about lately is that I can almost sit up on my own! I need help balancing for now, though.

A few days after I turned 5 months old, I rolled from my back to my belly, which was hard because my arm was always in the way! Now that I can roll to my belly on my own, I prefer to sleep like that.

I never really got the hang of the whole “sleeping thing” until the last couple weeks. My mom and dad make sure I go to bed with everything I need for the night. So if I wake up crying, they give me some time to remember that I am safe, and then I am able to go back to sleep.

I am really glad I am sleeping well at night now, because I went through my 4 month sleep regression, and shortly after that, another 5 month sleep regression that mom did not read about. I also dealt with stomach issues and then congestion for weeks. My parents understood how I felt, though, because they were sick with Covid when I was 4 months old. It was hard because I went days without my dad holding me, and days without my mom kissing me.

I have loved my thumb for several months now, but I really love it now. I was never a huge fan of my pacifier, but I especially don’t like them since I realized how much more I like to suck on my thumb!

Here’s what I have to say about the past 6 months of my, and Morgan’s, life:

Babyhood is a whirlwind and goes by entirely too fast. It seems like Morgan was just a newborn! During that stage, it is all a blur of constant nursing, spit up, and dirty diapers. There were no schedules or routines – I was just trying to survive motherhood and figure out that baby!

If I could do it over again, I would have not been so afraid to get back to normal life. I didn’t want to take Morgan anywhere because I was terrified to drive with a baby in the backseat. I didn’t spend any time outside during the summer because I didn’t want to leave Morgan inside alone, even though he was sleeping and I had a monitor on him. I wish I had reached out to people to spend time with more often because I was home alone with Morgan all day and I needed that social time with adults!

I remember feeling so sad when Morgan hit that 12 week mark and wasn’t considered a newborn anymore. I also had in my head that babies should only be in the bassinet until that time, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I believe he stayed in our room in that bassinet until 4 months old. First, we tried moving the bassinet out of the bedroom and into the living room so that we didn’t have to be as quiet in the mornings when we were getting ready.

During that time, Morgan had gone through his 4 month sleep regression (but a couple weeks early). Nothing will test your patience like a sleep regression… sleep deprivation is torture! But they say a regression is a sign that a developmental milestone is happening. Once it was over, he slept a little better at night and he was able to roll from his belly to his back!

Not long after that, right at 4 months, Brett and I came down with Covid. We were terrified Morgan would get it! He never did, or at least if he did, he didn’t have any symptoms. During that time, his sleep became horrible. We thought he was teething, so we were giving him Tylenol and I would be up with him several times a night trying to get him back to sleep. He was also very congested and the poor guy couldn’t breathe to eat or sleep! One day, he had diarrhea and was throwing up, so I took him to urgent care thinking he had a stomach bug. They went ahead and tested for RSV and Covid, but he was negative for both.

We decided his sleeping troubles were due to allergy-like symptoms because he had that stuffy nose for a couple weeks! Unfortunately, there is no medicine for babies that young. Then, I heard about a 5 month regression, and I am thinking that could have been part of the trouble, too! Brett and I agreed that the 4 month regression was much better than the 5… TWO MONTHS of straight NO SLEEP was awful.

We tried sleep training (cry-it-out) and though it was hard, Morgan caught on after a few nights and now he has slept through the night many times in the past 2 weeks! In the beginning, we didn’t really want to try sleep training and wanted Morgan to figure out his own schedule, but the truth was, WE were not on a schedule and so we couldn’t expect Morgan to be on one when his nights were unpredictable!

I feel like in the last week, Morgan all of the sudden really grew up. He looks so big…he is rolling and scooting everywhere…reaching…grabbing…starting to sit up…babbling…showing his personality…giggling…

Just when I think I can’t love him any more than I do, he proves me wrong.

The love towards your baby is a whole new level of love that I am here *clap* for *clap*.

MOTHERHOOD ROCKS

HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY, BABY!