Lillian's 25th Week

25 Weeks Old!

This picture makes her legs look so long to me

Note to self* don't take pictures right before nap time. Poor thing was too tired to smile.

Nursing: I am continuing to nurse like normal, 4 meals a day, and will continue as long as I can. My goal is 12 months as I have read its the best thing for them. We tried our first solids this week.(besides rice cereal, if that's even considered a solid) Instead of traditional baby food we are trying out Baby Led-Weaning. I have done lots of research online about it, talked to some friends about it, and read lots of blogs from people I don't even know so I could fully understand what exactly Baby Led-Weaning is about. For the sake of typing it all out you can go to the website http://www.babyledweaning.com/. You can buy a book on Amazon, I still need to buy and read it. All of my information came from online. Essentially, BLW is feeding your baby food in its normal form, no mush, whatever you are eating. My friend Emily has done a great blog post about it after she did it with her daughter you can read here. Kevin and I talked about what our plan for Lillian would be and I told him what all I had read and learned about different methods and he was on board for trying out BLW. He is great about making sure I feel confident with anything I do for her and never questions me after. He is also great about reading any research I send him so he understands it as well. I am very grateful that he is involved. So far here is what we have done and learned.

First Solid: Banana 9/6/2013

The mushed up pieces are what was left after she tried to pick up the pieces and ended up just mushing them in between her fingers. Instead of large pieces we just gave her a half of the banana and that was easier for her to grasp. I know she ended up ingesting some of it but for the most part it went in the trash. We felt good about it. She wasn't going to starve because I had already nursed her like normal but she now has a sense of what a banana tastes and feels like. 

Second Solid: Eggs  9/10/2013

again she did not ingest much but she seemed to like eggs. 

My only problem so far is I don't know what to give her. BLW says you can give whatever you are eating but I realize there are also some things better to start off with and I read no salt. Any advice would be appreciated. We have only done it those two times so far and it's been breakfast foods so Daddy could be home to experience it too. BLW is said to help kids not be so picky so we are all for it so she doesn't end up like Mommy who hates vegetables! Two things we have learned so far: 1. bananas should be ripe so they don't cause constipation. 2. One of these two foods caused some suspicious black string-like substance in her diapers. 

Sleep: Sleep has been the same. If she wakes up in the night she falls back asleep within minutes. She still wakes up around 5 something so Kevin will stick her in her swing and she sleeps until we go wake her up around 7am. If she wakes up anytime after 6am I just bring her back in bed with me and hope she falls back asleep. We went and stayed at my parent's house this weekend while Kevin was out of town. Poor thing had to sleep in their linen closet because everywhere else was too bright. She still takes her best naps in her swing and in the pitch black. We did finally wean off of the swaddle. I tried it a few weeks ago and she wouldn't fall asleep or would wake up a bunch so we kept swaddling and I randomly decided to try it again this week and for 2 nights now she has done great without it. 

Other Happenings:

- Lillian makes this long fairly loud moan when she is tired. It's so funny, I think it is how she relaxes herself.

- Moved up to size 3 diapers

- Lillian is sitting up on her own unsupported, she occasionally will fall to the side still.

- No crawling forward yet but scooting backwards and around and around in circles a lot. 

- Loving our video monitor. I love to be able to see how she sleeps, her arms are always spread out, she plays with her ears as she's falling asleep.

Our Sweet Girl is growing up!