Delaying Solids Until 6 Months

When Enoch was young, we were told that babies should begin eating solids, namely rice or oatmeal cereal, when they are 4 months old.  So we, as good parents, attempted it on his four month birthday.  He did a rather good job of taking to the spoon; however, we soon realized that the oatmeal cereal was giving him bad constipation, even though we were only feeding him a little per day.

Even though Alaythia has almost reached the magic age of four months, I've decided to hold off on introducing solids this time around (we also waited with Karis).  My plan is to exclusively breastfeed for at least the first 6 months of her life.  Once we get to six months, we'll see where she's at in a few different areas before we dive in:

• her interest in food,
• her ability to sit up,
• her desire to learn about the spoon, and
• her digestive readiness.

Though I originally decided to hold off on solids because of my experience with Enoch at this stage, after doing more research, I've found that waiting until 6 months to begin solids is actually better (and recommended by many organizations like the WHO and the AAP).  These two articles below from Kellymom helped me confirm my decision.  The first one lists many reasons why waiting until 6 months is best.  The second one details how to decide when your baby is actually ready for solids and also goes through many common misconceptions about starting solids.  {I'm including one interesting fact from each under its respective link.  Check out both of them to learn more!}

Why delay solids?
{Adding solids replaces breastmilk in a baby's diet, meaning a lower milk supply for mom as well as lower immunity levels for baby.}

Is my baby ready for solids?
{Having a big baby is NOT a good reason to start solids early, nor is trying to help them sleep through the night.}

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FFF: Our Garden Update, May 2015

Here is a garden update from earlier this week...

I should give a disclaimer that we planted our garden a few weeks earlier than the frost dates suggested, which could've been an absolute failure, but it worked out okay down here because we've had a warmer than average Spring.  So technically our garden has been growing for around 1 month now, and it has already been fertilized once. (We planted most everything the first week and a half of April, and I fertilized 2 weeks ago.  I use the fish emulsion fertilizer, so I need to do it again soon..)

 One of my garden helpers, watering the squash plants.  See those blooms?

Our bachelor buttons are blooming!

We found this little guy today.  Not sure what he is, but he was fun for Enoch to play with, and now he is no longer in my garden.  

Our cucumbers have found the trellis and are putting out blooms!

Our pole beans (Rattlesnake beans) have found their trellis.  The bush beans are in there too on the other side of the bucket and are also growing (Royalty Purple Pod beans)!

Our first little pepper is growing.

And our tomato plants have blooms (the cherry tomatoes).

Onions are growing a little.

A few strawberries are ripening, though critters usually get them before we are able to enjoy them.

Working on another project... he's a hard worker, this one, and he just loves being outside.

Look how tall our cherry tomatoes are!!  (The better boys in the other bed aren't doing as well because they get less sun... that could be a problem!)

My other garden helper... in her jammies... don't judge, you know she's cute.

Alaythia was inside asleep while we watered.  On the mornings when she sleeps in a little, we scramble outside to enjoy some shady time in the front yard until she wakes up.  This happens a few times per week, and I so relish those times of getting my hands dirty and my feet wet with my big kids.  :)

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Spring Garden 2015 (in the beginning)

Here are some photos to document the beginnings of our garden this year.

These carrots were so exciting to harvest (fall crop)!  They really gave me incentive to work hard on getting our summer garden going since it often yields such delicious foods!

Doing our garden prep of cleaning out the beds & readying the soil.

Here is what we got in the ground:

Our front bed is mainly dedicated to some Better Boy tomatoes as well as flowers (these are mainly cool season flowers, to be replaced soon by summer flowers).

Around on the side we have a good stand of Bachelor Buttons that re-seeded themselves.

Further down we planted some cucumbers (they will grow up that trellis).

And on the end we put squash plants in.

On the other side of that walkway is where our buckets are.  This year they have beans in them (bush & pole)!

And last but certainly not least is my 4x8' raised bed, which is mainly dedicated to our favorites: cherry tomatoes (8 of them!).  There are also a few pepper plants and onions tucked in there.  And in the back center are a few bunches of leaf lettuce which are waiting to be harvested (they were our other fall crop).

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Siblings

Here are some photos of all three of the kids that I've taken over the past few months.  It's pretty hard to get a decent photo of everyone, but at least they are good memories.  :) 

Enoch singing to baby Alaythia to comfort her while I made lunch.  (Just before lunch time is often our crazy hour!!)

Big kids laughing it up!

Getting ready for bed & doing tummy time

Resting on the floor

I just love it when google puts a string of photos together to show just how wiggly my kiddos truly are when it comes to "smiling" for the camera!

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FFF: Walking the Lake

Just a few photos from our walk around the lake this week.  Enoch was a trouper and walked the whole loop (almost 1 mile) by my side while the girls took a nap in the stroller. 

Early on in our walk we discovered the lake's 3 ducks laying in the shade, relaxing by the sidewalk.  Although they hadn't been bothered by all of the joggers running by, they decided they'd better get up on their feet and head for the water when they saw our mammoth stroller coming at them.  ;)

 napping girls

My little guy.

After our walk, we treated ourselves by feeding the ducks some bread. 

It was such a beautiful day, and I so enjoyed getting out and stretching my legs a bit!! 

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Alaythia Ruth at 3 mos

Here are a few things I want to remember about sweet Alaythia at this stage in her life:

asleep on Mama's bed

Sleeping- Alaythia is still not sleeping through the night.  She typically wakes up to eat 1-3 times, which is a bit of a bummer, but her excitement to see me when I open her bedroom door makes it a little less of a bummer.  On a more positive note, she has begun taking more significant naps during the day (1-2 hrs each), and she is able to put herself to sleep 90% of the time now if I lay her down awake but tired.  Both of those things are good indicators that at some point she will sleep through the night.  I currently don't have any bedtime routine with her (mainly because I haven't had to), but I expect that at some point I will need to begin some routines with her.  I was honestly really concerned about how in the world I was going to teach her to fall asleep by herself (mainly because I have 2 other big kids to care for during the day, which makes sleep training harder than in the past).  Somehow the Lord showed abundant mercy on me, and she learned not only how to fall asleep by herself but also how to sleep in the crib (instead of the rock n play sleeper) almost overnight when she was roughly 2 mos old! 

Typical Schedule-

• 7 am - nursing and then awake while the big kids eat and get dressed and play
• 9:30(ish) am - laid in crib to fall asleep (this awake time can't be too long, otherwise she'll have a hard time falling asleep)
• 11 am - nursing and awake time while big kids eat lunch and then go down for naps
• 1 pm - laid down for her 2nd nap
• 3 pm - nursing (sometimes she skips this one and stretches her nap until 4ish)
• 5 pm - nursing while we eat dinner at the table
• 5:45 pm - she usually lays on the table during family worship and sometimes dozes off a little
• 6:30 pm - gets in her jammies & nurses to sleep (sometimes she doesn't fall asleep while nursing though, and then I just burp her and lay her down awake)
• 11 pm or midnight - nursing
• 2(ish) am - nursing
• 5(ish) am - nursing

A typical dinner for us

 asleep on the table (with thumb inserted, of course)

pit stop on an all girls trip (filling bellies)

Eating- As you can see from the above schedule, Alaythia basically nurses between 6-8 times per day.  On some days, Alaythia will skip one or two of the night nursings, meaning she may fall asleep at 7 pm and wake up only at 2 am and then 5 am.  Sometimes she does 7pm, 2 am, 6:30 am.... those are great nights!  When she chooses to only nurse 6-7 times per day, then I try to pump a few extra times (once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening depending on how many nursing sessions she skips) to keep my supply up.  When she eats, she typically nurses for 10-15 minutes, and since my supply is still doing well, we are continuing to block feed (one side per nursing session).

asleep for the night in her snuggly fleece jammies

Size- Alaythia is currently wearing size 6 mos clothes.  This is mainly because she has long legs and a long torso.  When she wears summer clothes, she can still fit into some 3 mos things, but in her footie jammies, she really needs a 6 or 9 mos size to be comfortable.  She does seem to have short arms though, so I often end up rolling her sleeves once or twice (Karis is the same way!).  At her 2 mos check up, she weighed 13 lb, 6 oz and was 23.25" long.  On our scale at home, she weighs 14.5 lbs now though.  And though she is a little chunky, she pales in comparison to Little Man at this stage.  ;)


Playing- Alaythia can currently hold her head up while on her belly, and she usually enjoys tummy time for brief stretches (5-10 min).  Her favorite thing to do is lay on her back and observe the world around her.  She is also very good at coo-ing, and she just loves smiling at us!  I had hoped to add a video of her coo-ing, but I'm currently experiencing technical difficulties (I need Hugh to update a few things on my computer).  So maybe I'll add it in a separate post once things are functioning properly again. 

Other memories- 

in the bumbo for the first time

• Though she has tried the Bumbo seat, Alaythia is still not crazy about it and only stays in it for 3-5 min max these days.
• Alaythia likes falling asleep with the lights on, and she really prefers for someone (or even a herd of people) to be in her room doing things like putting away laundry, sweeping, etc. 
• She is just beginning to have more hair grow in on the top of her head.  It is soft, dark brown, peach fuzz hair, and I can surely attest that it is very kissable!  ;)
• Alaythia has found her thumb and often sucks it while trying to fall asleep.
• Her dark eyes have lightened and are now a beautiful blue color.
• My vertigo is pretty much gone now!  It just slowly became less and less until now I hardly ever have a spell of feeling dizzy.

Other photos-

smiling at one of our friends after dinner

playing with Grandma Mary

talking with Daddy

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Touch A Truck 2015

This weekend was our town's annual Touch A Truck event.  We went last year and loved it, so we thought we'd make a go of it this year as well.  The advantage to this year though was that we found out about the horn-free hour!  We tried to arrive right on time for the quiet hour, and we managed to walk through the entire exhibit before it got loud.  Enoch enjoyed touching lots of trucks, but he wasn't real keen on sitting on too many of them.  One change I noticed this year was that Enoch had a lot of questions for the machine operators, and he was especially curious about how things worked.  "What does this button do?"  or "Where does the cement come from?" were some of his typical questions. 

I didn't get many photos this time because we were just enjoying all of the big trucks and equipment, but here are the few I did capture.

 this was about the only machine he was willing to sit on (other than a police car), and he had quite a few questions about it!

This was our view from the car when we were leaving.  Quite a popular event!

Karis sported Enoch's construction hat for a few minutes at lunch.

And the beloved CFA cows came by to say hi.  Karis is quite smitten with them.  :)

They had actually just come from the Touch a Truck event too, which is why they are wearing a fireman and police officer uniforms.  

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