Clara Eight Months

My baby Clara or chicken nugget as we call her turned 8 months old this week. I always get comments on how she's so petite and though she is just under the 50th percentile in weight now, she's a strong little baby. She started crawling at 7.5 months and is constantly pulling herself up on anything she can find. I'm pretty sure she'll start walking before she turns one. The problem with crawling is that she now wants to destroy all of Amelie's toys that she lays out nicely. Amelie is always playing with her kitchen, baking birthday cakes with icing and rainbow sprinkles or making strawberry lemonade. When she sets all her plates down, Clara just goes for them (no matter how many toys she has for herself) and destroys it. This has turned into a constant battle between the two. Since one major meltdown one day from both of them, it's become much better, but still, it's a struggle for everyone. 

During the day I breastfeed Clara right when she wakes up, an hour before lunch, the late afternoon plus right before bed around 7ish. I plan to breastfeed until she turns one, but the sessions are getting shorter and shorter now as she's much more interested in playing. 

Clara loves food though I am starting to see a hint of picky-ness shining through. Her favorites are mango, strawberries, baked sweet potato fries, broccoli, fusilli pasta, and meatballs. She's starting to master picking up Cheerios and blueberries too. I started spoon feeding her a little bit more these days since a lot of her food ends up on the floor with baby-led weaning. She especially likes oatmeal with almond butter, turkey chili, or a good soup. After I spoon feed her, I always give her pieces of her own food to eat. 

I had a blissful 2 weeks+ of Clara sleeping through the night from 7pm-7am though in the past week or so she's been waking up once or twice a night. I'll shush her if it's early on then only give her one feed during the night. She's still in the bedside cot though I know she's pretty much outgrown it. We are going to start the transition (for both girls) out of our room to their own rooms after Easter. I'm excited, scared and nervous for this and not looking forward to the many middle of the night wakeups (probably due to Amelie more than Clara). I've loved having Amelie co-sleep with us so far, but it's time for her to move to her own bed! 

The weather has been sunny and warmer lately so we've been taking lots of trips to the playgrounds in our neighborhood. Clara loves to go on the swings and giggles so much when I push her. I can't wait for warmer weather so we can go to the beach, make popsicles and have picnics.

Clara Seven Months

This girl and her serious face, it's too cute. She's such a little nugget now at seven months. She weighs 7.16 kilos (just a bit under when Amelie was seven months old) and is right below the 50th percentile for weight. Speaking of weight, baby led weaning is Clara's thing. She pretty much eats anything I give her and doesn't really like when I try to spoon feed her. Her favorites now are broccoli, sweet potato fries, slow cooked chicken thighs, avocado, mango and pears. I give her mainly what we are eating - just without adding salt or sugar. Baby led weaning is great since I don't have to spend 100% of my time focusing on feeding her. Everything was cut into finger size shapes until recently Clara has been perfecting her pincer grip and can even pick up blueberries now. 

Breastfeeding is still going strong with Clara. I feed her when she wakes up, once before lunch, the late afternoon, then right before bed. Lately she's been waking up once around 2 or 3am for a quick feed then she's back to sleep. I'm still planning to breastfeed her until she's a year just like Amelie and I can foresee that dropping feeds with her and substituting them with food won't be a problem. 

Sleeping and napping has been a bit more consistent these days. She's down in her snuzpod by 7 and wakes up around 7. Naps are around 9am and then one long afternoon nap or 2 small ones. We're planning to transition her to her big crib in her own room in the next month or so as she'll grow out of her snuzpod soon. I'll definitely miss her sleeping right next to me, but it's also time to move Amelie into her own bed too. 

For the past few weeks, Clara looks like she's getting to crawl at any moment. She knows how to go backwards and will try to grab anything and everything. She gets so frustrated when she wants to go forwards, but only ends up backwards usually underneath our footstool. She just recently learned how to sit up by herself from being on her tummy too. She's definitely not far off from being on the move. 

Here are a few more pics from the month - happy seven months Clara! 

Clara Six Months

My baby girl Clara is 6 months old today. Time is going by so quickly with Clara. I guess it's probably because she's my second and I kind of know what to expect, but it's seriously flown by these past few months. Clara's favorite thing right now is rolling. I put her on her back and she rolls. At night, she rolls and get upset. She's definitely on her way to crawling too and is already getting herself into position, but not quite ready to move yet. 

Due to the constant rolling, Clara hasn't been sleeping too well these past few weeks. She'll wake herself up in the middle of the night and get really frustrated. I will only feed her once to get her back to sleep because I don't want her to get into the habit of having multiple feeds at night - especially since I know she's getting enough food during the day. She'll eventually fall back to sleep as some shushing, but it's not great for me since she's up so much. She has 2-3 naps during the day and is usually down for the night by 7:30 and up by 7/8ish (not to mention those few wake up in the middle of the night). 

Speaking of food - Clara is having a great time with eating! I still breastfeed her roughly every four hours during the day, but we starting introducing food a couple weeks back and she loves it. The difference between her and Amélie it that she will actually put things in her mouth. I had such a hard time weaning Amélie and she would seal her mouth shut. With Clara, she'll eat whatever I give her. We're doing a mix of purees and baby-led weaning, but she's mainly feeding herself as it's her preference. Her favorite so far are mango, pear, lentil soup and pasta with broth & parmesan. 

Clara loves watching her big sis and Amélie loves giving Clara cuddles. I love the baby voice Amélie does whenever she talks to Clara. I hope they grow up to be great friends. I have lots of pics from this past month, I just couldn't narrow it down. Happy 6 months Clara! 

^^Chowing down on mango, pear & oatmeal cookies (made with banana, almond butter & oats)

^^rolling, rolling, rolling

^^watching tv with daddy & that look on Clara's face when she'd looking at the tablet, haha

^^how cool does Amélie look there? 

^^sissys