Well, so much has happened over the last three months, and with Rosie turning seven months old I thought it best give you a full update on life with our little darling. If you would like to look back on our journey I have the following blog posts for you:
Rosie’s First Two Weeks and My Postpartum Journey
Rosie’s Routine at Three to Five Weeks and Life with Baby
Life with Rosie at Six to Ten weeks
Life with Rosie at Four to Seven Months
These blogs posts are full of tips and tricks for the different ages and stages of newborn and baby life.
One of my current favorites –
Before I get into all of the details of the past few months, I wanted to share one of my favorite products with you. I was recently sent a luxury baby blanket from G.H. Hurt & Son. This is my second blanket from this UK store, and both times I have received one I been so very impressed with the quality of their craftsmanship. G.H. Hurt & Son have a range of beautiful baby blankets and shawls to wrap your baby in luxury. They are hand finished and knitted in the finest yarns, making them a wonderful baby shower or christening gift. G.H. Hurt & Son have even been used by royalty. Their products are perfect for baby’s delicate skin, because they are made from the softest wool, cashmere and cotton. As well and shawls and blankets, G.H. Hurt & Son have a range of bonnets, boots and cardigans perfect for winter. You can shop their products via their website or browse their Instagram. Rosie looks so beautiful and content wrapped in G.H. Hurt & Son below,
Rosie has had so many changes over the past three months and I feel like our little lady is really finding out who she is. Rosie has a voice big now and likes to use it in conversation that we get to listen to all day long.
Rosie’s routine –
I have used Contented Baby by Gina Ford as a routine guide for all three children, if you have read my other routine blogs this is something you will already know. A routine is not for everyone, but for me is enables me to plan my day, whether that be looking after the older two or slipping in some work.
Here is a little look at what Rosie’s routine looks like at four to seven months:
7am – I wake her for the day. I wake myself at 6am and make breakfast, lunch and dinner for the all the family. I also make my bed and do any chores I can. Ari and Chloe wake up between 6am and 7am so I make a breakfast that can be ready and waiting on the table for them. From 6 months of age Rosie started having a breakfast solids meal after her morning breastfeed. I get Ari and Chloe to dress themselves as soon as they finish breakfast. I lay their clothes out the night before so that they are ready for them. I then brush their teeth for them and help them make their beds. The last thing I do before I leave the house is express any milk from both breasts.
8.15am – We get in the car to go out for the day or do Kindy drop off. Normally on Kindy days I go to a 9am F45 gym class and Rosie plays during my session.
9.45am to 10.30am – From about five months of age she stopped sleeping during my morning F45 workout so I pushed her nap back. I put her in the car to drive home and she falls straight asleep. These does mean that I am stuck in the car for about 20 minutes when I get home but that is ok. If I am home for this nap she has it in her cot.
10.30am – I wake her and give a full breastfeed. This breastfeed was dropped just before she turned seven months old and solids were fully established. I twas replaced with a full lunch.
11am – From five months old I introduced her first solid feed of the day and this was lunch. It was just little tastes after her luchh time breastfeed.
12am to 2.15pm – She has her biggest nap of the day. I put her down for lunch nap in her cot in her room everyday if I can.
2.15pm – I wake.
2.30pm – I give her a breastfeed. Rosie no longer has an afternoon nap. The only time I wold give one to her is if she didn’t have at least two hours sleep at lunch. I would then allow about 15 minutes between 4 and 5pm, usually on the way to kindy.
5pm – After 6 months I introduced a dinner meal of solids.
5.45pm – I start her bath.
6.00pm – I make sure she is dressed for bed and I am feeding her. She has her bottle of expressed breast milk first and I find she drinks about 170mls. I do this out in the lounge with Ari and Chloe so that we can be together, though when I only had Ari it was always done in his room (better for relaxing the baby.)
6.30pm – I take her into her room and change her nappy and give her some extra breast milk. Once she has had enough and is relaxed I tuck her in for the night. She is always asleep by 6.45pm/7pm.
9pm – Before I go to bed I express both breasts fully.
In the night – Rosie sleeps from 7pm to 7am and wakes once for a feed between normally about 4am. If she wakes earlier then that I know that she doesn’t need feeding and just resettle her if I can.
Her maximum day sleep at this age is 3 hours and 15 minutes and she sleeps 12 hours at night.
Our bedtime routine with three children –
I often get asked what our evening routine looks like with three children and it is something like this:
5pm – Is when we eat dinner. We have it as a family at the table. I juggle eating my food and feeding Rosie at the same time.
5.45pm – This is bath time. I normally wash Rosie in her baby bath and the older children have showers. Sometimes they all have a bath together or a shower with me. Other times Rosie has a wash in the kitchen sink! It all depends how hands on Ryan can be at this time.
6pm – Ari and Chloe dress themselves and put their nappies on. They are then allowed to watch TV but only our they are ready for bed, as it is their motivation to get themselves ready. During this time I dress Rosie for bed and heat her milk. I do her bottle out on the couch with them so we can be together.
6.30pm – By this time I am in Rosie’s room giving her a fresh nappy and finishing off her breast milk. This only takes about 10 minutes before she is a sleep.
6.40pm – She is normally asleep by now and I tuck her in. We then put Ari and Chloe to bed. Ryan does Chloe and I do Ari’s bedtime. We do a book separately and each of them has their different things they like to do before they go to sleep. Ari listens to two songs and then is fast asleep. Chloe can take a little longer and seems to have more demands for her Daddy. We have them asleep at 7pm or on a night where we are running behind it is 7.30pm.
If I have all of them home by myself I basically do the same thing, though I will read a book together and then put Chloe to bed while Ari looks at books or draws in his room. Sometimes I will let them fall asleep in the same bed and ten carry Ari into his room.
Dummy –
To my horror Rosie started to refuse her dummy at 6 months of age. I used to love the dummy as a great way to settle and keep her happy. I think it had something to do with her first two teeth coming in. She just started pushing it out with her tongue and that was that. Interestingly Chloe did the exact same thing at the same age, whereas Ari liked his for sleeping until he was three. I am totally OK with it (kind of,) other then we have had to go through a transition period where she needed to learn to settle her self back to sleep without sucking on something. She is still getting the hang of it and some night is waking up unable to settle. I will then feed her, though she isn’t actually hungry she just need the sucks (but won’t take the dummy.) What a clever little girl huh?! LOL. We will persist with helping her to learn to settle herself with no dummy and remember that ‘this too shall pass’, as I feel like we are almost there.
Breast Feeding –
I have been asked how I breastfeed on demand but in a schedule. So, I have always had my routine and set times that I breastfeed, but of course if my baby is hungry then I feed her. I have always found that by gently nudging her onto routine feeds from 7 days old that she has rarely needed to feed outside of the set times. She has been able to take long feeds and been content until her next one.
Family –
Now that Rosie is able to have time on her play mat or in her walker I feel like I have more time to be involved with the other children again. Not that I particularly wasn’t, but I did feel like it was often me caring for Rosie and Ryan having fun with the older two. Rosie is very happy for her Daddy to give her bottles of expressed milk, and be entertained by others. I also feel like I am getting a bit more time back with Ryan, which is something that we really needed. We have been able to go on some date nights, and even had a one night stay away recently.
Solids –
Rosie had her first taste of food solids when she turned five months old. I have details everything related to this on my blog post How I Have Successfully Introduced Solids to My Babies. It includes my step by step processing and a recipe combinations guide for baby puree. I have been asked about Baby Lead Weaning and whether this is something that I do. I would say that I do a fix. I definitely puree feed for the most part, but I also give her pieces of whole foods to suck, chew, hold and explore. I am really happy with our balance of the two, and Rosie is content and thriving.
Motor home holiday –
In October we had our first big holiday away as a family of five. Prior to this they had been short weekends away. We hired a motor home and traveled to Stradbroke Island the the Gold Coast. It was very different to the overseas trips that we had booked to take Rosie on, but was honestly such a fantastic trip. You can read about Why Every Family Needs To Take a Trip in a Motorhome.
First Christmas –
Rosie had a beautiful first Christmas and the whole family really treasured it with her. I learnt from the past that I didn’t need to go overboard with first Christmas gifts, and focused on getting a few small toys that she would love. She was six months old by Christmas day, so was able to enjoy her own Christmas lunch.
Rosie has all the moves –
Between 24 and 28 weeks old Rosie learnt to roll, army crawl and sit! It was quite amazing. Prior to that she still had a little bobble head which wasn’t totally strong yet, so it was incredible to watch her be able to do all of these things in a short space of time. It has been so fun to watch her learn about what her body can do and explore it, though it hasn’t come without its challenges… read on…
Sleep –
Once Rosie learnt to roll we could no longer fully swaddle her for bedtime. This was always gong to be tricky because Rosie loved to be in a tight swaddle to sleep. I tried so many things and was getting overwhelmed. Then a follower on Instagram recommended that I get a Love To Dream transitional suit in a 2.5 tog, which is the thickest fabric you could get. Even though it was summer we were able to put our air conditioning on for her. Rosie loved the weight of the fabric, and from the moment I changed to that suit we no longer had issue with her sleeping because of rolling. (of course the next issue was the dummy.) I have since been able to move onto lighter tog now which is more appropriate for our current summer temperatures.
Teeth –
At six months old Rosie had two tiny teeth poke through of the bottom. They happened at a similar time to her transitioning to arms out sleeping and she wasn’t well rested, so it was hard to tell what was upsetting her more. Of course she also started to refuse the dummy. I would say that five to six months have been the most challenging time with Rosie so far. Honestly though we are still so lucky with how well she sleeps, and if an unsettled baby is all we need to deal with for a few days then we are very blessed and we loved her to pieces. This could have also happened during some sort of sleep regression, though it was around about five to six months.
I will continue to share Rosie’s routine and the changes I make to it in my next blog post. If you have any questions or want me to cover anything in particular in the next blog update please send me a message on Instagram. Just remember that this is what works for me, it might not work for you. Lets keep it light and not judge each other. If you have any tips that you think would work well for Rosie I would love to hear from you. I think that this is a fantastic platform where we can hopefully all pick up tips that might help each other.
Thank you for reading,
Disclaimer – As always please remember that I am not a midwife, lactation consult, nutritionist, doctor or any other medical expert. I am just a Mother expressing her journey and opinions. This blog post has been sponsored by Expedia. Natalie Sullivan and www.thissweetlife.blog only endorses brands/items that her family uses, loves and highly recommends. To read the full disclaimer see here. Thank you to G.H. Hurt and Son for sponsoring this blog post.