6 Months!! How can she be 6 months old already?! She has done so much in the last month, its crazy.  She is “talking” all the time.  Her favorite things to say are “ya-ya-ya-ya” and “dadadada”. I keep trying to get her to say “mamamamamama”, but it hasn’t happened yet 😉

She has mastered the art of rolling over, and will roll everywhere if you don’t watch her.  She has also just recently started sitting up all by herself. She is still a bit wobbly so we aren’t too far from her when she’s sitting up.  She loves it, and loves to sit there and watch her brothers go crazy.

We tried some solid food with Harper a few weeks ago and she was not a fan.  She just spit it out and made a face like,  “what are you feeding me?!”. We’ll try again in a few more weeks, I just don’t think she was ready for it. She is still drinking the Elecare (which our insurance is finally covering, Praise The Lord! She was drinking about 4.5 – 5.0 oz until last week when we bumped her up to 6 ounces and she drinks the whole bottle. I think she just had a growth spurt and that’s when we bumped her up. Clothes that were too big for her 2 weeks ago are now almost too small.

Her reflux was doing great with the two medications that she was on.  But at the beginning of the year our insurance decided they weren’t going to pay for her Prevacid anymore, even with a letter from our pediatrician saying it was medically necessary.  So we had to have the generic medication compunded so she could take it…she HATES it and spits it out, so she only gets about half of what she should.  So since she’s not getting the meds, she’s having more pain and reflux.

Harper loves to be outside just like Hayden.  She loves to sit on my lap outside while we watch the boys run around and play.

For the most part Harper is sleeping through the night.  She is not consistent though, she’ll sleep for 9-12 hours some nights without getting up to eat, and other nights she’ll be up every 6.  Typically she is taking 2-3 naps during the day for 30 mins to 2 hours, depending on the day.  She still sleeps in her Woombie and I dread taking her out of that because she loves it so much.

Just for fun, I pulled up the boys’ photos from when they were 6 months to compare and boy…you can not deny these 3 are siblings.

2 months old

Little missy is 2 months old.  She has grown so much in the last month but I don’t have her current stats because we don’t go for her 2 month check up until next week. She definitely has gained some weight and length in the last few weeks.  I just had to put away the majority of her newborn clothes because they were getting too short and I couldn’t button them.

She has had quite a difficult time during the first 2 months of her life, with her reflux and milk protein intolerance.  She has pretty bad reflux and is on Prevacid twice a day to control that.  She still has some bad days but over all her reflux is doing much better on the meds.

We did see the GI doctor in the last month and he confirmed her milk intolerance and reflux and gave us some things to watch for.  If we see any of these symptoms we will go back and see him, other wise we keep doing what we are doing and hope she outgrows the milk issues.  We can’t truly say its a milk allergy because we haven’t had her tested for it, so they are just calling it an intolerance.  The GI doc did add a probiotic for her to take daily and we switched her formula from Neocate to Elecare, which is the other amino-acid based formula.  I asked him if we could switch to the Elecare because she broke out in a rash all over her face and neck.  The rash started about a day or two after starting the Neocate and just continued to get worse.  Within a week of switching to the Elecare, the rash was completely gone.  It could have been a coincidence, but I think it was something in the Neocate that she was reacting to.

her horrible rash – the pictures don’t look as bad as it did in person

She is eating 4.5 ounces every 4 hours now and then we give her a 5 ounce bottle at night before she goes down for the night.  She’s just like her brothers and likes her milk.  It doesn’t matter if her reflux is bothering her and she’s hurting….she will continue to eat in between episodes of crying.  This usually doesn’t happen often, but it will occasionally.

As far as sleeping goes, we never know what to expect out of Harper at night.  Because of this, we really don’t have a set schedule for her, which I really don’t like. She will generally go down anywhere between 800-1000, sometimes later depending on when she eats last and then will sleep, on average, 5-6 hours then wake up to eat again and go right back to sleep.  She has had a few nights where she went 7-8 hours and one night she even went 10 hours!

After the newborn sleepiness wore off she really hadn’t really been a good sleeper during the day and would sleep for 30 mins here and there but never really a good nap.  We started doing more tummy time in the last few weeks and when we would put her on her tummy she would fall asleep, every time! She has turned into a tummy sleeper for sure.  She can sleep or 2-3 hours on her stomach, but we only let her do it during the day and that’s because she is in the pack n play in the living room where we are or in her crib when I’m in there, and we can watch her.  At night she still sleeps on her back and will until she can roll over on her own.  Then at that point, we can’t do anything about it.

She’s starting to like to lay on her activity mat and watch it or lay in the pack n play and look at herself in the mirror.  Just in the last week, she has started to watch the mobile over her crib.

Harper is definitely a cuddle bug.  She loves to be held, and held close to you.  I ordered a carrier for her when I was pregnant and was just waiting for her to be big enough to put her in it.  It has proven to be a wise investment.  She loves it! She can be held close to momma and usually falls asleep while she’s in it.  I have worn it several times just around the house when she is fussy.  We will definitely use it this fall when we go to the arboretum because taking a stroller through the new children’s garden is quite cumbersome (more on that later).

A few weeks ago all the cousins on Jonathan’s side got together and for the first time we were able to get a photo of all 3 baby girls that were born around the same time.  We didn’t get a good picture of the babies, just of us holding them.

Harper has actually started smiling in response to something now.  She loves it when I smack my lips and she’ll usually start smiling at that – if she’s in the mood.

I am so happy that our sweet baby girl is finally feeling much better since finding the right “cocktail” of meds, probiotics and the best formula.  Since going through all of this with the boys we knew what was going on and were able to get a jump on things before she had to live with the pain too long.  Our pediatrician has been great too and together we got her back to our happy baby again. I love you sweet girl, can’t wait to see what you’ll be doing in another month!