Eleanor at 7 Months

As of this morning, Eleanor now weighs 16 lbs, has a head circumference of 17"and is 28" tall.
Compare her to William at 7 months. 


Her cute little personality continues to develop more and more. She is very social and is always waiting for me to catch her eye and when I do, she gives me the biggest smile. She loves to play little games like peekaboo. Her favorite thing at the moment, happens during diaper changes. I pull her pants off and then put them over her face. She pulls them off, I say 'peekaboo!' and she giggles. Its adorable!


She also loves playing with Will and gets so excited watching him run around. Her little legs start kicking and she starts squealing in excitement as she watches him run. Its clear that she cannot wait to join him. I envision some great amount of fun will be had by the two of them once she can run after him (it just so happens that he loves for people to chase him!).

Daytime feeds have improved dramatically since her cold cleared up and her two bottom teeth finally made their appearance. She was taking only 30 second feeds, but now she will eat for up to 2-3 minutes at a time. I have also increased the frequency as well so she is getting what I estimate to be about 30oz of breastmilk in a 24 hour period. I sure hope that means that she will have gained a bit when we go in for our supplemental weigh in in a few weeks! She is a pretty calm feeder for the most part. She likes to kick her legs and grope my face. Lately though I have started wearing this rubber teething necklace and she will play with it while she drinks, which is much preferable to having my eyes and nose poked repeatedly. At least she doesn't pinch me like Will used to . . . yet.

We started solid foods just after she turned 6 months, so its been about a month now, and its going well, but slow. She was absolutely uninterested in purees in the beginning. Even when I mixed them with breast milk. She would gag or grimace at everything we offered her, and about the most we could get into her mouth was maybe a spoonful or two. Now things are progressing and she is a little more sanguine about the whole thing. Her favorites are things that shes tried before, and she seems very wary of new flavors. So far she tried apple, pear, prune, and sweet potato. Its slow going but now she will at least eagerly open her mouth for the things she likes, and will eat up to an ounce at a time. I have been trying to limit solids in favor of breast milk (as that has the most calories and fat . . . we are trying to get her to gain weight here after all), but she was inadvertently introduced to the sippy cup the other day. When I wasn't looking, she grabbed Will's sippy by the handle, and deftly got the straw into her mouth. When I finally noticed, I figured she was just biting the rubber straw and not actually drinking anything, but then I noticed that the water level was an ounce lower that it was before. Little stinker had no problem drinking out of a sippy cup, even though she had never even held one before. I was shocked!

Her ability to grab the cup and maneuver it to her mouth is one example of her amazing dexterity skills. She is way more advanced in that category than Will was at this age (though her gross motor skills are behind his). She can drop her pacifier (wubanub brand), lean over to pick it up, and turn it around to get the nipple part right back into her mouth. Thats actually been nice in the middle of the night too, since if it falls out of her mouth, she can find it and put it back in herself! In the gross motor category, she is not exactly head of the pack (which is actually just fine by me!). She has excellent head control, and can roll like the best of them (both ways and multiple times in a row now), and can scoot and turn a bit on her belly, but she cant stand very long and she is not close to sitting yet (I'd guess 1-2 months off yet). I am totally fine with her being a baby a little longer, and being that much further off from mobility and the craziness that brings. I freaked out about that stuff when Will was a baby and I can see now how silly that was! There truly is NO rush!

Her daytime sleep is pretty good (she is still taking a 45-60 minute morning nap, and a 2-3 hour afternoon nap at the same time as Will), but her night time sleep continues to be atrocious. Some nights are ok, and shes only up 2-3 times. But there have also been plenty of nights where she is up 8-10 times. Obviously that means I have been a zombie lately, and I feel like just a shell of what was once a functional person. She had a cold a few weeks back and that contributed. I also think she is teething again and thats not helping. But the biggest thing is that she is unable to soothe herself and really requires the pacifier. I love that she loves the paci, but at the same time I hate her dependance on it. I plan on getting rid of it somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 months. Right now I only let her have it in her bed and car seat, and I hope to limit it further until she no longer requires it anymore. In the mean time, I am exhausted and she is sleeping worse than she did as a newborn. Even when she randomly sleeps completely through the night (it happens maybe once a month), I never feel all that rested, because my body is used to getting up a bunch in the night, so its hard to fall into a deep sleep, and one night is not nearly enough to catch up from the extreme deficit. I know though that this is all a phase, it wont be like this forever, and things will get better with time. I just have to power through. I have said this before and I will say it again, thank GOD that Will is a good sleeper!

She is making mental strides right now and is beginning to understand cause and effect.When she is hungry, and I start to walk back to the nursery to feed her, she recognizes it and grabs my head with both hands and starts sucking on my cheek in eager anticipation of the milk. She also recognizes her bedtime bottle and gets VERY excited when she sees it and eagerly reaches for it. The car seat is another thing she is very familiar with and she starts jutting out her chest the moment I start to put her in it, in anticipation of the straps being tightened. That makes me laugh!

Eleanor is a feisty, happy child who is nearly always smiling and laughing. She makes our home more joyful and makes us all smile more. I love her more than words can say, but I do so wish she would start sleeping better soon! ;) Only time will tell on that note!