7 Month Update

I have a lot to update on our little man! He is growing up way too fast.

A week before we went home for Christmas (around Dec. 12, about 5.5 months old) he started sitting up on his own. At first he would fall over pretty easily, but he is a pro now!

Around the same time, Eli also came down with his first ear infection. That one seemed to go away after round one of antibiotics. The last weekend we were home, he came down with the same symptoms, we had him looked at by our family physician and he didn't have an ear infection but his throat was red - round 2 of antibiotics. Then about a week after getting home, he came down with ear infection #2! This led to antibiotics round #3. This finally cleared it up and, knock on wood, he hasn't had another one yet. A few weeks later he did however come down with a short-lived viral infection with the only symptom of a fever up to 104 F! Luckily it only lasted a few days and he never had any other problems, but that was pretty scary!

At his 6 month appointment (which was more like 6.5 months) he weighed 17 lbs 9 oz, and was 28.5 inches long. Such a big boy! He is still tall and skinny for his age.

When Eli had his second ear infection, the pediatrician (not the one he usually sees) wanted to try him on normal formula, to see if his allergy/sensitivity has gone away. We first tried regular formula made with cows milk and that made him have diarrhea and bad eczema. Then we tried a soy formula, his eczema stayed as bad but then he was super constipated. Poor little man! So when we saw our normal pediatrician 2 weeks later, she put us back on his special formula. So while it stinks that he still has problems with dairy and soy, it is nice that we can still get our health insurance pay for it! He is back on his special formula now and doing well.

About 2 weeks ago, his first tooth finally broke through the skin (front bottom), and a few days ago the second broke though (also front bottom)! It appears though that he has really slow moving teeth because his teeth are still just barely above the gum line, who knows when they will finally be fully in.

We finally got Eli into the base daycare a week ago! While we are very sad to leave our first daycare (Kindercare on Gold Links), the new daycare is really nice and saves us $50 a week! Eli seems to really like it, although I think he likes it too much because all he wants to do is play, he won't take good naps or even hardly eat during the day. Hopefully this will change once he gets used to it! Unfortunately since he doesn't eat enough during the day, he has been requiring more food at night, including a bottle either around 10 pm or 3 am, then he wakes up hungry around 4:30 am. We have had success lately getting him to sleep until 6 or so if we feed him around 10 pm then give him a binky and turn on his mobile when he wakes up at 4:30 am. But that is getting old, especially since he used to sleep 12 hours straight!

Eli is on the verge of crawling! About 1-2 weeks ago he started getting up on his hands and knees a little, and now he will get up like that and rock back and forth and try to figure out how to reach a toy, but for now he just plops back down on his tummy. I think he will be crawling by the end of February! We are so in for it. He also loves standing up, he will lock his little body straight so he can't even sit down. If he is sitting, he will grab onto my fingers and stand himself up. And we have started standing him up at his play table and he can stand there leaning on it by himself for a while, so strong! He doesn't seem interested in walking yet, but I think one he starts crawling, it won't be long before he is pulling himself up to a stand.

Eli has started doing this little "dance" sometimes, it is too cute. He will move his head left to right and sometimes move his body the opposite direction. We can't really figure out why he does this, but he seems to be having fun!

He also seems to be getting closer to talking. He loves to make noises and he makes lots of different talking-type sounds all the time. His most common sound though is a "huh" sound he makes if he wants our attention or if he just is trying to tell us something.

We started Eli on solid food around Christmas time, but he really doesn't like it very much! Especially food on a spoon, he will eat it some at daycare but he will hardly eat anything I try to feed him on a spoon. He does though love the Gerber puffs (and Target brand puffs) and the baby rice cakes called Baby Mum Mum, he seems to like feeding himself. So I think I'm going to try giving him more foods that he can pick up and feed himself. This morning I gave him pieces of mushed up avocado and he seemed to like it! So I think that is going to be my plan, giving him really soft small pieces of mushed up real food until I know he can chew then give more solid pieces as tolerated. Hopefully that will work, he needs some food!

I'm sure there is more to update but I can't think of it now, if I do I will post it!