6 Months

Nolan turned 6 months old this week. Can you believe it? I can't!!!! My sweet little baby is quickly turning into a sweet little boy! It is amazing how much he changes from week to week and even day to day. I have mentioned in earlier blogs that Nolan does new things each day and that hasn't changed. He has mastered rolling over and we are currently working on mastering sitting unassisted. Learning to sit has been a bit of a challenge because every time we would try to get him to sit he would straighten his legs to stand. My mom told me that I was a lot like this as a baby...always wanting to stand. However, over the last week I have been working hard with him in the evenings on sitting and besides the occasional wobble and topple he is doing quite well. It is so fun to watch him master these new skills. And you can tell that he is quite proud of himself by the big grin he flashes showing off his two little teeth.

Besides sitting he is also starting to work on crawling. It is quite cute. He can get his knees pulled up under his belly sticking his little butt up in the air (he can be found sleeping like this) and he can push up on his hands, but he hasn't figured out how to do the two together to get himself moving. He gets frustrated by this, especially when the toy that he wants is out of reach. He often resorts to rolling over and twisting to get the toy he wants.

In other news we are finally improving on sleeping. We have started only going into his room the first time that he wakes up and I often nurse him at this time. If/when he wakes up again we have decided to stop going into his room because we have discovered that we are more of a distraction than anything. We had been keeping him in his crib when we went in, only rubbing his back but as soon as we would stop rubbing his back he would push up on his hands, lift his neck, and arch his back to look at us. It would take up to 2 hours to get him back to sleep. We have discovered from the few nights that we have let him fuss that he doesn't fuss that long before going back to sleep. I have been totally against letting him "cry it out" and still don't like that method, however I feel OK about what we are doing because he doesn't cry for that long and I feel that he is old enough to learn that it is time to sleep. We had one night about a week ago where he slept 10 1/2 hours and last night he slept for 10 hours again. AMAZING! I have not always slept that well because I wake up wondering what has happened since I haven't heard him...but I think if he has a few more nights like that it won't be long before I too am sleeping straight through.

Well, I could go on about all the new things Nolan is doing but I think I will stop here and save the rest for another day. It truly is amazing to me how much this little guy has changed our lives. I still find myself, even after six months, looking at him in awe. I carried him for 9 months and here he is 6 months old already....an amazing, healthy, happy, intense, determined, little boy. A true blessing.