9 Months!

Well Avery is 9 months. I can't believe how big he's gotten. Time really does fly.

He still doesn't really crawl. He's really good at scooting. He uses his arms to pull himself forward, kind of like an army crawl. It's cute. He's also getting good at transferring himself from object to object standing up. He goes from his play block, to the coffee table, to the activity table. Problem is now he occasionally falls, which is sad because of course he cries.

We've also been going through some other hard times. Around 8.5-9 months he was constantly whining. I think he just really wanted to crawl and he couldn't. So he would just whine alll daaayyyy long. He whined when I was holding him, he whined when playing, he whined when eating! SO MUCH WHINING! Luckily it has started to slow down and I'm getting my sanity back.

Also Avery now refuses to get pureed food. He only wants to eat food that he can pick up himself. If you try to feed him pureed food he grabs the spoon and flips out. So we have resorted to cutting foods up into tiny pieces that he can eat. So cheese, strawberries, grapes. and bananas. He's also a huge fan of Annie's Mac & Cheese haha.

Other than these couple issues things are still going well. Avery has two full teeth on the bottom now and he's getting 2 on the top. He's 22 pounds now. My big boy :).

8 Months & First Snow!

Avery is 8 months! Goodness gracious he's getting old. Stop growing!!!

Anyway actually I'm really happy he's getting older. The baby phase is super cute, but I feel like it get's easier and easier the older he gets. Now he has his own little personality.

Avery also isn't crawling yet. I think his tummy is too big. He tries to get up on all fours and then just plops onto his belly. He just keeps going backwards! He rolls and turns to try and get where he wants to haha.

By the way pushing a shopping cart in the snow... much harder than it looks haha.

7 Months!

Well my baby is 7 months now. I was super excited to get to the 6th month mark, but now that we are at 7 months it's actually kind of sad. My baby is growing up :(

He isn't crawling yet, but he is sitting up very well. He has also mastered the art of sliding across the floor backwards on his belly.

Also sadly to say I only attempt to breastfeed him in the morning and at night. He got in this habit of trying to eat, being mad it wasn't coming out fast enough, biting me... and then pulling away crying. Therefore breastfeeding seems to only work when he's very calm and things aren't hectic. Well at least I'm still somewhat trying.

Making Baby Food - The Right Way

If you don't know already making your own baby food is MUCH cheaper than buying the canned/pouch stuff. For instance a can of baby applesauce is around $1.00. Instead you can buy an apple for less than a dollar and make around 3 cans with it. Much cheaper.

Anyway after making many bunches of baby food I've decided to let you know how I do it.

First of all Baby Bullet.... Great cute gift, great idea. Not very practical....

The Baby Bullet system comes with a blender, short cup, little jars, and one freezer tray. The blender is great is you're only going to make one of everything. Like put one apple, one banana, one sweet potato, etc.... But that can take FOREVER!!! If you only make one of each thing you'll just have to make it all over again in a week.

Baby food can last for a month in the freezer, so why not make as much as you need for a month and freeze it all? Problem is the Baby Bullet really can't handle that much. It takes FOREVER to blend anything besides a banana. You're constantly opening the container shoving the spatula in there trying to figure out why the thing isn't moving anymore. Pain in the butt... Also after you've spend ten years trying to blend a sweet potato you can't even put this blender in the dishwasher!

My solution? Just use a regular old food processor. You can put like 3 sweet potatoes in one and done in seconds! Also you can put all the pieces of a food processor in your handy dandy dishwasher.

Okay second part that isn't really necessary that the Baby Bullet has. The little jars to put the food in. Great I guess if you're constantly eating somewhere besides home and you need to put your food in jars. Problem with the jars is they are also way too much food than your child will actually eat in the beginning. Also major problem is you can't refreeze or refrigerate food after you have stuck a spoon in the jar that was in your child's mouth. Bacteria.....

So because of this issue the best solution is the freezer trays. The Baby Bullet comes with one tiny freezer tray, but if you're making loads of food like I am you'll definitely need more.

So buy more trays! My favorite are the Kiddo Feedo ones. Around $17.50 on Amazon. You probably only need two trays. These are great because they are silicone and therefore you can just pop out the food like an ice tray.

So you blend your baby food in a food processor, then pour it into the trays. Stick the trays in the freezer, then about 12-24 hours later pop out the "cubes" and put them in freezer bags labeled with food and date.

I've made all kind of food this way! It's great.

Usually for dinner I pop out 4 cubes onto a plate and then microwave them. I use these plates.


Here's a couple ideas for making food.

Peas (buy organic frozen, steam in bag)
Green Beans (buy organic frozen, steam in bag)
Sweet Potato (boil in water on stove or steam in microwave(20 mins)) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Butternut Squash (boil, steam in microwave, or roast in oven) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Apples (steam in microwave(5 mins)) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Pears (steam in microwave(5 mins)) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)
Avocado (no cooking!) (buy at your local grocery store)
Bananas (no cooking!) (buy at your local grocery store)
Peaches (no cooking!) (buy at your local grocery store or hit up a farmer's market)

6 Months!!!!

I can't believe my little man is 6 months now. He's getting sooo big!!!! I know everyone tells you time flys by so fast and it seriously does! I can't believe how grown up he's starting to look. He's even sitting up now!

When I first started this blog I told myself I was going to continue it after I had my kid. Ya well that's a lot harder than I thought. Working part-time, taking care of a baby, and attempting to make mommy friends takes up a TON of time! Luckily at least I'm having fun.

The first couple months home alone were definitely hard. Your baby doesn't even really interact with you at all. He just kind of sits there. Then life starts to get better with each smile, laugh, sound, etc. Yesterday while picking Avery up from my mom's house he even reached out his hands to me. I just wanted to melt right there. That's a pretty adorable gesture.

Some other info about not being pregnant anymore. The massive shedding finally stopped around 5.5 months which was glorious. I was literally finding tumbleweeds in my house of my hair! Also my wonderful pregnancy nails are GONE. Back to massive cracking and flaking.

Breastfeeding is still happening, just not going as well as I imagined. I feel like the older Avery gets the harder is gets. Half the time these days I hook him onto my boob and then he starts sucking for a little while then he pulls off and starts yelling at me.... Basically I assume he's saying "mommy this milk isn't coming out fast enough!" Great.... Sadly if it gets really bad I resort to giving him Similac Supplementing Formula. Yes I know mother's out there this isn't the greatest solution for my low milk supply these days, but a mom has to do what a mom has to do. I can't sit there and listen to him scream at me while I attempt to keep re-latching him. I'm still attempting to get rid of formula. Most days I can get through the entire day with no formula until nighttime. Then he just gets so hungry so I feed him one of those 2oz pre-mixed formulas. This and feeding him like a ton of mush food a night keeps him asleep for like 11 hours. Hmmm sleep is sooo good.

I've also pretty much given up pumping. I really hated it. I tried for a long time, but it just kept getting me frustrated. I would hook the entire machine up to myself and turn it on and I would end up with less than an ounce from each boob. OMG what a waste! Just seemed pointless. So now when he's with me I feed him from my boobs. Then when he isn't with me whoever is with him feeds him formula. Works well for us.

Back to feeding baby solids. I tried at 4 months. Didn't happen. So tried again at 4.5 months and it worked out much better. We went with the mushy rice/oatmeal cereal stuff by Gerber that you mix with breastmilk. It went pretty well for awhile until I realized Avery was pretty much never going number 2. So I started introducing other solids, mushed peaches, apples, pears, peas, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, prunes, and avocado. Got rid of the cereal all together and the whole bathroom issue fixed itself. Also prunes are a godsend. I make all his other food, but the prunes I buy. They are from Gerber in the plastic square boxes. We feed him a container of prunes at lunch now and then like 6 tablespoons of the other stuff at dinner. Works out pretty well. A well fed baby is a happy baby. As you can see in the photo above - my son's chunky cuteness.

Anyway hopefully I'll be able to write more often. 

5 months!

Better late than never - 5 months!

Transitioning from Rock N Play to Crib

Transitioning from Rock N Play or Bassinet to Crib.

Transitioning from a small bed space to a large spacious crib is difficult for babies. But I have found a solution after much research and some ideas of my own.

First thing I did was transition Avery for nap times then eventually starting putting him to sleep in his crib too.

First thing you'll need. Crib wedge. You can get them for like $17.

Then you'll need towels. Any old towels will work.

Then you put the crib wedge under your sheets and the towels. Form the towels so that they make an oval. I use zip sheets so it's super easy to do!

Here's my towel oval with crib wedge and my little man in his oval! So cute! Works perfectly!