Carson: 7 Months

Growth

• Clothing size: 9 months
• Diaper size: 2 almost 3! Just using up the last box of twos
• 18 lbs and 6 oz (56%) at home weigh
• Has TWO teeth
• Right after he turned 6 months he crawled! He is crawling and pulling up on EVERYTHING.

Likes

• Eating all the things! He eats so much and basically everything.
• Standing. He tries to pull up on everything.
• Being outside, he's always making a run for an open door. Oh and the bathroom door!

Dislikes

• He makes faces at are broccoli and lettuce
• Chili (more on than below)
• Not standing
• Being left alone

General

Carson had a lot of firsts this month. We went to Bear Lake and Florida in July and August. 4 plane rides, sleeping in the stroller, in my arms, in the car, in different pack n plays, nursing anywhere and everywhere. There was a lot going on and he did great! I mean he wasn't perfect and had his moments but he is generally a very chill baby which I am so thankful for.

He is so strong and I can't believe that he started crawling right after 6 months! about a week or two before 7 months he started pulling up and standing. This is CRAZY! Brooks didn't do that until 8 or 9 months (which is more normal). Carson is definitely on the early train and I love it and it breaks my heart. Carson is my literal sunshine and is a mama's boy. Brooks is his favorite but I think I'm a close second. My favorite thing he does right now is sticks his tongue out when he crawls.

Sleep

I've been relaxed with Carson and we don't really have a set 'schedule' yet but more of a similar routine every day. Carson goes to be at 7:30pm. Most nights he'll get up once  to eat around 2am. Sometimes he'll eat twice at 11pm and 4am (especially on days when I notice he nursed less). Maybe once a week he'll sleep through the night so I can see we're headed in that direction. It's random when he wakes up in the morning but usually sometime between 7 and 8. Then his first nap is 2 hours after he wakes up. Usually it's 60-90 minutes. Then I keep him up for 3 hours, then usually a 90 minute nap. If he wakes up at 3:30 then that's great, but any earlier and I'll have to give him a short cat nap at 5. I guess we're following a 2/3/4 wake time schedule and that's working for us with a day occasionally with a catnap.

Breastfeeding/ Solids

Carson has been nursing every 3 hours for a long long time and I thought introducing solids would help space it out more but it hasn't. Sometimes he'll go 3.5-4 hours especially if there's a nap in there, but for the most part he is nursing the same amount AND eating tons of food. I remember Brooks as this age, trying and playing with food. Not for Carson. When I put him in his high chair he is ready to EAT. He gets frustrated with his hands if he can't get it in his mouth quickly enough. He especially likes to be spoon fed because he gets fed faster. I usually give Carson some finger food of what we're having in the meal so he can (try to) feed himself while I eat, then at the end I'll spoon feed him a puree of some sort if he wants more (which is always).

Our last night in Florida I gave Carson a tiny bit of canned chili. In all he probably ate a tablespoon. He was SO HARD to put to bed that night. Crying, screaming, inconsolable. I was so worried something was wrong because this is so unlike him. We all took turns walking him, I tried to nurse him or feed him, going outside- we were trying ALL the things to calm him down. Finally at 11pm Dan was able to get him asleep in his pack n play. 

He slept for a few short hours but at 3am he was awake, crying and inconsolable again. Once again I tried all the things, nursing, solids, walking him, changing his diaper, rocking him, running water even laying with him and snuggling- he loves this. And that actually worked for... 45 minutes maybe. My stomach was king of feeling weird and Carson was squirming and seemed like he was in pain. I took him out in the living room and started jogging his legs and doing bicycles and low and behold out comes ALL the gas. Sooo many baby toots! After that I finally got him to nurse and it was about the time I was supposed to get up (5am) for our early flights anyways. Talk about a crazy night and a travel day running on less than 4 hours of sleep. However I'm thankful this happened on the night when there weren't other family members in the house trying to sleep- I would have felt awful! And because he was up all night, he slept great on the plane!