7 Months

Yesterday my sweet Emma turned 7 months old. How did that happen? This month was the fastest yet. That fact scares the pee out of me.


That said, I'm really loving this age. And Emma in general. She is fantastic. In the last month she's gone from being a crabby, high-maintenance, sickly, serious, occasionally fun newborn to being a happy, fun, and joyful baby. She is an absolute love. You needn't work hard to get her to smile anymore--she is an easy happy face most of the time, enlarging her fan club everywhere she goes.

She's weighing in at a whopping 15 pounds 14.9 ounces. Baby gained some weight! Woo hoo! We've finally doubled her birth weight. Yay!

In the area of skills, she is getting closer to crawling. She can also stand holding onto furniture and walk with a pair of grown-up hands to help. She's becoming a better eater (usually). And the crunches have made a major comeback.

Of course the question on everyone's minds (or just mine? who cares): does she sleep? Well, drum roll please...YES! Well, better than before anyway. Which is a resounding YES around here. We decided to buckle down and transition her to her crib this weekend. We've tried it a few times, and it's always been an overwhelming failure. Screaming galore, puke everywhere. But this time she seemed ready. She seems to have turned a corner with her reflux, and she is illness-free. Who knows how long that will last? So we decided to go for it. I know that in the Mom Community there are passionate wars about sleep training. About everything really. Which is stupid. Being a mom is hard enough--do we really need to add judgment on top of it? But I could care less. I'm a firm believer in the Whatever Works for your Family method. We tried all the gentle, no-cry sleep solutions with Ben. They only pissed him off more. The whole "pick him up when he cries then put him down when he calms" ad infinitum thing doesn't work when he doesn't stop crying. I tried. Oh I tried. But he would have none of it. I spent weeks of "gentle" sleep training, and they were most assuredly NOT tear-free. For anyone. So I let him cry it out. And it was over in two days. He slept deeply in his crib, all night long, ever after. (Rest assured, he has no attachment issues, and our relationship is as perfect as it could get.) I know that in the so-called Mom Wars I could get barbecued for letting my kids cry it out. But I could care less.

All the same, I wasn't going to let Emma cry it out. She seemed a little too...um, spirited? I figured that given her track record, she would probably cry it out for a month. But then Matt and I found ourselves realizing that we've been doing the no-cry sleep training. For seven months. And she cries. Oh she cries. So this weekend we decided to hunker down and endure the three days of Hell.

It didn't even take three days. On day two she cried for 5 minutes. On day 3 she went down without a peep.

As an added bonus, on the second night she woke up a few times because she'd rolled over onto her stomach and couldn't push herself back over because of the swaddling. So now she's not just in her crib, but unswaddled as well.

So yesterday I was walking around like I was some kind of queen. It was the happiest morning ever. And part of why I was all smiley was because it just seemed so funny to me. I never had to do any of this with Ben, and the fact that we're weaning Emma off a cradle and swaddling at seven months is laughable. But this was honestly the first time she's ever really been ready.

Ben's new name for Emma is Smooshie. I love it. And I love Smooshie. She's an obstinate and picky one. But I love her.

Happy 7 months, Smooshie!!!