my swimsuit | sunglasses | cover-up | shiloh’s swimsuit
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a monthly update on Shiloh! When she was first born I was doing them every month along with post partum updates…but I wasn’t sure if that was something y’all wanted to keep seeing or not so I took a little hiatus. But, I personally love reading other mom’s blogs about their baby updates, especially moms who haves babies around Shiloh’s age! So I thought I’d do a 7 month update for y’all today because I feel like SO much has changed recently!
Honestly, when Shiloh was still in the newborn stage and people kept telling me “it just keeps getting better! every stage is so fun!” I didn’t believe them! I LOVED the newborn stage so much and was honestly sad thinking about how fast time was flying by. I didn’t want Shiloh to get any older. Now that she’s 7 months old though I can honestly say (for me!) every stage truly has been SO fun, and I especially love the one she is in right now! She is constantly smiling and laughing and talking (not actual words, obviously haha) and I love seeing her little personality start to shine through. She can roll from tummy to back, and we are working on sitting up. She can sit up for a minute or so unassisted, and then her head kinda topples her over haha. She definitely knows who Michael and I both are and smiles more for us than anyone else. I love that she knows we are her mommy and daddy.
travel
We’ve still been traveling a ton with her which has been so fun (see this post for my tips on traveling with a baby). It’s definitely more challenging to travel with her now vs when she was a newborn though. When she was 12 weeks old she would still sleep anywhere and everywhere and that’s not necessarily the case anymore haha. She’s still really good on planes / trips though and we’ve really loved all the special memories we’ve made with her on all of our trips. I still use and swear by the solly wrap on planes and when we travel. This is the only way we can get Shiloh to nap if she’s not in her crib! I know I won’t be able to use it for too much longer because she’s growing so fast (you can actually use it though up until 25lbs! but wowza my back would hurt haha). But I’ve tried our structured carrier and either I can’t figure it out, or Shiloh just hates it. Any tips there? Definitely doesn’t do the trick like the solly wrap does!
feeding
Shiloh is still exclusively breastfed, and we started introducing solids around 6 months old! My goal was to make it to 6 months with breastfeeding and go from there (with the ULTIMATE goal being 1 year!). It’s still going really well so I think we’re going to keep going…until Shiloh or I decide it’s not working well anymore. I’ll be honest…in the last few weeks I’ve contemplated stopping. I have a lot of breastmilk stored up in the freezer and I’ve thought about just switching her to bottles of breastmilk. I honestly do love breastfeeding and think it is SO amazing, so miraculous, and truly beautiful (not to mention amazing for the baby)…but it is SO much work. I work really hard to keep my supply up – with lactation supplements, always drinking a TON of water, pumping twice a day, never missing a feeding or pump etc. And part of me feels ready to just be done because bottles sound so much easier. But I decided to just take things a day at a time and see how we’re doing. Right now, we are having no issues breastfeeding and it honestly is so convenient and so good for Shiloh and such a sweet time with my baby. So we’re gonna keep going! Who knows what tomorrow holds haha.
We did begin introducing solids around 6 months which has been a lot of fun. From what I have read (and what our pediatrician told us), breastmilk (or formula) is still baby’s #1 source of nutrition for the entire first year of their life. So, solids are more just for fun and to get them used to different textures! (So I still nurse her just as much. Sharing our schedule below). We are using the baby led weaning approach to solids, which essentially teaches your baby to feed themselves, and teaches them to eat normal real people food. (So, no purees or ‘baby food’). So, Shiloh eats bananas, avocado, bacon, etc…and she also loves whole milk yogurt! We’ve tried eggs and she has no interest haha. We’ve tried A LOT of things and most of them she doesn’t really care for. But we keep trying! (If you are curious about Baby Led Weaning: “Baby-Led Weaning explodes the myth that babies need to be spoon-fed and shows why self-feeding from the start of the weaning process is the healthiest way for your child to develop. With baby-led weaning [BLW, for short], you can skip purées and make the transition to solid food by following your baby’s cues.”). The book has been really interesting and i’ve also started following several helpful BLW accounts on instagram! We aren’t following it exactly but I think the principle behind it is really great.
schedule
We are still following Moms on Call (if you are curious about the moms on call approach, see this blog post I did on it). Now that Shiloh is 7 months old though, her schedule has changed a bit recently! I bought the next Moms on Call book, which is for babies 6 to 15 months. So Shiloh follows the “6-8 months” schedule in this book, which looks something like this:
7am: wake up and nurse (i usually have to wake her up around 7 haha girlfriend loves to sleep)
8am: snack (whole milk yogurt, bananas, avocado, bacon, etc…whatever we have around!)
play play play until around 9am which is when I put her down for a nap [1 1/2 – 2hr nap]
11am: nurse
noon: snack
play play play until around 1pm which is when I put her down for a nap [1 1/2 – 2hr nap]
3pm: nurse
4pm: snack
6:30pm: bathtime
7pm: last feeding of the day, and put her to bed by 7:30pm. [she sleeps around 12hrs every single night!]
*In between 4 and 6:30 is different depending on the day. Sometimes she’ll take a little catnap…sometimes she’ll just hang out.
I love moms on call and think it is amazing and I attribute Shiloh’s incredible sleep skills in large part to this method. But, the older she’s gotten, the more relaxed I’ve become with her schedule. If we are home and I can keep her on this schedule exactly, great. But if we want to go out to dinner or go to the farmer’s market on a Saturday afternoon…it’s okay if she misses a nap or goes to bed a little later!
must-have toys + products
I recently did a blog post (here) with our favorite toys and products as of late, so I won’t go into too much detail here. One thing I didn’t include in that post though was this activity center we got a few months ago. TBH Shiloh didn’t really care for this activity center until 6 1/2 or 7 months, but now she loves it! It’s so fun to watch her stand up on her own in that thing and play with all the toys around her. This activity center is great too because it converts to a play table when baby gets older!
I also recently took a poll on stories asking for your sippy cup recommendations. The two cups below were by far the most popular recommendations so that’s what I got for Shiloh!
Shiloh recently cut her first tooth so she’s been in teething mode for the past few months. The below products have been the best teething toys for her:
I think that about sums up what’s been new in our world recently! I’m sure there are tons of things I’m forgetting haha but overall I’m just so thankful that Shiloh is so happy, healthy, and the sweetest baby ever. Let me know if I can answer any questions for you guys in the comments below!
xo Lauren
