6 Month Stats

Ava went to her pediatrician on Monday for her six month checkup. Dr. Long was happy at Ava's progress and she is where she needs to be developmentally as far as her coordination, strength, and her babbling.  Ava has her chubby baby cheeks and her round tummy so I was surprised at her stats below.  

Weight: 14.8 lbs which is in the 25th percentile

Height: 26.5 inches which is in the 75th percentile

So according to her visit, she has only grown .5 inches and gained 1 lb since her visit in January which was over two months ago.  Her doctor does not seemed to be concerned, but I have to think that she was not measured correctly at some point because this is not much of a change in two months.

We have started feeding Ava solid foods and butternut squash has been her first food for her to try.  Dr. Long recommends introducing new food every 3-5 days, but with Ava's skin condition, we are waiting 5-7 days between food so she has not tried anything but butternut squash yet, but we are going to try peas next.  She is doing much better now, but as you can see in her pictures below, she was not a fan of solid food at first.

Growing Too Fast

Last Tuesday, our sweet baby girl turned 6 months old, I cannot believe that she is already half a year old!  She is continuing to grow and I love to watch her development, it seems that she changes on a daily basis.  Ava always has a smile on her face and she will laugh at the the drop of the hat.  Her hand eye coordination is getting really good and she reaches for everything and tries to put most things in her mouth.  She still does not have any teeth, but is drooling a lot and will chew on anything so I am expecting to feel a tooth in her mouth anytime now.  We are currently working on sitting up and although it does not seem to interest her too much, she has a strong enough back and should be able to sit up on her own in the next week or two. 

Ava continues to be a good sleeper and it has really made our lives so much easier.  She enjoys being outside and still loves to go out on a stroller ride.  She is pretty independent and will only tolerate being held for a short period of time until she fuss's to be put down so she can play.  She has discovered how to turn her seat in her jumperoo and spends a good part of the day jumping and playing in it.

The biggest milestone that occurred was her introduction to rice cereal.  Our pediatrician told us that we could start when she was four months old, but we waited until she was five months because we did not want her to have any digestion issues with it.  The first time we tried she was not too happy with us and she cried and pitched a good fit.  We continued over the next couple of days and she began to like it more, but it still took her at least two weeks to not try and suck the spoon every time we put it in her mouth. 

Ava also had her first real sickness when she was five months old, and along with half of her class, she came down with RSV.  We ended up keeping her home from school for four days as she dealt with this respiratory virus.  She was one sick little girl during this time and with the congestion that came with this, she had troubles sleeping at night.  She had a bad croupy cough and  you could see it in her eyes that she did not feel good.  Finally on day six she finally started feeling better and was back to herself on day ten.  I felt so helpless during this time and just wished that I was able to do more to make her feel better.

Travis and I continue to feel so blessed and love being parents.  Below are some pictures of Ava Marie at five months old.

Favorite Pictures from Four Months

Playing with Aunt Mandy

 

 

 

Ava's  favorite toy is Moo Cow

Tummy Time with Daddy

Ava managed to escape from her Sleep Sack in the night.  I love her smile first thing in the morning!

 

 

This was the first time in her Jumperoo.  She was not too sure about it but now plays in it happily every morning.

Ava went to her second Birthday party.  She helped Miss Maggie celebrate her 1st Birthday!

So sweet!

Visiting Mimi

Playing with Uncle Chace

Ava is so good at bath time

My sweet baby girl!

Rolling Over

Having Ava has really shown us what a miracle new life truly is.  Each new experience that she has is amazing to me and I love watching her grow and learn.  I never thought that I would be so excited to watch someone roll over, but I found myself so proud of Ava the first time that she was able to roll and it just shows how much she is growing.

I learned as a parent that there are two different types of rolling over, stomach to back and back to stomach.  Ava rolled over for the first time from her stomach to back when she was two months old, and it would be another month until she did it again.  It would take another month for her to learn how to roll over from her stomach to her back, which is much more difficult, but after a couple of weeks of being on the verge of rolling over she finally figured it out and acted like it was no big deal.  On January 30th, Trav and I left Ava on her play mat while we finished getting ready for work, and when we came back she was hanging out on her tummy.  Between mine and Trav's reaction, you would have thought that she just said her first word.  After she did her first roll, there was no stopping her and that night we found that she had  done at least four rolls in a row in the two minutes that we were out of the room and realized that there is no leaving her unattended on her changing table anymore.
Although she started off rolling from her stomach to her back, once she started rolling from her back to her stomach she seemed to forget how to roll to her back and she gets frustrated if she is on her stomach too long.  Now a month later, she has started to roll over in her sleep. She will wake up upset that she is on her stomach and the one time that we went up to roll her back, she was back on her stomach a minute later so we are now leaving her alone when she does this so that she can learn to roll herself back over.

Four Months Old Pics

Miss Ava turned four months old many, many weeks ago, but since returning to work I have not been as good about blogging as I had hoped to be. 

On January7th, Ava decided to start sleeping through the night and since then, our quality of life has drastically improved.  Before this time I was so envious of anyone whose baby was sleeping through the night and found myself asking everyone what their secret was.  In the end I found it best to stick with a routine schedule with Ava and had to endure several nights of her crying in the night.  Each night got better and better until we woke up on Sunday the 8th and realized that she had not stirred once in the night.  It has been almost two months, and she is an amazing little sleeper.  I put her down each night at 7:30 and she will play in her crib for about 15 minutes before drifting off to sleep and then she does not wake up until 7:00 in the morning and on weekends we can get her to sleep until 7:45!

For her four month pictures, I found that she showed me her many Ava faces that she can make.