6 Month Update!


S i x months… of you smiling with the brightest gummy grin while your body does the happiest wiggle. You’re back scoochin’ around, starting to roll, and always pulling those tiny slobbery fists towards your mouth. We’re are all absolutely obsessed with you, baby girl!

Lately, my heart slows down and aches when I realize how much she’s grown! Weren’t we just taking your 4 month + 5 month photos?! She’s my sidekick and it’s easy for it to all go unnoticed. Except when I’m putting away the 3-6 month clothes and when her 6 month footed jammies are getting too snug around the toesies.  She’s my forever baby and there’s so much joy in knowing our family is complete but there’s also an ache for what I’ll never get to experience again. Because falling in love with the baby you’ve carried for 9 months is the most spectacular feeling I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience.

Not only has her shoe size changed but also her schedule! She’s sleeping soundly from 9pm-7am. I’ve tried putting her to bed earlier but she seems to always be restless and fuss. 9pm is her sweet spot. And since the older 3 kids are wide awake by 6:50am (Savannah is getting ready for Kindergarten), Avery always seem to get woken up. After Savannah leaves for school by 7:10am I’ll breastfeed her while the twins are eating breakfast (aka playing in the kitchen, wrestling and throwing food everywhere 😉 ). From then on, I’ll feed Avery every 3 hours until 9pm. I wrote this post sharing my experience with breastfeeding all of my kids! I juuuuust started adding in foods. She’s snacked on a few soft green beans and some purees. There’s no right or wrong way and I’ll feed her whenever there’s a convenient time. That’s about 1x every couple of days. I’ll try to expose her to the most textures and tastes as I can. I’ve found it’s great to help prevent picky eaters and some food allergies. I’m not too stressed about food though since she’s getting milk every few hours.

I stopped swaddling Avery for sleep about 1-2 months ago. I also stopped laying her in the docatot. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to go about dropping it. I wanted to drop those 2 sleep props because I didn’t want her to be super dependent on them in case we were out running errands or at a friend’s house and didn’t have the sleep props to rely on. So, I decided 1 morning to put her down for her 1st nap in her crib. And she fell asleep without a problem! Since she did so well that 1st nap, I knew that she was ready for it. I still have times where I think she’d nap better with it but it’s hard to tell what causes her to feel extra fussy during a nap time.

Since she’s feeding every 3 hours she’ll stay awake for 1.5 hours and then she’ll nap for 1.5 hours. If she stays awake for too long she’ll have a difficult time falling asleep due to overstimulation. For example, today I kept her up for 2 hours and she would. not. fall asleep. About 30 minutes later I chose to nurse her and she began falling asleep but after I burped her and laid her down she freaked out again. I rocked her for a few minutes to calm her down and then laid her back down in her bed. She screamed for 2 minutes and then passed out. If she would’ve kept crying I would have put her in the swing. That baby swing has saved my bacon way too many times! I care more about her napping when she should vs. where she naps. Just now I probably should have put her in the swing instead of nursing her so that she’d have a hungry belly by the time she woke from the nap. Oh well! I’ll wake her up soon so she doesn’t get too off her schedule.

It’s been super tricky getting back to the gym while still keeping her on a schedule. Here’s a post about my FAVORITE tricks to stay committed to exercising! I’ve let her morning naps slide as long as I still feed her about every 3 hours, otherwise she’ll fuss in the kid’s club at the gym. It also helps that I LOVE the staff that take care of my kids while I exercise! They even argue about who gets to hold Avery first. Haha! That warms any mama’s heart to see other people love your kid’s almost as much as you do.

I adore our baby girl! She is strongly opinionated and very quiet, she reminds me a lot of Charlotte (and even myself!). Which is great since they are the closest in age! Can you truly reference a twin being the younger one when it’s 9 minutes we’re talking about? 😉 I can bet we’ll be having lots of that going on as the twins grow up! haha, send me counsel all you twin mamas out there!

By the time my talented friend Emily arranged the flowers Avery had fallen asleep! We snapped a single test shot..

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12 Comments

  1. Morgan Gomez
    October 11, 2017 / 2:44 pm

    Hi! I love your blog and Instagram! I was reading through your posts about getting your babies to sleep and was wondering, do you use pacifiers? My baby has one but it always falls out and she needs us to help her get it back. I’m thinking about taking it away. Thanks for your advice!

    • Janene
      Author
      October 11, 2017 / 3:00 pm

      Hey Morgan!! Thanks so much for that sweet compliment, it means so much to me! And yeah… I remember having that pacifier issue with my 1st baby and we decided to not use it anymore before it was Sooooo frustrating to have to put it back in her mouth all night long 😝 And so none of our babies have really done the pacifier thing because of it being a sleep prop. But there were TONS of times I wish Avery had 1😂! You’ll just need to weigh the pros and cons and do whats best for you and that cute baby of yours! Ps, it was hard initially to drop the pacifier but totally worth it!

  2. Casey
    October 11, 2017 / 6:07 pm

    Can not believe she’s 6 months and Max is right behind her! Where is the time going!? I find that same problem anytime I try to get Max first anytime before the boys or 8pm it is always a struggle and always a disaster. Does Avery have 4 naps with her bedtime being later? I find that Max is staying up a very long stretch before bed because of his unwillingness to cooperate for an early bedtime lol

    • Janene
      Author
      October 12, 2017 / 10:44 am

      Crazy, right?! I love this baby phase. So, it’s usually 3-4 naps. She bounces back and forth and it feels that we’re running errands every day and most times I don’t keep track of the napping. ha! And Avery has been doing the same thing by staying up for a long time before she falls asleep at night. It’s a bit residual from her Witching hour days (that aren’t quite far behind us!). She’s definitely been SO different than my other babies as far as evenings go. I’ve accepted that a late bedtime is what she needs lol! I’m with you girl!

  3. Katie
    October 12, 2017 / 8:02 am

    Hi Janene! I am currently 25 weeks pregnant and your blog has been so helpful with preparing me for my baby girl soon! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and all of your awesome mom tips! Your family is adorable! I saw you mentioned using a dockatot for Avery. Did you use that to co-sleep her first few months? I’m trying to decide between a halo bassinet, pack and play or co-sleeping with dockatot for the first few months of newborn sleeping??? Any advice would be great appreciated! Thanks! 🙂

    • Janene
      Author
      October 12, 2017 / 10:55 am

      Hey Katie!! Congratulations on your pregnancy!! Thanks so much for that sharing that the info i put out here is helpful to you!! That seriously means so much, so thank you! I’ve never co-slept with my baby but I do have the baby in my room for the first few weeks. It simply makes the night feeds convenient to have them close by. But babies are noisy when they sleep, lol! After a few weeks of being in my room, I’ll transfer them to sleep in their own bedroom. I had Avery sleeping in a Docatot inside a moses basket, that was placed on a rocker stand. It was perfect. I highly recommend the docatot! I could have her sleeping in the doc next to me in the kitchen or in the living room. Being so small and transferable made the convenience SO helpful! Also, when we go on vacations having the doc gives us peace of mind that her sleep won’t be disruptive. When we travel I’ll bring her doc for her to sleep in and it’s perfect! It hugs her little body and she loves it. Hope that helps! xo

  4. Jenn
    October 13, 2017 / 4:42 pm

    Hi Janene love your posts and blog. I’m not too far away over in Aubrey Texas! I’m wondering if you have any advice to traveling with a four month old? He’s our first baby so we are just learning as we go. What to bring what do do about our schedule etc? Have a great weekend! Avery is the cutest–ok wait all your kids are so cute!

    • Janene
      Author
      October 16, 2017 / 5:02 pm

      Hey Jenn!! I LOVE to know other DFW mama’s around here. And congratulations on your 1st babe!! SO, back in July we took a family vacation to San Antonio and I shared a blog post about that a few months ago. Avery was 4 months old and we decided to bring her baby swing that she occasionally used. I’m SO glad we did! Because Avery ended up getting sick and she needed the swing to help her nap and sleep at night. For vacations, I plan on the schedule to be a LOT more relaxed since I understand it’s temporary. A week of a skewed schedule won’t ruin anything. Keep baby feeding every 2.5-3 hours. If it’s nap time and baby isn’t going down easily for naps then I’ll put baby in my ring wrap and will go for a walk until she falls asleep. Some babies do great on vacations and some have a hard time adjusting. I’d suggest being super flexible and helping baby be comfortable with feeding and sleeping because it’s only temporary and not worth ruining a vacation to “stick to the schedule”. Let me know how he does and good luck, mama!!! xo

  5. yuka
    October 14, 2017 / 1:36 pm

    Hello from Japan, I am mom of 3 kids. 6, 4 years old and 3 months old. I happened to find your post on instagram and soon became a big fan of you! I agree what you write about raising kids. sometime I feel tired of hearing 3 babes screaming in a messy room, but your blog reminds me of joy of having 3 kids. I see your post every night after kids fall asleep and I am given the energy for tomorrow. You are very beautiful and strong so is your family. I really admire Your way of positive thinking. How do you manage to find your time to relax? if you have any tips, I am eager to hear. Thank you so much to read this. If my English is wrong, I am so sorry. I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your life!

    • Janene
      Author
      October 16, 2017 / 5:10 pm

      OH MY GOODNESS! Your comment left my heart so full! Thank you for sharing so much kindness!!! It seriously means so much! It’s wonderful to hear you’re encouraged after reading my posts. There’s no better compliment. And as far as your question about how I find time to relax.. HAHA, that’s a great question! I’m still working on that. But today, my oldest (5 yr) was home from Kindergarten and I waited until it was time for the baby to take a nap and I had all 4 of the kids take a nap at the same time. yes, I had to go in a remind the twins to stop playing and talking but they eventually all fell asleep and I was able to shower and watch half a show on netflix while everyone napped! I also exercise 3-4x/week. Most of the time it’s at the gym. Although I don’t feel relaxed and I’m working my booty off I know that it’s good for my mind and body to exercise. It helps me not feel totally run down. Hope that helps! And thanks again for stopping by to say hi! xo

  6. Kamila Deets
    October 18, 2017 / 3:47 pm

    I love your blog so much! I can’t get over how beautiful your family is! Out of curiosity I was wondering what camera do you use to capture all your beautiful momets?

    • Janene
      Author
      October 19, 2017 / 9:14 am

      Aww Kamila! You’re too sweet!!! Thank you! And I use Nikon, I really love it. Let me know if you need any body + lens suggestions. xo

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