Oliver is 7 Months!

My baby is growing, growing, growing! Seven months old already. Things were still extremely challenging until the past few weeks. We moved Oliver into his crib around 4 1/2 months and decided things had to change. Things are finally starting to calm down a bit and become a little more consistent. It's still challenging and super frustrating when Oliver doesn't sleep but I'm not at my breaking point every day anymore. From the time he was 2 months until 6 months I felt like I never wanted any more children because I could never and would never want to put myself, my baby or anyone in my family through this again. I felt like I had to either choose for myself to suffer  (emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually) or for Oliver to suffer by letting him cry and cry and cry until he learned to stop crying for us. I didn't want either of those things. I tried letting him cry it out one day but I just really couldn't do it. It didn't feel right. Thankfully things slowly started to get better on their own. I think his internal clock is starting to become more regular since he's getting older, he's also learning how to fall asleep on his own better, and I think he's getting used to somewhat of a daily routine.

He's still not able to stay awake too long before getting too stimulated and over tired. So that's the tricky part, knowing when to put him down. But I'm getting better at figuring it out. He has 2-3 naps during the day now. The improvements we've been seeing the last few weeks.. Most nights he's only waking up 2-3 times in a 12 hour period - once around the time Derek and I are going to bed, and then around 2 or 3 am, then sometimes he wakes up again at 5:30 or 6 but not usually. He usually wakes for the day around 6:30 -7:00. This is MOST nights. The last few days he's had some rough nights waking 5 times... So hopefully he gets back to improving again. Another improvement, most days I am able to put him down to sleep during the day and in the night, while he's still awake, and he can fall asleep on his own without crying. Not always, but more and more. So that's HUGE! Before it was like 1-2 hours of trying a million different things to get him to sleep and lots of crying. Another new thing.. wait for it... he's taking actual naps now!!! Yay! The 30 minute naps are starting to fade. Most days he takes at least one good nap (1 1/2 - 2 hours long) and some days he takes two good naps! It's seriously a miracle! I don't think people understand how amazing this is, for him to sleep 2 hours. It still blows my mind. He never did this until just recently. Even as a newborn, Oliver didn't take long naps! Like, what the heck. My life is going to completely change if this continues.

Anyway, I just had to get that out there! But here's a little more about our big guy!

Oliver is still a happy, smiley, attention seeking boy. He loves people! But can also be scared of people. Haha. I guess he likes them from afar maybe. He's always been much more sensitive to new people and places than Noah was. He is also getting a bit clingy lately. Which is funny though, because I guess I wrote about that for Noah when he was this age too. It must be a phase. Oliver loves his mommy! Sometimes he'll be totally content until he sees me and then starts whining for mommy.

He also LOVES his big brother. It's so fun now that they can interact and have fun together. They love each other. Noah likes to talk to Oliver in silly voices and Oliver just laughs. He thinks Noah is the funniest person ever. It just melts my heart. I can't describe the joy I get when they make each other happy. It's so precious. And of course Oliver loves his daddy too.

Oliver is such a grabber! He needs to grab everything and gets very upset if you take something away  from him. And everything goes to the mouth. He seems like he's also a curious boy, like his brother. I have been reminded of why I cut my hair when Noah was a baby. Oliver's hands love to find their way all tangled up in there!

We've been a bit more slow with giving him new foods to try. We're doing Baby Led Weaning again and still love the convenience and fun of it. But I feel like with Noah I was always making new things for him and this time I kind of forget about Oliver and then think, whoops, there's not much for him to eat in this meal. I mean, most days what we eat he can have at least one thing, but picking up things like rice, quinoa, or very small things is still a bit challenging for him. So I need to be better at making more veggies he can eat. I've just been really bad at planning our meals lately with how busy the holidays are, but it's okay. He really LOVES eating though. And he actually is doing really well, and caught on right away with it.

Little Oliver has started rolling much more now. We were wondering when he was going to start rolling around because Noah rolled from point A to B from the time he was around 5 months until he started crawling. Now Oliver is starting to roll more but still not like Noah did. He can sit up but not for very long actually before tumbling over. It'll be nice when he can sit for longer. Oliver isn't close to crawling but he has started enjoying being on his tummy more and is starting to want to move forward, but hasn't figured it out yet.

It's funny, I was thinking, there's no way Oliver will be making babbling sounds this month like Noah did. But just last night we heard him making all kinds of new sounds in his crib. And then he started saying "dada"! And said it a few times today too. It's so fun when they start making these sounds!

Oliver still has his blue eyes! Although they look like they're starting to change.. but it's so hard to tell. I still am curious to know what they'll end up looking like. I have a lot of people tell me they think they'll stay blue, but then many people say their baby had blue eyes until they were one. I also read online about babies changing eye color from blue to brown at 15 months! Geez. So we're still waiting. They just have a dark, grayish hue to them sometimes. Either way, we love his big, "bug eyes" as people call them, haha.

It always surprises me with how many people comment on how beautiful he is. Of course we think he's beautiful and perfect, but it seems like everyone else agrees, haha. Or I guess they could be sucking up to us. Nah, he really is beautiful. His Uncle Jared has been favoriting him lately. He just loves him.

Anyway, happy 7 months big guy. We love you and time sure is flying!