Even though I was given the ‘ok’ from the pediatrician to start my daughter on rice cereal at 4 months old, I didn’t start her on it until she was 5 1/2 months old. I didn’t want to rush things and I read a lot of information that said you should actually wait until they’re 6 months old. I knew she was ready because whenever I ate my own cereal in the morning she would stare me down and open & close her mouth like a fish. I’ve heard that the first time you try to give your baby solids, expect it to go bad, so I braced myself for the tight lips, the crying, and the pushing away. Surprisingly, she LOVED it. She gave me a big smile on the very first spoonful, and she ate the entire serving. Finally, something that went nice and easy for me. She’s definitely a good eater, just like her mama. Only instead of cheesecake, chocolate, and ice cream, she likes to dive into sweet potatoes, peas, even prunes. I still haven’t found anything she doesn’t like. Actually, I once tried to give her a spoonful of the jarred Beef & Broth, and she made the biggest grimace ever. I tasted the stuff and I didn’t blame her. It looked and tasted like cat food so I threw it out. She prefers my homemade Turkey Sloppy Joe’s anyway (I have a great recipe btw..if you ever want it just email/leave me a comment).

At the end of 5 months she finally started to roll over from belly to back, to the right. Other kids were rolling in both directions and their parents loved to tell me about it and ask about my daughter’s progress. As a first time mom, it really is hard not to compare your kids to other kids because you want to know what “normal” is, whatever that means, so I did my best to fight the urge. I think my favorite part about 5 months old was that she finally started to sleep longer stretches at night, and I only had to nurse her once through the night, usually around 2:00 a.m. This gave her a 5 hour stretch of sleeping since she usually went to bed at 9:00 p.m., and I’m told that 5 hours is considered “sleeping through the night” (STTN) for a baby. It is amazing what sleep can do for you when you haven’t had it in sooo long.

As for music, my husband and I constantly would make up songs for her. He would write his own songs and play them on the guitar for her, usually acoustic, and I would usually make up little jingles on the spot. She really loved to hear “her” songs, as in the songs we made up that have her name in the song. Whenever she would hear them she’d get really excited and if she was in her bouncy chair she’d start rocking it like crazy. She was now in a period where she was crying less so I didn’t have to resort to singing constantly to calm her, but I still did anyway. I tried out some Jeff Buckley on her for the first time, by starting with “Hallelujah” (of course). She got really quiet and stared at me during most of the song. Then I played “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” and sang along with it to her (Damn, I love this song). I actually got a smile out of her during it; can you blame her? Haha. Beautiful song. Ah, Jeff. R.I.P. Whenever I would drive anywhere with her I would carefully select a cd to play for her. I usually stuck with softer, “art rock,” but every now and then I’d throw in some Rage Against The Machine. She didn’t seem to react to that either way. I’m curious to see what her music preferences will be as a toddler and if she really will like alternative rock as much as nursery rhymes. I shall have to wait and see.

Around 4 1/2 months old, I really wanted to try to start my daughter on some sort of schedule. I mean she was already eating on a schedule because she wanted to nurse like every 2 hours, so I kept her on that, but she needed some sort of sleep/nap schedule. No one in the family got any sleep because she didn’t sleep. As with everything else, I turned to the Internet for some advice, or at least for some book recommendations. (I swear, what did new mothers do before the Internet?) There were a few books I was interested in, but my library only had one of them, so I got a copy of “The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems” by Tracy Hogg. One of my favorite sections of the book is the part about different temperaments/personalities that babies can have. THANK YOU. I felt reassured to know that I am NOT going crazy when I swear that my child is a Diva baby. My baby definitely is a mix between 2 of the personality types: spirited and grumpy. She is very excitable, but also has a strong temper. So you get strong emotions either way…no chilled out baby here. Her grumpy/spirited personality probably explains why she had colic issues to begin with since she’s very expressive and has something to say about every little issue that comes her way. Boy, you should have heard the screams she would do from having hiccups as a young infant. And even now, at 9 months old, if she misses a nap you better be close to home or she’ll make you regret going out in the first place. It seems my friends all have either Angel babies or Textbook ones, so that’s why they have no clue where I’m coming from when I try to explain a lot of the issues I have with my daughter. I liked reading the book because I felt I wasn’t alone in dealing with a difficult, fussy baby.

As for the schedule/routine-making part of the book, I took what I could from that section, but I didn’t agree with all of it. For instance she says that a young breastfed baby can nurse at almost the same frequency as a formula-fed baby. I disagree- I believe in nursing a young baby on demand, and that breast milk is no where near as filling as formula. Also, she explains how to get your baby to take longer naps and how each nap should be about 2 hours. Well, I tried and tried, but my daughter would only take 30 min naps. So her suggested schedules were hard for me to follow since my daughter’s nursing times and nap times were way off the author’s suggested ones. However, I still felt like I gained a lot from reading the book, and I did follow it loosely. Even though my daughter’s naps were really short, at least she was taking them at certain times of the day, and in her own crib. And the best tip I got from the book was about doing a night routine so your baby knows it’s time for bed. Every night my routine became giving her a bath, then nursing, then bed. Because she has eczema/cradle cap pretty bad I didn’t always use soap, but I went through the motions just so she could know what to expect. It really made a difference. She went down for bed soo much easier. This part of motherhood, the schedule-making, actually felt like real work. Like a project that I had to study for, plan, and then try to execute. I actually kept lists of times for each thing. I wish I could have just gone with the flow, but since my baby’s personality isn’t “laid back,” it wouldn’t work with her. That was another valuable tip from the book: try to work WITH your baby’s personality type and not around it because otherwise you’ll have total chaos and many meltdowns. Deal with the hand you’ve been given, so to speak.