She now has 4 teeth...the top 2 middle ones are peeking through, in addition to her bottom 2 that she got back when she was 4 months old. She can sit up on her own pretty well now, although she occasionally still topples over & gets a little irritated. She's also still working really hard to crawl...but she still just gets on her hands & knees and rocks back and forth. This past week she has apparently figured out that she can "talk" very loudly, so at times she will just sit and make all sorts of funny noises at the top of her lungs. She thinks it's hilarious & it cracks me up! It is so much fun to watch her change & learn new things!
The most exciting development (for Matt and me, at least) is her decision to start sleeping through the night! Just after she turned 6 months old, and had not come close to sleeping through the night, this momma decided that she couldn't take it anymore! 6 months of not getting more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep at a time was really starting to take its toll...call me a wimp, but I need my sleep! I knew that she was old enough to sleep a long stretch without eating, but with all of the traveling that we were doing, and Matt being gone so much for work, it had just been easier up to that point to feed her when she woke up because she would quickly go back to sleep without a fight. I knew that training her to sleep through the night would possibly cause us to get less sleep at first, so that had me a little nervous, since I already felt like I never slept! Anyway, a couple of people recommended the book The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight, so after Christmas Matt & I were both going to be in the same place for a week or two, so we thought we would give it a try. I liked this book for a couple of reasons: 1) It was a quick read & had sleep training advice broken down into months, so you could skip to the part for the age of your baby, and 2)It was a "less tears" approach to sleep training than the strict "cry-it-out" methods. Again, call me a wimp, but the thought of closing the door & letting her scream had my stomach in knots. All of the nervousness and stress over the thought of "sleep training" was apparently for not...it only took us about 3 days & she was sleeping all night. In those 3 days she would wake up just a couple of times & Matt would go in (if I went in she would get too mad because she wanted to eat & knew I had the food) and "shh" her and pat her and she would fall back asleep in just a few minutes! Since then we have been getting hours of uninterrupted sleep & I'm starting to feel more human and less zombie-like! We have had a few "set-backs" in the sleeping all night realm (her recent teething episode & a trip to Colorado), but overall I am so thankful that we finally broke down & convinced her to sleep all night. I didn't intend to ramble on & on about sleeping, but clearly it was a big deal for me!
Now for the real reason anyone reads this blog...pictures of that sweet baby girl! First, some of her 7 month pictures. I love all the cute expressions she makes these days!
Then, I thought I would give you a look back at the last 7 months of pictures, just so you can see how much she has changed!
