LauraJane Life: Ella-Grace's 6 Month Update!

Sorry its late...

Hi there readers! I hope everyone is doing well and welcome back to LauraJane Life! Today I will be writing my baby girl, Ella-Grace's 6 month update! She actually turned 6 months last week and I had said I was going to have the update up then but life happens, I was very busy and to be honest it is hard to find time to write now with Ella-Grace being awake a lot now (will tell more about this below) and when it gets to the evening I am shattered, I can barely get in time with Reece never mind writing. But not to worry her 6 month update is finally here and I am hoping to get back on track, hopefully scheduling time so I can write a post once a week. We will see how that goes haha. Happy Reading!

Ella-Grace's bit...

"Hi everyone! It's Ella-Grace again. The past 3 months since my Mummy wrote my last update have been so much fun! I have learnt so much and tried new things like food.. proper food not just my milk! Mummy has helped me get into a good routine and we have lots of fun everyday, at home and at our groups where I get to see all my friends and sing lots of songs! Daddy still works lots but he is always home to give me a bath and do my bed time routine, his days off are the best ever! Daddy is so funny! I love having Mummy and Daddy home with me, they are great and the three of us have so much fun! I love being tickled, swimming, bath time, music, playing with my toys, watching Moana, Paw patrol or Thomas the Tank Engine, bouncing in my bouncer, rolling around and eating yummy food! I don't like afternoon naps (they are boring) and I don't like banana, it is yuck! I will let my Mummy tell you the rest!"

How has it been 6 months?!...

Our baby girl, our precious Ella-Grace is 6 months old! That's half way to 1 YEAR old! I just can't believe it. Becoming a mum is the best thing to ever happen to me and I am so proud to be the Mama to such a wonderful little girl. She has made mine and Reece's life so bright and happy, there isn't a day when she doesn't make us laugh and we are constantly mesmerized by her massive eyes! Although I am scared for the future -the world isn't always a kind place and I think for every parent that is a scary thing when bringing up children- I like to think if I do the best by my little darling, teach her right and always show her how loved and important she is, she will always see the good through the bad. As her first Halloween, first Christmas and first birthday are now in the near future I am looking forward to cherishing every moment. The past 6 months have been magical (and of course difficult but she is so worth it).

Feeding...

I am not going to go into too much detail for this one as my last blog post was all about weaning and her feeding routine so that pretty much covers it (find it on my homepage if you would like the full weaning story so far) but I am going to write a small summary and things we have tried since I wrote that post. Well we decided to start slowly weaning at 4 months (which I know isn't for everyone but it has worked wonders for our little girl so please respect our decision) and now being 6 months she has 3 small meals a day as well as her lacto-free formula. We have decided not to give Ella-Grace meat as we do not eat it and we buy plant-based milk which she will eventually be given instead of formula, which we would of been doing anyway even if we weren't a plant-based milk family as she is lactose-intolerant. Again not for everyone but we are happy with our decision and she is thriving on it.

I make all her food at home apart from her fruit pots (Organix) and she is also enjoying her wafers (Kiddilycious). This week Ella-Grace has tried a few new things that I never got to mention in the weaning blog post, this is including strawberries, tomato, toast, peanut butter, banana (which she hated) and hummus (her favourite, which is great as it is a great form of protein!). I am so happy with the way her weaning is going she is always willing to try new things and most of the time will eat it- apart from banana, like her Daddy she does not like it haha. For her full meal plan please see my last blog post, it has changed a bit since adding hummus and toast to some of her meals but it will give you the main idea.
-Just to add she literally just tried Mushroom Soup and loved it!-

Sleeping...

Oh how lucky we are! Ella-Grace sleeps all night! From 8pm to 6 or 7am. I am so sorry if you are a mum or dad reading this dealing with a baby who cries all night (I take my hat off to you) but I am being honest, she sleeps all night. She has been doing this for a while now, ever since we moved her into her own room at 5 months old. We wanted to wait till she was 6 months but she has grown out of her small cot in our bedroom and it was like she was telling us she wanted to be in her big crib as she started to wake up more often in our bedroom. So we tried her one night when she turned 5 months and since then she has been out the whole night (with a little help from her favourite Moana, we always play the songs to help her sleep).

Napping during the day however is a different story. She was in a great routine with her feeding and her naps and she still is but when it gets to about 3pm, after her second solid food meal of the day. She refuses to nap! It has only been like this for a few days so I am hoping she will go back to her normal sleeping routine soon but yeah she has been refusing to nap and it will take me at least 2 hours to get her down, usually after moving her from her bed to the sofa to mine and Reece's bed and blaring Moana as loud as I can. If we are out and she is in the pram she could probably nap but this is usaully the time of day we are back home after our groups in the morning so I just have to keep going until she falls asleep- most likely in my arms. This can be hard but at least she sleeps at night that's the main thing for me and I am hoping this afternoon moodiness will blow over.

Teething...

She has no teeth yet but oh yes teething has definitely started! We have a few things we use to help her teething (let me know if you would like a blog post on this) and they seem to work quite well but we are just waiting for the teeth to actually come through as I can see when I look at her gums that there are definitely a few teeth just waiting to pop out. Not much to say about that at the moment.

Development...

3 months might not seem like a lot of time Adult wise but oh my goodness a lot can happen developmentally for a baby in three months! Ella-Grace can now roll over, sit up unaided, pass toys from one hand to another, bounce very actively in her bouncer, feed herself to a certain extent and the best thing of all... she says Mama! At first I think she just said it as a noise but then I noticed she started to say it when I put her down or when we were doing something she didn't want to do- getting dressed for example- so I do think she knows that I respond to Mama but not necessarily that its me. Either way it is very cute and Reece is very jealous she hasn't said 'Dada' yet.

We are still working on the crawling, she doesn't seem to have much interest in it. Everytime I put her on her belly she just rolls over. We will keep trying though. She does seem a lot more interesting in walking however, she always wants to stand up and seems to try and walk when I am holding her up. So that one is a wait and see. She is doing so well for 6 months anyways and the health visitor and doctor is happy with how she is doing. We also took Ella-Grace swimming for the first time when we went down to Newcastle which is her new favourite thing to do! Our little water baby!

Bonding...

Amazing! Not much more to be said, the bond I have with Ella-Grace is amazing! She literally is my best friend, there is no one I would rather spend my time with and she literally makes me less anxious even if parenting is one thing I get anxious her smile makes it better. The way she says Mama and kisses me in the morning, I can really see now how much she loves me. It is just the most magical feeling when your baby shows affection to you.

Reece's bond is just as strong. As I said in the last update it is a different bond as she gets to miss him when he goes to work and you can really see how happy she is when he walks in the door. When he is home it is like she is aware that he could go to work any minute so she really wants her Daddy and loves to play with him. Both our bonds with our daughter are great which I think shows what a great bond me and Reece have as well, the three of us are a really good unit. Love my little family.

Allergies and Illnesses...

So if you have read previous blog posts you will know Ella-Grace is lactose-intolerant and struggles with eczema. Both of which are managed and she is doing fine. The past week we have also realised, like her dad, she has an allergy to dogs. The doctor said it can't be confirmed as they would not put a baby through a blood test for that reason but judging by her reaction around my mums dogs it is likely she has an allergy to that type of dog at least. Time will tell whether it is an allergy to all animal hair or just dogs. Ella-Grace also suffers with hay-fever, which again is managed. All these things could potentially mean she has asthma as well according to the doctor especially as Reece has asthma too but again only time will tell, she currently has no symptoms of being asthmatic.

My poor baba lots of allergies unfortunately but still a very happy and content baby.

As for illnesses, we are lucky and Ella-Grace has not been ill apart from for about two weeks now she had a cough but we took her to the doctor and they said she was healthy just had a tickly throat and to give her cough medicine. We have been giving her that and her cough has seemed to settle.

Hopes and Fears for the next 3 months...

For the next three months I hope that Ella-Grace will learn how to move around, what ever way that may be. Crawling, shuffling, whatever I just can see she wants to move about and I would love that for her but we will just have to wait and see. I hope weaning continues to go well and our little darling stays happy, healthy and content. I guess I am hoping for a little tooth to pop through soon, will be so cute to see her with a little tooth haha.

I don't have much fears for the next few months apart from the constant fear I am not doing this parenting thing right but as long as she is growing and staying healthy, I know I am doing a good job!

Till next time...

Thank you so much for reading! I will try get the next blog post up soon, not sure what that will be. I would just like to add that this is my 30th blog post (I can't believe I have wrote 30 already!) and I want to thank everyone for the amazing support! See you soon everyone, don't forget to follow my social media pages for daily baby pics, inspirational messages and blog updates. To finish off here are some of my favourite pics of the pregnancy, birth and life of our amazing Ella-Grace so far....