Nate's First Six Months

I thought I would reflect a little on the first six month's of Nate's life.

I didn't write for the first month of Nate's life. Most of the first month we were struggling with getting Nate home, dealing with the constant feedings, and the wonderful change to our lives. Nate started small, but he was a very good eater (after some initial difficulties). That first month is still quite a blur.

Breastfeeding - I'm still glad that we choose to breastfeed Nate. I never realized that mom and baby had to work so hard to get breastfeeding to go smoothly. It was a struggle at first. I can see where people may give up or move to formula at least part-time. Nate has been a very healthy and happy baby. I believe that breastfeeding helped on the health and growth side. It also meant that Nate and mom got to spend a lot of quality time close together. While we have started Nate on some solid foods, at six months Nate is still getting the majority of his nutrition through breast milk. Another great benefit to breastfeeding, his poop has very low odor which makes changing diapers much more pleasant.

Diapers - Wow, a baby goes through a lot of diapers. I went from basically never changed a diaper to where I can almost change a diaper in my sleep. We decided to use cloth diapers and while they can be a hassle I still believe it is a good decision. Also never realized how much poop can come out of such a small kid. As Nate has started to eat solid foods his poop has started to change. I'm afraid the days of very low odor poop are almost over. Poop has started to change as solid foods have been introduced. It is interesting to see how different foods go through Nate. For example, I never realized out fibrous bananas are.

Hiccups - Interesting how much Nate hiccups. His hiccups have decreased over time, but he still has them quite often. For the first couple months the hiccups didn't seem to bother Nate at all, but now the hiccups seem to be a little annoying.

Sleep - This is still one of the areas that we struggle. Nate sleeps reasonably well, but he still wakes up at night more than we would like. This means that we are still not getting the sleep we would like. The regular sleep deprivation is something we are looking forward to getting over at some point. While Nate has proven he can sleep over 8 hours at a time, that is more the exception not the rule. And even when he does sleep long periods it is on his schedule (not necessarily ours).

Teething - At six months, Nate has one tooth and another will come through any day now. Nate has cried a lot when as these teeth have come in over the last month. He also produced amazing amounts of drool. We believe that teething may be behind some of the recent sleep issues and certainly makes Nate fussy at times.

Gas - We were lucky that Nate did not have colic, but he did have a lot of gas. He now handles the gas with no problem, but there was time where he didn't sleep well and was rather uncomfortable because of gas. We spent a lot of time in first couple months trying to figure out how to prevent and relieve gas pains. In the end, time seemed to be the best cure.

Food - We started Nate on some solid foods at about five months. We've fed him rice, oatmeal, banana, avocado, squash, and apples so far. Nate eats pretty well and hasn't turned down any type of food, but the plain rice and oatmeal are certainly not his favorites. Of late, Nate seems to be spitting up less, but we still have cloths/rags scattered everywhere around the house to always be prepared for when Nate spits up next. I will say that the wood floors in the house have been great as it makes cleaning up really easy.

After six months Nate has gone from rather small (6lb 2oz, 19") to a healthy, growing (17lb 15oz, 26"), and smiling baby.

Nate at Birth	Nate at Six Months

Nate has been a blessing. We never expected Nate to be easy and his first six months have certainly had its ups and downs. The positives certainly outweigh the negatives. His smile and laugh make the difficult times melt away. Seeing those firsts (smile, laugh, turn over, sit up, etc) have all been exciting. Then there are the firsts to come (crawling, words, walking, etc) that we are looking forward to experiencing. The next six months should be exciting.

Nate's First Christmas

For Christmas this year we traveled to see relatives. Looking back at some of the weather we ran into it might have been better if the relatives had come to Austin. Nate still traveled extremely well. On the first leg of the trip he slept all the way from Austin to Dallas. Some day this easy traveling will end.

In Dallas, we had Christmas with a good sized group of relatives. Nate was the baby of the group and everyone wanted to see and hold Nate. Nate received a number of very nice gifts, but he was most interested in putting wrapping paper and bows in his mouth.

Then we were heading to Tulsa for Christmas day. We saw the weather in Oklahoma was predicted to get bad, but we decided to make the trip as planned. We did leave earlier in order to try and beat the bad weather. The first 3/4 of the trip was no problem. Then as we neared Tulsa the snow and wind increased. The blowing snow (30+ MPH winds) made it extremely difficult to see the road in front of us. We passed numerous cars that had landed in the ditch. The visibility was the biggest problem, but as we made it to Tulsa the roads were also getting pretty slick. Oklahoma gets some ice and snow, but it was Christmas Eve and Oklahoma just doesn't have the infrastructure of states farther North to handle storms like this. If we had to do it over again we would have left much earlier or not made the trip at all. After a much slower trip than expected and a screaming Nate in the back seat (we didn't want to stop) we made it to our destination. Luckily for us the one time we managed to get stuck was in Nate's Grandparents driveway. We stopped long enough to unload Nate an get him fed before getting our car off the end of the driveway.

Six inches of snow in Tulsa kept us inside for our time in Tulsa. The Grandparent's certainly enjoyed having Nate around and it was neat to have a white Christmas. As long as we are in Austin I don't see a white Christmas here anytime soon. Overall a good Christmas that we'll certainly remember.

Wilson Christmas Card

Our Christmas Card (Sherri did a wonderful job putting this together) for this year.

Nate takes on an avocado

This evening we decided that we wanted to get Nate started on another food. We've given Nate rice several times and he seems to handle the rice fine. We happened to have some avocado that we were putting on burgers we grilled this evening. Nate seemed rather interested in the avocado (see picture below). So we decided that this evening after his normal meal we would try some avocado. I spooned out some avocado and mashed it to make it nice and creamy. Not only did he eat some of the avocado, he ate all that I made for him. And when I say he ate all of it, he ate it all and had almost none left on his face. With the rice he had as much of it on his face as he had in his mouth. So I'm taking the clue that Nate likes avocados.

So we'll feed Nate avocado for the next couple days, then we'll try some oatmeal. The fact Nate seems to like a fruit I think that banana will be the next food after the oatmeal. We are very pleased that Nate is handling solid food well so far. Yes, we are only a couple days in to solid foods, but so far so good.

Avocados seem to be almost a perfect food for infants. They don't need to be cooked and are very easily prepared. It is easily digested (rice cereal may cause constipation in some infants), rarely causes any allergic reactions, and is packed full of healthy goodness. So if anyone is looking for food to feed to young infants, I recommend looking at avocados and while you are at it make a little guacamole for yourself.


Nate trying to eat an avocado

Nate eats rice

Yesterday we tried to feed Nate some solid food. We had been talking about doing this for the last month and finally decided it was time. We at least tried to give him some rice. I'm still not sure how much actually got eaten, but Nate actually seemed interested in eating or at least he wanted to put the spoon in his mouth.

The rice and breast milk mixture didn't look all that appetizing, but Nate seemed pretty interested in the mixture. If nothing else he got a little more milk for dessert. We'll continue to try and get Nate to eat the rice and breast milk mixture for the next two days. We are happy that he does seem interested in eating, but we'll have to give him some time to get used to eating from spoon and not pushing food out with his tongue. Next on this list to try will be some oats.

Below are a couple pictures of Nate eating.


Nate Eating for First Time


A lot ended up not in Nate's mouth and he was more interested in the spoon.

Celebration of Life

We've been gone the last few days. We made a trip with Nate to see family and celebrate the life of his great-grandmother. Unfortunately she passed away recently, but not without living a very full and rewarding life. Nate won't remember Mimi, but Mimi did get to meet Nate a couple times. Nate certainly brought lots of smiles even though she wasn't feeling her best.

Nate was really rather easy to travel with. The drive was a little over six hours each way and except for breaks when he was hungry he mostly sat quietly chewing on something or slept in his car seat. Him sleeping so much in the car during the day meant that he didn't sleep as well the first night. Combined with being in a different bed in a different place meant less sleep for everyone.

One thing we discovered while we were away was Nate is getting really close to cutting his first tooth. He has been drooling heavily for weeks, but we can finally feel the tooth beneath his gum. Nate has been a little fussy of late, but we can imagine that it could certainly be worse. Besides lots of drooling, Nate is also trying to chew on everything. He is getting very good at grabbing things and first things he does once grabbing something is try and put it in his mouth. As we go through teething I'll talk more about experiences and what seems to help and what doesn't.