Adah went to an occasional 3 feedings/day sometime in the first week of January. She got a pretty bad cold the week of January 14th so she was nursing more than usual, but I think it's official, as of January 18th she is on 3 feedings. Here is an updated schedule: Wakes at 7/7:30 and nurses. I pump milk to make her cereal for breakfast and she eats around 8. She still goes down for a morning nap at 9ish, wakes around 10:30/11. She eats lunch around 11:30/12 (still eating a significant amount of baby food because she is very picky with textures and won't eat very well otherwise). She nurses around 1:30/2 and goes down for a nap right away. On a side note: I don't know if you have ever heard about the 2-3-4 schedule (down for nap 2 hours after they wake in the morning, down for another nap 3 hours after waking from their morning nap, and down for bed 4 hours after waking from their afternoon nap), but it has worked WONDERS for my girls' sleeping habits. It isn't usually exactly like this, but it is a nice guideline and more often then not is very accurate! And it's always a struggle to know when they are ready to give up their morning nap but during the transition with Kezzie I remember only letting her take an hour nap in the morning until she was completely ready to give it up. I'm sure this doesn't work for every kid, but it has worked beautifully for mine and I think I would probably go nuts if it worked any other way! Adah isn't ready to give up her morning nap but I am noticing more that it's hard for her to get to sleep for her afternoon nap, so it might be time to start limiting her morning nap to a hour or so!! Anyway, Adah will wake from her afternoon nap around 3:30/4 and have a snack and milk or water. We will eat supper by about 5/5:30 (she will mostly eat what I make for supper (I don't know why she is more willing to eat regular food at this time, maybe because the whole family is around the table?) unless she is really refusing it then I will get out a jar or two of baby food). She nurses around 7:45 and goes right to bed. On occasion, Adah is ready for bed at 7:30!
Adah is growing so much and learning A TON from her big sister! You can see it in her eyes, that as she watches Kezzie move and jump and potty and eat and just do things, she is absorbing it all like a sponge! It scares me a lot too because Kezzie is into jumping off things like chairs and the fireplace and I am always afraid Adah is going to be brave enough to try it too. And when they are taking a bath (I think I have mentioned this before maybe) Kezzie likes to stick her face in and blow bubbles but Adah tries to do this and will often inhale water and gag! (Adah LOVES her bath and signs it and points to the stairs every night when she knows it's almost bedtime). We have started taking Adah up for her bath about 15 minutes before Kezzie and let Adah have some time in the bath to herself without Kezzie overpowering her! It is so fun to see her find things to do and make up her own play. She loves the squeeze toys that you fill up with water (and laughs really hard when we spray her) and she also just likes to watch things float and she will push them around in the water like they are swimming! Adah is trying to learn to jump and is getting really fast at walking! I don't know if I would call it a run yet though! As I mentioned before, Adah is still not huge on table food. She is VERY picky about textures in her mouth so if you give her something solid with a sauce around it she will spit it out because she doesn't know how to sort the two apart. I can't even give her #3 baby food jars because they are all a little bit ground up but with chunks in them (like chicken and stars-the chicken is puree but the pasta is full pieces). She is picky about her veggies too. I give her cooked carrots , sweet potatoes and broccoli, etc. and she won't eat it because of the texture but if I give her baby food carrots or sweet potatoes she LOVES them and the same with baby food broccoli. She likes to eat green beans but won't eat them cut up, she likes them whole so she can hold it and take bites off. She refuses corn altogether but will most of the time eat peas. She is a great bean eater and also loves her meats. Her new thing now is having dip. She will eat pretty much anything as long as you put a dab of ranch or ketchup on her tray!! She continues to love most of her fruits but is still pretty particular. She will only eat puree bananas but completely refuses them in their natural form! She is doing a great job with her whole milk. But she definitely prefers water. Sometime in the last month or so we had to start iron drops. Adah does great with them as long as we mix them with orange juice or cran-grape juice.
Adah is saying so much too. She talks more with her actions but we are so used to it that we think she talks more than she does!
I am pretty sure that Adah will have her first hair cut sometime in the next month...her bangs are well into her eyes and I find her frustrated at this quite often!
What a wonderful joy Adah brings to our family. It is so awesome to see how much Austin and Keziah love her and welcome her into our family! I know it's kind of weird to mention this after she has been a part of our family for 14+ months, but I am amazed every day at the love/hate relationship among siblings. I remember this all too well with my own, like it were yesterday! I am so excited to see how they grow and learn together over the next months and years! Thanks for following along with us!
