Thursday 22 September 2011

Halfling

The Sproutling is six months old now, which makes him a halfling. Here's the latest on what we've been up to.

Developments
Sprout's personality is starting to show through a little more now - he can be quite animated and noisy at home, but he's quiet and shy around people he doesn't know. Sometimes though, if they smile at him first he turns on the charm and goes into full-on cute mode.

He's just learned to sit on his own in the last week or so. It was quite amazing - one day he'd just fall straight over again, the next he would sit for about 10 seconds, and now he is able to sit for quite a long time without any support from me. Of course, every now and then he'll faceplant into whatever surface is nearby but I guess that's all part of learning to balance.

He still isn't rolling around much yet. In fact after a few times in his cot, I haven't seen him do it again for weeks. I guess he'll start doing it again when he's ready. He seems more interested in playing with his feet and sucking on his own toes. Still no sign of teeth.

Travel things
Thanks for all the suggestions after my previous post about strollers! We ended up just going with the cheap option of a Babylove Snap n Go umbrella stroller. We'll upgrade later if we think we need to but so far it's been just fine for pushing around the shops and around the block a few times.

Now that Sprout is 9.5 kg we've certainly outgrown the capsule! We've replaced it with a pre-loved Safe-n-Sound forward-facing seat, also replacing the mouldy old cover with a soft new one. Sprout seems to really enjoy facing forwards so that he can see me driving and look out the window a bit more.

Foooood
About halfway through the month I couldn't stand the waiting any more and started giving him some baby rice with expressed breast milk. At first most of it ended up spat out again but he's learning quickly and now spoon-feeding is pretty easy. We haven't done a whole lot of spoon-feeding though since I'm trying out the baby-led weaning approach and just handing him bits of fruit and veges to munch on, which he is absolutely loving. We've tried a wide variety of fruits now but his favourite seems to be strawberries. Unfortunately we're just about to go out of strawberry season so he'll have to find a new favourite, but mangoes and stone fruit are about to start so there's plenty more to try! As you can see from the picture, watermelon seems to be a strong contender.

That's pretty much all there is to tell about Sprout's world at the moment! There's still lots of growing and learning to be done, but it's completely amazing how far he has come in just six months. I am so proud of my little Sproutling!