Tegan 6 Month Update

Tegan is 6 months old now (how?!) and I figured it was time for a little update on how things are going, schedules, and answering other questions that y’all sent in to me on Instagram.  Tegan is the sweetest little thing and she’s so chill. I know lots of people say 2nd kids are insane (lol) but so far she seems even more laid back than Emma was…we shall see how it goes.  Girlfriend had her 6 month appointment today and she’s in the 85th percentile for height and 30th percentile for weight at 15lb 4oz.  She’s definitely long!! I have a hard time finding clothes that are long enough for her but don’t swallow her up otherwise. Most of her clothes are big sister’s hand-me-downs 🙂

Schedule

Let’s get into the schedule first. We have been using Moms on Call since day 1. It was really challenging to hit the schedule really the first couple months, but we kept trying.  Those early days were far from perfect but I did my best to honor the wake windows they suggest for her age group and saying on a feeding schedule. I also practiced putting her down awake for her nap from a very early age, and due to that it appears we aren’t going to have to really “sleep train” her like we did with Emma.  We did cry it out with Emma around 5 months once things had gotten really bad, and it worked like a charm after just a couple nights. That being said, it is really hard to listen to them cry so I am glad we aren’t going to have to do it with Tegan.  She goes down awake for naps and nighttime and puts herself to sleep.  She’s also a thumbsucker, so I think that helps in the self-soothing arena!

At 6 months this is her current schedule:

• 7:30am Wake & feed
• 9:30 Nap
• 11:30 Wake & feed
• 1:00pm Nap
• 3:00 Wake & feed
• 5:00-6:00 Nap
• 6:45 Bathtime
• 7:00 Feed
• 7:15/7:30pm Bedtime

Even if you don’t want to buy the Moms on Call books/courses, you can download their scheduler app and follow the schedules they provide. I mostly follow them to a “T” but I will tweak them a bit if I think something will work better for her. For example, the above schedule is one I tweaked based on the MOC schedule. They recommend waking at 7, then down for nap at 9.  But I found Tegan was having a hard time staying awake/not getting fussy for her afternoon nap around 1.  So I shortened that wake window by 30 minutes (only awake 11:30-1) by starting her day 30 minutes later. So she wakes up at 7:30 instead of 7.

Eating

We are still breastfeeding right now and pretty soon we will start doing baby led weaning to incorporate some solid foods. The pediatrician gave the OK to start! We tried purees for a week or so but they just seemed to upset her stomach more than anything so we stopped.  I don’t have a goal in mind for how long we are going to breastfeed, I just want to go as long as we can.  I nursed Emma for 13 months so I’d like to do at least that probably.

Your questions

Did you have her sleep in your room in a bassinet or her own room with a crib?  Tegan started in our room in the SNOO bassinet.  Emma slept in our room until about 4 months so I assumed we would do about that long, however we ended up moving her to her own room (still in the SNOO) around 5-6 weeks old.  We did this because she was such a LOUD sleeper!! Constantly grunting and crying out even though she was asleep. It would wake us up all night long!  We all got better sleep once she was in her room.  But again, she was still in the SNOO up until only a week ago!  The SNOO sleep sacks actually have a feature where you can unsnap the arm holes so baby can have their arms free. So we started with that around 3 months.  Around 4 months we turned on the wean feature for the SNOO, where it stops rocking.  Around 5 months I started doing naps in the crib so she could get used to it slowly but at night she was still in the SNOO. Then by 6 months she was more than ready to make the switch to the crib and it was an easy transition to nighttime sleep in there.

Products & sleep? So much has changed in 3 years!  We actually used all the same things we did when Emma was an infant!  SNOO, Hatch Nightlight/Sound Machine, & Owlet Camera.  I can’t really recommend the Owlet camera anymore though, we loved the generation of camera we got when Emma was a baby (we still have it in her room) but this new one just doesn’t work that well, it always disconnects and goes out for hours at a time. But we loved and still love the SNOO and Hatch. Now that Tegan is in her crib she sleeps in the Halo Wearable Sleep Blanket.  We also liked their sleep swaddles too, makes for very easy swaddling. Both products have 100% cotton or fleece options, so we had some in both because in winter we’d use the fleece ones and for warmer weather just the 100% cotton.

We use these Vtech two-way sound monitors for both girls and we love them. They only make noise when the kids are making noise (rather than a constant stream of sound from their rooms) + you can set the sensitivity on them, and have pretty good range…we can take ours outside and still hear if they make noise in their rooms. For the price too? SO worth it.

One thing we didn’t have with Emma that we got for Tegan that she LOVES is this bouncer.  It’s only 4lbs so it’s easy to take from room to room with you. She loves to just hang out in it!

Newborn phased for 2nd baby vs. first and overall 2nd kid transition? Going from 1-2 was SO MUCH HARDER in my opinion than 0-1. Having just a baby to take care of is so much easier than having a baby AND a toddler?! I don’t even understand how this is a debate people have lol but anyways, postpartum this time was a lot harder and I think it’s primarily because I didn’t have the downtime I had when I only had one baby.  Because the toddler always needs something even if its just your constant attention 🙂 So I was super tired and while I definitely took more naps when Emma was a baby, I just couldn’t really do it this time around.  I mean I remember one afternoon around 5pm I was so tired I just started bawling my eyes out bc both kids needed me and my body just needed sleep. That was a low point haha but, my best advice is to just give yourself a ton of grace and know that no matter how tired you feel, you WILL get through it.  Ask for help if you need it and be mindful of your mental health.  If you’re feeling anxiety or depression let your doctor know. My postpartum anxiety was really bad the first 5 months and it’s gotten better.  I did work with a therapist once a week for almost 4 months and it helped immensely as well. I’m currently using the tools I learned in therapy on my own and seeing how it goes for a little while. I used BetterHelp for that, in case you are interested. You can use this link to get one-week free at BetterHelp. Should I feel the need to go back, I 100% would go back to my therapist on BetterHelp.

How did you survive the first 6 weeks? 4 weeks in with my second and struggling.  I know how you feel, mama. It is so hard.  It’s going to get easier, I promise.  It will.  Again do your best just to know that even if all you did that day was take care of your kids, then you did MORE than enough.  Ask for help if you can.  I am so glad Emma started preschool the week we had Tegan because it helped me that she could go somewhere she enjoyed and be taken care of for a few hours out of the house.  So if you can look into something like that, or maybe even just seeing if a babysitter could come help you every now and then if you don’t have family than can chip in.  My doctor said something to me at my 6 week check up like “it’s so hard in the beginning but it’s so temporary and worth it for a lifetime with this awesome human being!” And it’s true, in the long run these exhausting days and nights will be a distant memory and we will have these awesome humans in our lives as they grow up.  You are doing great, mama and I’m sending you lots of love!

Sleeping and fitting in you time while managing 2 kids most days? So I try to go to bed by 10pm most nights and I basically wake up right before Tegan gets up. Right now I wake at 7:15 and she wakes up at 7:30. I’d love to get to the place where I’m waking up early again to work out, and I think as the warmer months come that will start happening more. But the cold, dark mornings made it a lot harder. There were times in the last 6 months I made it happen, but usually I opt for sleep instead. Emma goes to preschool a few days a week (they’re half days) and so I basically try to cram as much of my work stuff into the times when she is gone and I just have Tegan with me. Emma also still naps from 1-3pm so I try to workout either while she’s at school or during that nap time.  My workout is pretty much my “me time”. I watch my Bravo shows while I run on the treadmill, too. Some nights I also like to take a bath but it’s after they’ve both gone to bed!

Where you at on baby 3 bandwagon at this point?  LOL. I don’t even know. I honestly worry a lot about how difficult a 3rd pregnancy would be on me because the 2nd one was so much harder than the first, and postpartum was so much harder. The baby blues the first week were really bad and kinda scary…they make me scared for full-blown PPD because I was bottoming out on my emotions hard. Everyday for the first week or so around 5pm I’d start feeling SO sad.  I’m glad that passed in the first week but my postpartum anxiety has remained and it’s been a struggle too. I also don’t love being pregnant, however grateful I may be for it, I’m just not someone who feels their best pregnant.

The first 3-4 months with a newborn is so freaking hard. And honestly, having a 3 year old has kicked my ass more than anything haha that age has been hard!!  But I go back and forth, some days I feel like we are complete and Tegan has youngest kid energy and then some days I feel like we were meant for one more and I’d love another baby.  But I think it’s just too early to really know what is right for our family at this point…so I can’t fully answer this! I didn’t even think about having another baby after Emma until she was like a year and a half, so I’ll probably need about that time to fully know. Time will tell!

I hope this post has been helpful…I’ll do another in a few months or maybe around her 1st bday!

xo,

Bess