The past 6 months

With the little girl almost 6 months old, my MIL reminded me to note down the important milestones, etc. somewhere.

Tantrums, Interaction

During my last post, she was just about to turn 4 months old. This was the time when she would always have these unexplainable tantrums! These subsided past 4 months though.

During her 5th month or so, she's become more interactive, laughed a lot, cooed and babbled more! And she has also started rolling from her back to her tummy. I thought she'd never be able to roll until past 6 months, because she was a heavy, "healthy" baby, but this little girl has some serious core strength.

Skin Asthma and Drool Rash?

Unfortunately, though her baby face acne subsided sometime 2nd-3rd month, some mild eczema has been acting up on her face. She has rough patches on her chin and cheek, probably exacerbated by her drool. We sort of suspect she's teething already, owing to the copious amount of drool she produces (and smears all other), plus the fact that she's started chewing or sucking on anything she could get hands on, or her mouth on. But she's not in any significant discomfort or pain, so I've held off applying any teething gel on her gums.

Since Hanley has skin asthma, I've posited that she probably inherited it too. We've been prescribed some ezcema cream on her skin, and cross fingers that it'll help! Pedia also prescribed a brand of hypoallergenic bath wash (though I was pretty sure the Mustela ones we use are okay. But oh well), and Cetaphil Restoraderm on her body after bath.

Iron Supplement

When Maddy hit 5 months, the pedia also prescribed Ferlin Drops, or iron supplement. However, this caused Maddy to become extremely constipated! It's not that she was in pain or was straining a lot, but her farts were aplenty and STINKY! Usually she would poop right when she wakes up, but ever since Ferlin Drops, she would wake up moaning and moving around in discomfort. After researching on my own, I found that purely breastfed babies do not need iron supplement. In fact, iron supplements counteract the absorption of the iron naturally found in breastmilk. So I asked the pedia if we could stop giving it to her, and he agreed. That was a week and a half ago. She didn't poop for 6 days, so we finally gave her a suppository. The insertion itself wasn't painful, but the poor girl's stomach probably started rumbling and acting up because of it just a few minutes later and she kept crying. But no more than 20 minutes after, she pooped out this huge pile of green-black poop, so that was a relief! We also give her half and half of prune juice and water (total of 20-40oz) to ease stool movement.

We're not back to regular poop programming yet (she used to be able to go every day, even at least twice a day). Now it's been a couple of days since her last poop, and already the pedia wants to start her on Cerelac.

I'm holding off on the Cerelac until her pooping patterns normalize.

Mommy's Sleep

Am I getting more sleep? Not really. Still waking up every 2-3 hours to feed, which means 3 to 4 times from the moment I tuck into bed until 7:30-8am. But my body kind of got used to it. So I'm a functioning adult regardless.

Things that make her laugh

This girl is a tough nut to crack. She has a resting bitch face and she is so hard to please. But we've managed to nail down some sure-fire laughing maneuvers.

- Lifting her up and down to step on things to the tune of Pink Panther
- Massaging her thighs
- Raspberries on her chin and neck, and armpits
- Playing dead/asleep then waking up to surprise her
- Dragging a lampin across her face