6 months of Alyssa

I think I blinked and half a year went by. Alyssa is now officially 6 months old. Here's a little peek of how she has grown and changed over the last six months...


She is getting so big. I'm going to guess that she's probably around 14 pounds now. We won't find out for sure for a couple more weeks though. But here is what she has been up to.

She is still exclusively breastfed. Although, I think that will be changing very soon. She is getting much more interested in other food and has been nursing much more often so I think it might be time to add a little more to her diet.

Teething has begun. No teeth yet, but she is drooling and hands are usually in her mouth when she's awake. She chomps down hard on anything she gets her hands on.

She is very interested in toys now. Her feet are a pretty big hit too. If she doesn't have a toy in her hand then her feet are.

She is getting better and better at sitting unassisted everyday. She can pull herself up into a seated position too if she is partially propped up.

Alyssa pretty much always has to have her eyes on me. She definitely knows who I am and that I am her food source. If I'm in the room she will practically jump out of who ever's arms are holding hare to get to me if she's hungry.

Alyssa likes to roll around. Diaper changes have gotten fun with her trying to turn over every time.

Speaking of diapers we are still cloth diapering. It hasn't been all that bad. It seems to be working out nicely.

As far as sleeping goes she is still getting up at night. It's not too bad though. She wakes once to eat and I usually just lay down and feed her and will fall asleep while she eats. So it hasn't been causing too much less sleep for me.

Alyssa has certainly found a place in our family and our hearts. We are all enjoying watching her grow and change and try new things. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next six months are going to bring for her too.

Saving the planet one diaper at a time

When I was pregnant with Alyssa I looked into cloth diapering with her. I was really on the fence about it because of the up front cost of it and when I had discussed it with Joe he said no way. So I didn't push it, but I got a deal I couldn't refuse recently. That coupled with the fact that since Alyssa was born Joe has only changed a handful of diapers I knew I had to try this. Just a note about Joe, he took on a huge role in potty training CJ when Alyssa came along and has cleaned him up countless times so I'm totally not complaining about his lack of diaper changes. He is doing more than his fair share.

So anyways, before I said yes to this I did discuss things with Joe. He still didn't want to do this and he has his reasons, but he said go for it, but he would not be changing the diapers. Okay, that's fine. I understand him being leery about this. I never thought I'd be on board with this, but yet here we are.

So yesterday I received our cloth diapers. We got flats which are like the old fashioned cloth diapers that our parents and grandparents used. There really is so much out there, but I didn't have much of a choice in the whole thing when it came down to it. But after looking into everything I was pretty confident I could do this. So last night I washed and prepped our cloth diapers to give it a go for today. I just couldn't wait to get started.

This morning I got up and got our cloth diapers all piled up.

That's 24 flats right there

I took one flat and folded it with an oragami fold like I had learned from a few different videos. I got Alyssa in it and was amazed that I got it on her to stay on her.

Look at that cute cloth diaper tushy

And then I went along with my busy morning of getting a husband to work and kids off to school. About an hour and a half later in the home stretch of getting the kids to school I thought Alyssa felt wet. I didn't have time to stop and change her as I needed to get CJ out the door to school. So I brought him to school and came back home to check the diaper situation. I was very shocked. She had completely saturated the diaper all the way through the cover, onesie, and her pants. Wow! super peer. So I changed her and went about my morning. Fed her and did some stuff around the house and then it was time to go get CJ from school. I needed to redress Alyssa though, but figured I better check that diaper. It was very wet again. So changed her and put clothes on her and went and got CJ.

She ended up being in this diaper for about 4 hours because she ended up taking a nap after lunch. I was really worried about what I would find when she got up to eat again, but she was fine. She needed changing, but it wasn't soaked. Okay, so thinking maybe she just pees a lot in the morning. So I changed her, fed her, and then headed out to pick Joe up from work. When we got home about 45 minutes later I checked her again. And again she had leaked. However, this time her diaper wasn't as soaked so maybe it's the way I'm folding it. So now we get to try things out to see how it works. Might have to put some inserts in to catch a little extra pee. As long as she doesn't pee or poop while Joe is holding her we should be good.

Speaking of dad, she was lounging on him tonight...

I was hoping and praying that she was not going to leak on him. She didn't. she was wet, but she held that one in pretty good. I think we're going to be okay with this though. Just think of the money we're saving and the planet. So I have got to stick with this, right?