Archive for August, 2007

from Enfamil
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Learning to Communicate
Amazingly, this month your baby may reach and gesture with her hands. It might be her way of imitating you or trying to tell you something. But you probably won’t notice it. Her communication skills need lots of work. And you’re not used to having a baby who says “Give me.” Even if it’s only with her hands.

Watch your six-month-old closely. You’ll see she sometimes tries to use gestures, body language, and eye contact to get her point across. She will also start canonical babbling this month. By paying closer attention to adult speech, she is able to make sentence-like strings of vowels and consonants. It’s up to you to guess what she means when she says “Ba ba ba” or “Da la da la.”

Sitting Up
Sitting up takes a combination of strength, balance, and coordination. Your baby will probably start with a tripod pose. That means she’ll keep her hands on the floor between her legs. Gradually, she’ll learn to sit up straight and let go of the floor. By the end of the month, she’ll actually play in this position.

Monkey See, Monkey Do
At six months, babies begin what experts call social imitation. Your baby wants to be like you. Open your mouth, and your little monkey will open hers, too. Bang a toy, shake a rattle, splash the bath water, and with a little encouragement, she’ll delight in following your lead.

Brain Teaser
Did you know…that starting at about six months, your baby’s vocal and listening experiences will contribute to brain developments associated with her talking skills?

Getting Point
Your baby’s communication skills are developing. Sometimes her efforts are very subtle, so watch closely. You may see her gesturing with her hands, or even looking toward something she wants. Most exciting of all, her babbling is beginning to resemble human speech. You may even hear “Mama” for the first time. And she may be stringing sounds together to form “sentences.” It’s one of the many ways she’ll try to imitate you.

Take a glance at other milestones for your baby at six months old.

Carbohydrates
Your baby needs carbohydrates to grow. Carbohydrates supply the energy for her growth and physical activities.

There are two kinds of carbohydrates in foods. The first kind, complex starches, can be found in cereals, whole grains, dried beans and vegetables. You can get the second, simple sugars, from milk, fruit or added sugars. And if you’re feeding Enfamil LIPIL®, your baby will get her carbohydrates from the infant formula.

Doctors also recommend that you continue to feed your baby breast milk or formula for at least the first full year of your baby’s life. That’s because your baby cannot fully digest cow’s milk as easily as he can digest breast milk or formula. And since it lacks the proper amounts of iron and vitamin C that your baby needs to develop, cow’s milk does not provi de the right balance of nutrients he needs.

So, stick with breast milk or formula, to ensure your baby is getting all the nutrients he needs to grow. Find out which Enfamil® infant formula is right for your baby.

Home, Safe Home
With crawling just around the corner, now is the time to make sure every corner of every room is baby-proofed. Soon, your baby will be lifting herself up on anything she can get her hands on. So check furniture for sturdiness. And remember, your little one’s little fingers can get into anything. Plug up all your unused sockets now.

We found out Ian was teething about a week ago and I’ve been looking for things to help ease his discomfort. I’ve come across a couple of remedies (both known and new) and I thought I would put them here for future reference. Here’s what I’ve found:

• Hyland’s Teething Tablets – these were recommended to me by someone in one of my discussion boards. We’ve been using them for a bit now and they seem to be working. I like the fact that I can give 2-3 tablets up to 6 times a day. I don’t have to give Ian 2-3 tablets each time, in fact I’ve only had to give him 2 at a time and he seems to be fine. If I notice that he seems to be getting some discomfort, but it isn’t worthy of crying yet, I can give him 1 tablet and it helps a lot.
• Tylenol – this helps everything. We tend to use this at night since we know how Ian is going to react to it. It’s still a drug though and we’re both hesitate to rely heavily on this. So, for now, Ian only gets this when it’s absolutely necessary.
• Teething Rings – make sure you put these in both the freezer and refrigerator. We haven’t had much luck with the freezer ones yet. It seems they are too cold for Ian and they are also a bit for his mouth. I’ve found some triangular ones that Ian really seems to like. He can actually stick these in his mouth. Jesse says the round ones fail because they make the corner of Ian’s mouth cold.
• Cold Washcloth – I basically wet a washcloth and stick it in the freezer for a bit. Ian likes to gnaw on fabric, so these are really good as long as I don’t leave them in the freezer too long. Once they get hard, Ian doesn’t like them as much because he can’t clutch at them.
• Gentle Naturals Teething Drops – I haven’t really tried these yet, but Lori’s neighbor recommended these. I’ve found them at Walgreens and Meijers. Once I’ve tried these, I’ll post a comment on what I think.
• My Finger – Ian loves grabbing a hold of my finger and sticking it in his mouth. It’s not a long term fix (at least not in my opinion, but Ian seems to think so), but it is a temporary fix until you can get something else. It helps calm him down

If anyone else has any recommendations, we’ll gladly take them.