And she’s half a year old! She changes and grows each day, and it’s fascinating watching her learn new things. I feel like I’ve known her my whole life, and yet at other times, she feels so brand new to me.

 

She smiles! She actually smiles! I never thought I’d see the day. As it turns out, she’s actually a pretty friendly and smiley baby – to family. Similar to Hunter, she is not too fussed with strangers and reserves her smiles just for very close family members. To the rest of the world, it’s mostly snobby-stares.. or crying, if you’re unlucky 😉

She is still incredibly petite, at the 2nd percentile… a far cry from the 100+ percentile that both her brothers were.

On the day she turned 6 months old, she weighs 5.7KG and breastfeeds 8-9x a day. In comparison, the boys were 11KG and breastfeeding 5x a day. HUGE difference!!

Everything about her is delicate and small, and she’s easy to carry around since she’s super light. I don’t worry too much that she’s so tiny, because I was petite when I was a baby too. It’s also kind of novel and nice to have a tiny baby 🙂

 

She’s busy schooching along the floor now. Not crawling, since she doesn’t have the muscle strength, but pushing her bum up to shove herself forward. A very clumsy, awkward “crawl”. But it gets her from Point A to Point B, so she’s happy.

 

Her favoured position? CARRIED. Permanently. I get a grand total of 5 mins of her in the stroller while I gobble down my food, before she screams like somebody’s about to kill her. She screams if she doesn’t get enough attention, so at least one person needs to be attending to her at every waking moment. I think her name is listed under the definition of High Needs Baby.

 

She can sit in her high chair now, and plays with toys while we have our dinner. But only for a few minutes before she gets angry that nobody is paying enough attention to her, or carrying her.

She’s still 100% direct breast fed, every 2.5 hours (!) during the day. She wakes up once at night to nurse, which is agony for me, as I treasure my sleep. Her brothers slept through the night at 2 months old, so it’s painful for me to wake up once a night when she’s already 6 months old! Only saving grace is that she sleeps easily and by herself, and will also put herself back to sleep after her middle-of-the-night nursing session.

We’re planning to start her on solids (breastmilk + baby cereal) this week, though!

 

Thank goodness Chloe is a pretty decent sleeper. She generally can put herself down for naps as well as night time, and only gives us grief if she’s going through a growth spurt.

Only problem? She nap snacks. She only does 30mins naps (serious FOMO it’s this one), which means she takes around 4 naps a day. It also means I get virtually no time to myself during the day time… so pleassssee start having solid 2-hour naps soon, lil girl!

 

Doing so, so much better in her stroller these days! When she was 2-3 months old, it was just non stop screaming…. oh my poor ears. But now, she really enjoys her morning walks by the river when I walk the kids to/from school. She looks around, enjoys the fresh air, the breeze from the river, and generally just chills out.

Funny how you think OMG THIS HELL WILL NEVER END when your baby is in the throes of driving you insane.. and before you know it, that stage passes and you quickly forget how bad it used to be.

 

She also went on her first holiday! We were in Perth when she was still in my belly, and now she gets to enjoy it from the outside.

 

Only one of my three children that will fit into the Bumbo! Her older brothers both had way too chubby thighs to squeeze in.

 

She loves soaking in the attention of her older brothers, who still can’t seem to get enough of her. They treat her as their living doll, and she’s learned to live with their madness and man-handling as they’re always trying to carry her or shove toys in her face. Hey, any attention is good attention from her perspective!

 

She brings out the nurturing, caring, and sweetie-pie side of Hunter… a side that I’d never seen before until she was born. He’s still so happy with his “dream come true” and is first to run to her in the morning and whenever she fusses. His patience and kindness towards her is incredible… makes me wonder why he can’t show the same toward his younger brother too!

I’m pretty sure she loves him most. She turns to him eagerly the moment she hears his voice, and gives him the BIGGEST smiles. I really hope the three kids remain this close when they’re older!

 

Enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, this little girl is happiest when showered with loads of love and affection. And now, it’s a joy for us, as she dishes it right back! It’s so much more rewarding now, having her coo and giggle and smile back at us. I’ve almost (almost!) forgotten the misery of the first three months of her existence, where all she did was cry and fuss and drive me completely insane.

 

And these *heart eyes* she gives me when she looks at me?

PRICELESS.