Noah at 7 months

Noah turned 7 months as of last week, so I thought I'd post a little update on him. He just this week started sitting up independently (for the most part, I still have to stay close in case he topples over backwards). on Saturday, he started rocking from side to side on his belly as if he wants to crawl, but he is getting VERY frustrated because all he can do is spin or roll. I try to show him how to get up on his knees but he'll have none of it.

A lot of the frustration comes from his new-found sense of self-determination; he now knows EXACTLY what he wants and he gets so mad when he can't reach it. I know this because he's also very communicative about what he's trying to get. He will fuss until he gets my attention, then look directly at what he wants, and then look back at me as if to say "get that for me! I want it!" I oblige, but I'm trying to hold off a bit because if I just give him everything, he'll never learn how to go get things for himself.

What he wants most in the world, the majority of the time, are Nathan's toys. I can see that this is going to be a problem, so I'm teaching Nathan to pick up his toys that he doesn't want to share, and also to remove everything small from the family room. A couple of times, Nathan has yanked things away from Noah, though luckily didn't hurt him.

Overall though, Nathan still loves Noah dearly. Yesterday he took it a little too far- I walked out of the room for just a moment while Noah was in his bouncy seat, and returned to find Nathan lifting Noah's head. I was so shocked that I yelled at him, which I don't often do. When I got to the bottom of it, Nathan had been lifting Noah because he wanted to snuggle him. Hard to be mad at that. The adoration is mutual, too; Noah loves to just watch Nathan play and often laughs at Nathan's "funny noises" that he loves to make.

One more thing: Noah is still not sleeping through the night. On the better nights, I only have to get up to feed him once, but on other nights he might be up 3 or 4 times. My goal has been to have him sleeping through the nigh by May, which is rapidly approaching, so it's looking more and more like I will have to figure out some sort of strategic plan to systematically work towards this. His number of feedings per day has really dipped, so I'm kind of thinking it's a matter of recalibrating him to eat more during the daytime hours. He has plenty of days where he goes 8 hours without milk, it's just unfortunately during the nighttime.