Our daughter turned seven months old not long ago. My wife went back to work almost a month ago, so the daytime belongs to me and the baby now. The biggest change is not any single task—it is the shape of the day. It comes in pieces. I can rarely stay with one thing for long before she needs something. She is wet, hungry, bored, or simply wants company, and she lets me know with sounds, squirms, or a sudden burst of fussing.
The schedule found us
Feeding became much more regular after my wife returned to work. When she was home, nursing happened whenever the baby seemed to want it, which meant many small feeds and many wet diapers. Now, during the day, formula does most of the work. It sits differently in her stomach, keeps her full longer, and we usually get about four hours between feeds. She wakes around nine. I clean her up and get her dressed, and by ten or a little after she has a bottle. The next one is around two in the afternoon. My wife is home by six and nurses her then. After dinner my wife takes her out for a walk. They are back after eight, the baby has another bottle, and after nine, when she is going to sleep, she nurses once more. That last feed usually carries her to around five in the morning. It is not a perfect schedule, but it lets both the baby and the adults get more rest.
Most mornings I get her sorted and then go cook. I put her by the kitchen door, where she can watch me move around inside. She stays surprisingly quiet. Maybe because she has slept for a long stretch, she is still half in that sleepy state and does not make much fuss. Around eleven thirty I sit down and eat breakfast and lunch together. After that I play with her for a while. Her nap usually comes around two. I do not force a particular nap time. If she is tired, she either falls asleep on her own or I hold her for a bit. This is already easier than it was before she turned six months, when she would stay up until eleven or midnight and leave everyone exhausted.
Teaching without pressure
I started showing her things when she was about a month old. I do not expect her to master any of it; I just keep putting something in front of her. As she gets older, though, I can see her studying. She cannot talk yet, but her movements and expressions give her away. When I go through numbers from one to ten with hand gestures, she watches my hands and tries to move hers along with them. It is not an exact copy, but it looks like she is working something out.
We have bought different toys at different stages. The same toy loses its shine after a while. Right now she has two small horns. I did not buy two because I was especially forward-thinking; they were cheap. That accidental purchase made it easy to teach her to blow one.
The first day I gave her the horn, she only chewed on it. When I blew it, she looked, but she did not try to blow back. The second day I did not teach her. Plenty of toys sit around for a while before she pays attention to them. Social media sellers like to tell parents what a baby should be doing by a certain month, but a lot of that feels like anxiety marketing. The toy was not wasted. She would get to it when she was ready. Some of her earlier toys worked that way too, becoming interesting only a month or two later.
On the third day, with nothing else to do, I decided to try again. I showed her the horn and told her it would not make noise by itself. Then I puffed out my cheeks and blew without the horn, so she could see that the air alone was silent. Then I put the horn to my mouth and blew, and it made a sound. I repeated the demonstration a few times and put the horn in her mouth. She did not get it right away. I blew a few more times, set my horn aside, and went back to my chores. Not long afterward, I heard a sound behind me. She had worked it out on her own. I filmed a short clip for my wife at work before I turned around to praise the baby. After a week of practice, she was blowing it quite well, sometimes several toots in a row. She does not always have the energy for it. Usually, after a bottle, I hand her the horn and she plays with it and blows it herself.
More of the world comes into view
At seven months, she can sit steadily. The stroller has changed from lying flat to sitting up, which means she can see much more when we go out. When she sees other children on the coin-operated rides outside shops, she leans toward them. We let her have a ride, and she enjoys it so much that she protests when the ride stops. I suspect that once she can talk, she will be asking to go out and ride one all the time.
Yesterday I noticed that she is starting to cut a tooth. Her height and weight have not moved much: 67 centimeters and about seven and a half kilograms. I am not worried. I have seen children with all kinds of growth patterns, and she seems healthy. As long as I can keep her company as she grows, give her ordinary affection and guidance, I do not need to insist on where she ends up. Whatever comes will be the best arrangement.