January 2021, the start of a new year and what felt like a new life in the Jenkins household. Don’t get me wrong- I absolutely adored and loved Atch through the first six months. But they were hard! Mostly from an exhaustion standpoint.

He would only sleep with contact which meant he was literally attached to me 24 hours a day. From three months on he would only sleep at night laying beside me and latched onto my breast. Even then he was still waking at night every 30 minutes – 2 hours max. Truly I felt like I did not sleep for 6 months straight.

In January we felt comfortable moving him into his crib, in his bedroom, and letting him cry some in order to sleep on his own. I needed it for my own mental and physical well-being. And I think Atch did too.

It was a PAINFUL process for all of us. I was physically sick over it, yet I prayed hard and God provided clear reassurance that this was the right move.

At six months we introduced solid foods to Atch through baby-led weaning. It’s basically a method of feeding babies that teaches them independent eating from the start. Meaning- we have never spoon fed him. He doesn’t eat puréed baby food. He tries modified versions of table food that are served/prepared appropriately for babies. We LOVE this style of feeding! He loves every food he has tried.

We are following a program called 100 first foods which encourages babies to try 100 different, real-whole-foods, before their first birthday. We quickly realized our boy is an amazing eater! He tried over 20 foods in January alone. During his first month of eating some of his favorite foods were black beans, cauliflower, banana, split peas, and butternut squash.

We went back to in-person church for the first time since March. Atch loved the music and took a nice nap on Daddy’s shoulder during the sermon. We weren’t quite ready to send him to the nursery at this point.

Playtime became infinitely more fun at 6 months as Atchison could sit up independently, roll around to get his toys, and try to drag his body.

Overall, January was my favorite month (at that time) with Atch! It felt like bliss in many ways. Refreshing, exciting, sweet and beautiful… I wished the month would never end!