You may already know this if you're my friend or relative, and maybe you've also picked up on this if you read my blog regularly...I'm Type-A. I like to be organized. I like to have answers. I like to do it the right way. I don't cut corners. I am not lazy...in fact, I have a hard time sitting still because there's so much I could be getting done. Type-A. That's me.

So when Alia started whining, I wanted answers. There must be answers somewhere, and in an effort to find those answers as to why my little Miss Whinypants has been so whiny, I broke out a book that I tried to finish before Alia was born...Babywise. Why is it her daytime naps are only a half an hour at a time? Is this why she's whiny? Chronic tiredness? And if she's so tired, why won't she sleep more during her naps? Is it because she sleeps 12 hours straight at night? And is it normal that she's still on a 3 hour cycle of eat-play-sleep? I figured maybe all the answers were in the book.

So I cracked it open. I flipped to the back of the book, and found that this book only focuses on baby behavior (and training) up to 10 weeks old. Oops...might've thought to finish the book awhile back...but in all fairness, I was tired!!! Anyway...near the back of the book, I thumbed through, looking for anything that might be helpful....and there it was...mention of a 6 month old. As I backed up to read what I had uncovered, to my dismay, the author mentions how much older babies, 6 months, will eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then nurse just before bedtime....HUH???? Dude, Alia eats 5.5 ounces every 2.5-3 hours. She has a mid-morning snack of veggies. She gets a touch of rice cereal in her bottles. But 3 meals??? at 6 months? Where did I go wrong. Then mister smartypants author goes on to say something about a couple of long naps, or perhaps a single long nap mid-day. Again, I'm thinking, does the author know any 6 month olds? Or is mine a total outlier on the bell curve?

Frustrated and feeling very alienated, I set the book down. And here I was so proud that Alia sleeps so well at night...maybe just a little fine tuning would be necessary to get her from 2 morning naps to 1, and ditto for the afternoon schedule. But now I see that everything is completely out of whack....she's not even close to meeting these goals.

I picked up the laptop and googled "6 month old feeding schedule"...about a million things came up. And the first one I clicked? It said that most 6 month olds still didn't quite have it in them to stay awake for more than 2 hours at a time, which basically meant that they still required multiple naps throughout the day. It also said that because naps were so frequent, they would be short in duration. The article then went on to say that at 6 months, most babies would be able to sleep the night, with the exception of 1-2 feedings in the night, but anymore than that would be more habit than nutritive requirement. Finally, it listed a typical feeding schedule for a 6 month old. There in black and white I saw 30-32oz of formula or breast milk throughout the day...starting at maybe 6:30AM. From there feeding every 3 hours with a vegetable snack in the mid-morning, and maybe a fruit snack in the evening.

Yep, I was back! Back to feeling great about Alia's sleeping straight through the night. Back to feeling confident about how long Alia was capable of staying up. Back to feeling good about how much she was eating and how often. Amazing what a little Google will getcha!