When it comes to baby milestones, everyone talks about crawling and walking. But our 6.5-month-old daughter has just unlocked a less championed, but still game-changing, new ability. She can sit up on her own.
Our baby has never liked lying on her back. She’s prone to reflux, and in the early colicky weeks, digestion seemed to go better if we held her upright. She’s also a person who wants to be in on the action. Laying down means she might miss something, like watching her exhausted parents load the dishwasher or remember to feed the cat. Despite our best efforts, she routinely resists bedtime with a force of will I find impressive for a person who weighs 17 pounds. Among her techniques: straining and hollering and thwacking her feet when we put her down on her back.
Last month it became clear that our daughter wanted to sit up, even if she couldn’t quite do it yet. We’d put her in a sitting position, and she’d immediately list to the side or fold forward onto the floor like a piece of baby origami. But we strapped her into the highchair and the upright stroller anyway. I could tell she liked it. She kept lunging for our food, and I decided she was steady enough to try some herself. So we gave her broccoli. Mango. Red pepper. Oatmeal with cinnamon. She tried them all with gusto. She yanked the placemat and banged on the table. She watched the world wide-eyed from her stroller. Surely, I thought, if she can do all this, then sitting is just around the corner.
One day last week — or maybe the week before — she didn’t lurch so dramatically when we sat her up. She wobbled like a drunken sailor, but managed to stay upright for nearly five minutes. If you’ve ever parented a baby, you know how valuable those five minutes can be. So we bolstered her with pillows for the moment she’d inevitably keel over. We handed her a rattle, a tambourine and some blocks. Our sitting-up baby managed to entertain herself, and we managed to clean the kitchen. It was a game-changer.
My colleague Elsie refers to this time as the flower pot stage -– plunk a sitting baby down, and they can just stay there. I am keenly aware that it will only last so long: the baby will crawl, then walk, and I’ll have to worry about the outlets and the stairs and the radiator. But for now, I’m so proud of our little flower pot. She eats her blocks and throws her tambourine. And I can’t wait to keep watching her grow.