Your 6 Month Old Baby

Your 6 month old baby has already begun what I call the long arc of physical independence.

What this means is he or she is on the path towards attaining independence of physical movement, starting with rolling over, crawling, cruising and finally standing and walking.

Of course, this process will take many months to accomplish, but I want to bring it up here to show you what is going on from an energy perspective with your baby.

Medium arc energy activities involve maintaining homeostasis or balance within the context of ongoing environmental and external influences.

One example could be how your 6 month old baby handles the current climate and seasonal environmental changes both indoors and outdoors.

This requires energy expenditures from your baby over the course of several weeks and months.

Short arc energy activities which your 6 month old baby is doing on a daily basis will be obvious to you because they are readily noticeable and hopefully by now routine.

Things like feeding, sleeping, communicating, having plenty of dirty diapers, etc., are all daily energy expenditures on your baby's part which come under this heading of the short arc.

This concept of arcs of energy development is one of the most important principles for parents to grasp and absorb.

I find that dividing these energy dynamics into these three categories makes it easier to understand and keep in mind as your baby continues to change and grow in more ways than one.

From a historical perspective, keep in mind that those experiences your 6 month old baby has had are filed away and compared to his or her current settings.

Going all the way back to the prenatal time period and moving forward up to the present, this dynamic is contantly playing a role in how your baby experiences the world.

I can't emphasize enough the importance of balancing and taking into account these events and recognizing how they may have affected your baby at the time they were experienced.

If nothing is done to further understand and gain perspective on these experiences, they will simply be saved according to the level of understanding your baby had at the time. Using your own focus, thoughts, words and actions can play a tremendous role in reframing those experiences for your baby.

As we have mentioned with previous age ranges, the environment influences how your baby prioritizes his or her energy expenditures.

At this 6 month old baby level, the ability to adapt to change while adhering to familiar routines should be an easier task for your baby.

In addition, we have to take into account the fact that your baby's awareness of what's going on in the environment is now playing a much more important role.

For example, your baby will now notice how other people move about the room, reach into cabinets, talk on the phone, etc.

Concurrently, your baby will likely make the conscious discovery that those activities are outside of his or her current ability to duplicate.

This can lead to frustration and emotional upset which is not surprising at all.

If you are aware of this process happening it should make it easier to understand and enable you to help them through this stage of development.

Once again, don't be alarmed if your baby is not doing all of these things.

Remember what we've said about your baby following their blueprint? Timing is very individual and must be trusted. If there is a problem, your baby's doctor will take the appropriate action and order testing if needed.

Let's explore this concept of an underlying blueprint that your baby is following a little bit more.

Even when going through developmental milestones, your baby will be comparing the timing of these activities with their own individual blueprint.

I have found it difficult to really know what is happening according to the baby's own schedule and what is happening in response to outside events or as compensation or adjustments for outside influences.

For example, let's say a baby's father is out of town for weeks and months because of work overseas.

This will obviously have an energy impact on the whole family, the baby included. In this type of scenario, it will be difficult to distinguish between a reactive compensation for the father's absence resulting in a possible delay in the baby's development, and the underlying energy distribution changes and timing coming from the baby's own blueprint energy pattern.

In my experience, the only way to know which is truly happening comes after the fact, when perhaps the father returns and things change back to a normal pattern with the baby or after a certain time goes by, the baby is able to rebalance and get back on track according to their underlying blueprint schedule.

The bottom line is; we must trust that the underlying blueprint for your baby is present and accessible to them, even when the outward appearance temporarily shows a different picture.

We can now add to the following picture the forward or future directed topics of the long, medium and short arc energy dynamics mentioned above.

These are included below to give a more accurate depiction of how your 6 month old baby's energy equation is working in real time.

Remember the long arc relates to physical independence at this stage of your baby's development. Your baby will relentlessly pursue this goal of being able to physically move and explore the environment until he or she can do it naturally and effortlessly.

The medium arc involves maintaining homeostasis and balance, and the short term arc takes care of daily energy needs like eating and sleeping.

These 3 arcs of energy will be changing as your baby and child changes through their growing years. We will continue to discuss the age appropriate implications as we progress through the different age ranges together.

Go ahead and take a sneak peak at the next age range of 9 months if you'd like.

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