Weight/Height:
C won't have another pediatrician official weight and height check until next month, so we used our at home methods again this month. He tipped the scale at 21.6 pounds and measured out to be 28 inches. With these measurements he's ranking at 75th percentile for weight and 52th percentile for length. Our little man, who isn't so little officially has almost outgrown his 22 pound infant car seat now so he's riding in style in both cars in a convertible seat. How did this happen so quickly?!
Eating: We
had minimal changes this month in terms of his bottle. He's still
doing great with Similac Alimentum and Plum Organics Oatmeal at 5am,
8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 7:30pm with 6 ounces in each bottle for a total of 36 ounces a day. We are still of the mentaility that 'Food before 1, is just for fun!' but we're all still loving the baby led weaning. I'm so glad we stuck with it and C is getting to eat table foods with us. This month he enjoyed some new foods like red peppers, strawberries, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, Greek yogurt, cheese, fish sticks and cherry tomatoes at home. Our boy is not a veggie fan - any tips on helping that area??? He loves his fruit and meat though. We also spoke with his school and he's eating breakfast, lunch and a snack there. Obviously, I use the term eating lightly. Part of the tuition we pay covers a kitchen and food costs. They gave us a menu, we crossed off items we didn't want him to eat (mainly a lot of bread products like muffins and biscuits) and now he's apparently thriving and loving every minute of new foods at school. Last week they told us he enjoyed oranges, tomato soup with crackers and beef stew! I'm not entirely sure how he ate the soup and stew, but to our knowledge they aren't spoon feeding and made the comment that the soup was thickened up with noodles and crackers. He and another little boy in his class are the only ones of table food, but enjoy eating with each other and his teachers have commented on how impressed they are with C's skills. BLW win! C also had his very first allergic reaction. At school he had scrambled eggs and broke out in a rash wherever the eggs touched him. It went away and he was fine, but we'll tread lightly with eggs going forward. The episode scared his teachers more than it scared me, RCW or C!
Sleeping:
Sleeping has continued to be fantastic for the most part*. The little man doesn't have a set nap schedule, but is getting between 3 and 4 hours of nap time a day. The times of day vary Monday through Friday and definitely Saturday and Sunday. When he's home with us on weekends he has been getting up around 5:30am, eating and playing for about an hour before crashing for a good 1.5 - 2 hour nap in the morning. He doesn't do that when he goes to school. There he's sleeping for varying stretches between 9am and 12pm. Then he usually naps when I get him home between 3:30pm and 5:30pm, again for varying lengths depending on how he slept at school. We got him back to not needing to be rocking and bounced from his week at the beach - yay! Now we are typically rocking to calm him down if need be and then putting him in his crib awake. He is learning to go to sleep on his own and its fabulous. Within about ten minutes at most, he's asleep whether for nap or bed time. Now to clarify the most part statement...About once a week and always on a weekend, C is waking around 2-2:30am. He's wide awake! Crying it out, patting him, soothing him without picking him up does nothing. So one of us gets him, rocks him and helps him go back to sleep. The bad part is he can be dead to the world on your shoulder and the second you lay him down and his head touches his crib mattress, you have a 50-50 chance that he will be wide awake again. Last week on my watch I ended up letting him sleep on me, while I slept on the sofa until RCW came and moved C to his bed at 4am and made me get in our bed too. I don't know if he's getting too much sleep on the weekends or what is happening, but I'm just happy its a once a week occurrence instead of nightly! Also, I must report that sadly we aren't tracking C's life anymore via his schedule. Up until the last two weeks of September, we were writing down e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. When he ate, how much he ate, how many pees, poops, what time he was napping and sleeping. It was how I could give averages these past 7 months. But the last two weeks of September I was working nights and sadly I just couldn't do it all. So we stopped. I really wanted to try and keep it up until C was a year old, but really there wasn't a purpose besides my OCD reporting of his life!
Diapers: Remember last month when I said C was finally diaper rash free? Well, guess what came back just a few days ago?! We are using our same old methods - blue fleece liners in his cloth diapers, using California Baby cloth diaper friendly cream sometimes, the prescribed Magic Butt Cream sometimes, Aveeno diaper cream sometimes and Lotrimen sometimes because the ped said it may be more of a jock itch type thing. Which seriously?! It isn't enough that my 8 month old loves to touch himself, but now I have to deal with jock itch too. I was the naive boy mom who thought those two things wouldn't happen until he was a teenager! RCW and I believe the rash is teething related and are hoping that means C will be getting some new ones in the coming weeks! Everything else in the land of diapesr is the same - FuzziBunz
with 2 inserts exclusively during the day. His leg setting is at 3 on each end,
but his waist is still set at 2 on both sides. At night he's wearing his bumGenius 4.0 with 1 microfiber insert, 2 large hemp (we had to add an extra hemp!) and 1 small hemp
insert strategically placed for our tummy sleeping boy! Time for a BLW - fail! Wow is poop a whole new story now that C is actually swallowing and digesting some of those solids! That's all I say, but I am thankful we have a diaper sprayer on hand.
Clothes:C is no longer in any 6 month sized clothes. They are all packed away now. Thankfully, the days turned cooler and he's in his long pants and some long sleeved 9 month pieces. I think they'll get us through these fall days and when its really cold out he'll be in 12 month size. For his weekly photo shoots I had to buy him some 12 month onesies. I just can't believe that! He's growing so fast!
Social Butterfly: C had a quiet month compared to last month! With some late nights, out of town trips for RCW and both of us in the thick of studying for school for me and RCW's land surveying test on October 26, it was a lot at home play time. We did manage to get out to the pumpkin patch where C loved riding the tractor and seems to have an affinity for the color orange. Gramma and Grandpa B. came out to visit for a weekend which was a win-win for everyone. During their visit we got all dressed up for Halloween and went to the Louisville Zoo's World's Largest Halloween Party. C didn't trick or treat, but rode around and loved people watching. He was alert and happy the whole time. It didn't hurt that it was outside which he adores.
Playtime:
Playtime is a whole new world these days! C has really grown in the past month. He's rolling all over the place, trying desperately hard to crawl, but just can't quite get it yet and he wants to stand up on everything. If we're on the floor playing with him he prefers that you just hold your hands out so he can pull up using you for support. We're his personal jungle gym! We put a mirror up in the living room in his play area so he can see himself and get some more interaction. This month he has really come to love toys that make noise. We got him this Penguin Bat and Wobble toy at a consignment sale for about $3 and he loves it! I also got him a Bright Starts Press and Zoom Pal. We have a zebra in a safari truck and C loves not only playing with the zebra ball, but watching the truck move. It is definitely helping with his desire to be able to move after the truck too! In the playtime section I suppose is the best place to mention Ages and Stages too. At C's school they provide annual developmental testing using a test called Ages and Stages or ASQ-3. RCW and I filled this out for C when he was 6 months and got the results back a couple weeks ago. While C didn't score poorly in any area, so he isn't in what they call a danger zone, he scored the highest and best for communication and gross motor skills. He scored in the middle zone or gray zone for fine motor skills, problem solving and personal-social. This is why we put out a mirror and bought some more interactive toys instead of his typical Sophie and Mortimer toys. We did all laugh, because one of the reasons he was in the gray area for personal-social was because RCW and I answered that he wasn't afraid of strangers. Well, when RCW, Gramma and Grandpa went to pick him up from school Friday, guess who screamed and cried when RCW handed him to Gramma? Yup, C! He also was not a happy camper when we tried to get a picture with him and Batman at the Halloween Zoo party. I suppose he is learning to recognize people he doesn't know and may not be as willing to go to them as he's been in the past. Per Ages and Stages, all part of his development. The school will retest him in 3 to 4 months to see how he's advancing in the three areas where he scored in the middle zone. I will say, it was a bit unnerving at first thinking that your child isn't developing the way educators think he should and of course I had massive mom guilt and felt like a horrible parent for about 3 days , but now that we understand the test and how it works, we're really glad it was performed and know how to help C grow and learn!
Personality: C continues to be a happy little man! His teachers even commented that to me one day where I then gave my typical response of, "Yes, he's a very happy baby until he's not like when he's hungry or sleepy!" They said that no even then he wasn't that bad. Gosh, what is bad then?! Because C definitely lets you when he wants something he isn't getting! He talks all the time and if he had his way would be on the move all the time too. He has a big personality that I can't wait to see shine through even more in the coming months when he's crawling, walking and saying words! I also just want to say again, he loves his dogs! He looks for them when he wakes up and when we come into the house. He loves watching them and now that we're all on the floor playing more, for them to be around him while he plays too. I'm so thankful that we have an animal loving little guy!
Milestones: In C's eighth month, his biggest milestones were getting the hang of rolling front to back and back to front to roll all over the house! He also has continued to thrive with BLW and solid foods. His sounds now include more than just ba-ba-ba-ba. He is making many g sounds as well as p sounds. In his quest to always be standing up, it often sounds like he is saying 'up' while reaching his arms for me and RCW. He had his first pumpkin patch visit, first pumpkin painting experience and first Halloween trick or treating adventure too. C is such a blessing for RCW and I, we feel so truly blessed to have him in our lives and call him our little man!
