A lot has happened between 8 and 9 months for Nate. As you have read in my previous posts, his sleep has been terribly disturbed. We are still working towards getting a better night's sleep for everyone, but we are thankful that his naps are normal right now. He is so easy to get down for a nap, but they don't last very long (1-1.5 hours). In the morning, he goes down almost exactly 2 hours after waking up. I learned through trial and error to watch the clock and put him in his crib at 2 hours past his wake up time. If I do that, he goes down without a single fuss. If I forget to watch the clock and it has been 2.5 or 3 hours since he woke up, even though he is happily playing with Ben, he will be so hard to get down for his nap and will usually refuse it all together and be overtired for his afternoon nap. I don't know if there is science involved in that, but that is just the way it seems to work for him.
Roughly, his routine:
7am - wake and nurse
9am - nap
10:30am - 12pm - playtime and maybe 2-4 ounces of fruit
12pm - nurse and table food for lunch with sippy of water
1pm - nap
2:30/3pm - wake and play (Ben naps 1-3pm)
3:30pm - nurse
5:30pm - table food with sippy of water
7pm - bath/nurse/bed
Although not real strict on the timing, lately he has been:
2am(ish) - wake and nurse one side
4:30am (ish) - wake and nurse other side
7am - wake for day
He has also perfected the art of crawling this month. He is not very quick, but he can get where he wants to go. I can easily get to another room and back before he gets halfway to me. He mostly loves to follow his big brother around. Wherever Ben is, Nate is close behind! He has discovered the outlets, cords and outside shoe pile by the back door! Oh the joys of a newly mobile child.
Nate has dramatically changed his solids intake this month. At the beginning of the month he was barely eating baby food. These days, he is eating Ben-sized portions of our meal for lunch and dinner. Because of this he has diversified what he will eat including green veggies. However, he still refuses baby food green veggies. I have given up! He still clamps his mouth shut and will not take another bite no matter what is on the spoon. He will not take any solids for breakfast. Too much fun to be had in the morning to sit and eat. He is working at finger foods, but still fists most of it. He slaps at it to pick it up and then shoves his whole fist in his mouth - all for one little pea or cheerio. He still eats some baby food, but that is mostly used for filler or convenience if we are eating away from home. He never ate baby cereal or the baby food meats (ick!). He just defies the ordinary.
He can drink from a sippy cup really well if we hold it for him, but just gets himself completely wet if he holds it himself. He can get the spoon to his mouth, but can't keep anything on the spoon yet.
We are not signing to him as much as I would like. Meal times are a three ring circus with trying to chat with Ben, eat my food and feed Nate. My hands are never free enough to sign. I should work on that because we loved it that Ben signed!
He says "baba" (just a generic sound), "mama" and "dada." We really think that he says "mama" and "dada" in reference to us. If I have been out of his sight for any length of time, he will say "mama" when he sees me again.
His legs - have I mentioned that they never stop moving? I can't remember mentioning this in a post, but it is definitely something about Nate that I will remember from his baby-hood. His legs move back and forth whether he is sitting, laying or being held. Everyone that holds him comments on it (and he will let anyone hold him!). Now that he is getting bigger (20 pounds according to our scale at home) he is getting tricky to hold onto if you aren't used to it. Without warning, he will start kicking or throw his head backward. It can be very scary if you aren't expecting it. I have definitely had him hit his head while walking through a doorway with him in our house. I am in the habit of holding his head to my body when I walk through doorways, but my hands aren't always free. Just last night he was sitting on the patio with some friends while Ryan and I went to dinner (alone!) and when we got back they showed us the mark he left in the rocks from moving his legs back and forth. Imagine a snow angel with your legs.
We love being outside!
This is how they have been spending their mornings - Ben outside and Nate wishing he could go out. Ben is nice enough to chat with Nate :)
Say What?
Always willing to give a giggle and smile!
Snack time!
Chunky towel boy.
Just last night Nate apparently had an allergic reaction to something at church. His eye started to swell up and was very red. Brief fright! We only live 1/4 mile from church so I was able to take him home, give him a tiny dose of Benadryl and within 30 minutes his eye was back to (almost) normal. Whew!
No comments:
Post a Comment