9 Months

9 Months

Date

September 16, 2012

The official 9 month picture

Weight/Size

Elliott has his 9 month appointment on Wednesday where he will have an official weigh-in.  We think he is between 20 and 21 pounds.  Spencer was 21 pounds at 12 months, so Elliott has him beat. 

Elliott is still wearing size 3 diapers.  I think he will for a long time.  He fits into 9 month and 12 month clothes.  We have some 18 month onesies from Spencer that we pulled out of storage, but they are way too big.

 Sleep

Things are looking up in the sleep department.  He naps around 10:30 am and around 3:00 pm.  His afternoon nap is almost always the longer one, but last Sunday he took a 3 hour nap in the middle of the day.  We had some awful, awful nights where Elliott woke up at 3:30 am and either didn’t go back to sleep or finally fell asleep at like 6:30 am, but for the most part he is sleeping consistently from 9:00ish pm to 5:00ish am.  I haven’t nursed him twice in a night for the entire last month.  My days of midnight, 1:00 am and 2:00 am nursings are over.  For forever.  I do still nurse him around 5:00 am and then he’s back to sleep until 7:30 am to 8:00ish.  Just about every night he screams in the middle of the night and gives me a heart attack.  He usually does it just as I am falling asleep.  He knows, somehow.  I rock him for a few minutes and then it’s back to sleep.  He is sleeping full time in the co-sleeper.  He is STILL BEING SWADDLED.  We don’t know how to get him out.  He wakes up even when it gets slightly too loose and his arms move a little bit.

 Movement
Elliott is an independent sitter.  He refuses to go in the jumperoo or his bouncy chair since being able to sit on his own.  We miss having those as options.  We had to put the pack n play in our bathroom to have somewhere to put him while we’re in the shower.  He loves to hold our hands and pull up into a stand.  He is getting close to being able to pull himself up on the train table or his Leap Frog stand and play.  He can stand independently, without our help, but he has to hold on to something- table, ottoman, etc.  Elliott is getting really close to crawling.  He can army crawl backwards.  He can get his body up off the ground and rock back and forth.  He kicks his legs but can’t figure out how to propel his body forward.

 Elliott’s fine motor skills are really developing.  He can pick up puffs and cheerios and feed himself.  He can pick up all sorts of toys and transfer them from hand to hand.  He is trying to grab the spoon and fork from us and trying to get them in his mouth.  We let him try with the spoon.  Not so much with the fork.

Communication

Elliott has the most awesome babble.  He sounds like he is truly talking.  He has a wide array of consonants and vowels and puts them together in all sorts of combinations.  He likes to blow raspberries, he lifts his eyebrows to flirt, he laughs, he’s thinking about clapping and we’re pretty sure we saw him wave a few days ago.  He has started screaming just to hear his own screamy voice.   It is annoying.

Sweet Remembrances

·         Going to the splash pad for the 1^st and 2^nd times.

·         Sitting in a grocery cart for the first time.

·         Getting several pairs of real jammies.

·         Helping mommy and big brother celebrate their birthdays.

·         Having a great time at the Candy Land birthday party.

·         Going to the park and playing on the swings (which hasn’t even been blogged about yet!)

·         Going to a 50^th birthday party and bonding with his birthday twin, Brendan.

Food
Elliott has started eating pork/ham, whole wheat bread, cheerios, puffs, blueberries, broccoli, cantaloupe, cauliflower, crackers and just tonight, yogurt.  We finally found something that he doesn’t like.  Cauliflower.  He hates it. 

Elliott is eating solid food for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  He nurses at 5:00 am, when he wakes up around 8:00 am, before his morning nap to go to sleep, sometimes in between his morning and afternoon naps, before his afternoon nap to go to sleep, after his afternoon nap and before bed to go to sleep.  It’s a really decent, manageable schedule. 

Mood
Elliott is still happy and pretty relaxed.  He can get pretty darn frustrated when he tries to do something (like crawling) and it doesn’t work. 

Medicine
We have a little bit of Vitamin D drops left.  Once Elliott finishes that bottle we’re not going to buy anymore.  He’s eating enough food now that we don’t think he needs them.  I may revoke that decision if our new pediatrician doesn’t agree with us on Wednesday.  

He is taking Zantac once a day at bedtime.  We’re going to see how he does without taking it at all soon.

Likes

Eating, watching his brother play, screaming, standing, pulling up, holding things, feeding himself, going to parties and people watching.

Dislikes

Riding in the car or stroller when it is dark and, apparently, getting his 9 month pictures taken at a portrait studio.  For the first time, ever, we had to leave without ordering anything.  We're going to try again next week.  He wasn't crying, just not smiling.  At all.  I still got all of them emailed to me so I'll do a hilarious post with them soon.

 

My boys at 9 months