Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Baby at Nine Months

Nine months is possibly one of the very best baby ages! Lucas is a constant explorer, trying to reach new heights every day!





Read on for what we have been up to, including Lucas's current schedule...




Baby Update!

After talking about it for the past two months, Lucas has finally transitioned to a 2-nap schedule at 9.5 months of age:

7:30 Wake and Breastfeed
8:00 Breakfast
9:45 Nap
11:00 Wake and Breastfeed
11:30 Lunch
1:45 Nap
3:30 Wake and Breastfeed
5:15 Dinner
7:00 Breastfeed and Bed

I kept our eat/play/sleep routine which Lucas has thrived on so now he only breastfeeds 4 times per day. I will replace the afternoon breastfeeding with a snack at 11 months when I'll go to 3 feedings a day in preparation for starting just twice a day after his first birthday! I'm really looking forward to weaning. Breastfeeding for me (and I think a lot of moms!) is a love/"eh not so much" relationship.




Lucas's more recent skills include...
Carrying a toy while crawling
Pushing up on his feet and pulling to stand
Banging two toys together (or on the floor) to make different noises
Eating everything in site - finger food favs right now include broccoli, sweet potatoes, bananas, and scrambled egg (also those cheerio type puffs, I think all babies love those!)

Remember every baby is different! My first son did not crawl until nearly a year (which is later than average). But my first son had a ton of teeth at this age, I think 6 or 8, whereas Lucas only has his 2 bottom ones still.

Transitioning to table foods...
Lucas eats more prepared baby foods than my first son ever did, mostly because of time constraints on my part. Mixing in pouches extends homemade foods and also allows easy introduction of new ingredients. Lucas's current favorite is Happy Baby Apples, Guavas, and Beets. I mix 1/2 pouch of food with homemade oatmeal (at 9 months he can eat rolled or steel cut prepared oatmeal, no need to blend) or steamed and mashed sweet potatoes. I put the other 1/2 of the pouch into a glass jar and store it in the fridge for later.

He's finally decided to love my Barley with Kale which is great for preventing constipation.

Lucas is also much more into finger foods then Henry ever was, loving little bits of pretty much everything! He's had some bits of waffle, but I need to make him some Baby Muffins!

At his 9-month check up Lucas was an even 21 pounds (50th percentile) and 27 inches long (10th percentile).






Mom Update!

We've had some upheaval the past month. Our regular caregiver had a family emergency so we've been using alternative child care. Henry is pretty good about playing with new people, but Lucas is still firmly in the stranger-danger phase. We ended up flying in my mother in law to provide child care in the weeks before Christmas.

I didn't do nearly as much with the holidays as I'd hoped/wanted to do. I'm embarrassed to say that my holiday storage box (which mostly contained ornaments) spent the entirety of the holiday season in my family room...Whoops! But on the up side, it is ready and waiting to be refilled when I take the tree down.

I received a Fit Bit Alta HR for Christmas (actually a few weeks early, Target had a great sale on them!). There isn't really an ideal activity tracker for me because I use a spinning bike for the majority of my workouts. The Fit Bit does give me some steps for biking and also clocks it as "activity" and gives me calories burned based (I assume) on my heart rate. My biggest tip for using a Fit Bit is to wear it for several days and then review your stats. Set your goals based on your average stats and what you'd like to achieve each day. Working from home and exercising on a spin bike, 10,000 steps is not a realistic goal for me - so I set my goal at 8,000 instead. There is no point setting unrealistic goals for yourself!


Toddler Update!

Henry really enjoyed the past weeks playing with his Nai Nai (my mother in law). He opened his Christmas presents from her early and he loves his new Easel (price has really gone up, I'd shop around if it's much over $50 on Amazon). He's currently just using a blank paper roll and crayons with it. I'm not sure we are quite ready for markers and paints...or I'm not quite ready to prepare for the mess and clean up. 




He has also graduated to 24-piece puzzles. My mother in law found a few of the Melissa & Doug (we love their wooden puzzles!) ones at TJ Max. I couldn't believe how quickly Henry caught on...we will need to move up to 48-piece puzzles soon.

We've introduced a little television in the past few months. He likes Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. I tried to sit with him to watch the Grinch (old cartoon version) last year and he didn't even make it through the opening credits. This year, we've read the book several times and he watched about ten minutes before he got bored and climbed down to find a puzzle to do.







Happy Holidays!


2 comments:

  1. I agree, 9 months is such a fun age! I'm going to try those baby muffins as soon as I get some more pumpkin - I need portable breakfast ideas for when I go back to work and those look perfect! I didn't even unpack most of our holiday decorations this year, December was SO busy. Oh well, there's always next year!

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    1. I think every year there will be more fun holiday things to do and traditions to develop! At these early years, it's great to just relax and not stress about it :-)

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