The Michael Family Musings: Nate, Month 7

Stats:
Weight: 16 lbs. 14 oz

Height: not sure on his height

Size: 9 month clothes and size 3 diapers

Appearance: Not a whole lot of change from last month aside from I feel like he’s gotten longer

Food:

Lots of fun with food this past month! We are still doing only breastmilk; a combination of nursing and bottle feeding. I do feel like bottle feeds are becoming more common. He does seem to like to nurse about once a day, but it seems more like a comfort thing than to eat. He’ll breastfeed for maybe 10 minutes, then he’s done. Mia did this same thing, but she was 10-11 months when she did. He usually takes 7-8 ounces of a bottle. We’ve started adding rice cereal to his bottles, and that’s going over well so far. We also introduced solids this month! For the first few days, I was concerned because he seemed totally uninterested in eating solids. We’d be lucky if he would finish one small container in a day. After the first week however, he really got the hang of it. He now usually eats four large containers a day. He’s seemed to at least like everything he’s tried except for green beans. His favorite is bananas or any medley containing bananas, but squash is probably a close second. He also really likes puffs and teething crackers. We have also introduced water, but in limited quantities. He’ll maybe “drink” 2 ounces a day, though most of it ends up on his clothes instead of in his mouth. Still not great with the sippy cup!

Sleep:

Naps have actually been great this past month. At the beginning of the month, I was doing what I called ‘nap bootcamp’ to get him to take regular naps. It really only took 2-3 days until he understood that when he was put in bed, it was time to sleep. Thankfully, very little fussing went on. He usually takes 2-3 naps a day depending on how long they are. His first nap is usually about an hour and a half, the other 1 (or 2) are about an hour each. Night sleep has been iffy. He goes down very easily and MOST nights he sleeps about 10 hours, but I’d say he’s woken up probably 1/3 of all of the nights this past month. It’s getting trickier to soothe him back to sleep once he does, so we’ll probably have to do sleep training soon. When he wakes up, he’s never hungry, just usually fussy. We had 2 really bad nights where he was up more than half the night and nothing worked to calm him down. We also had one night where he slept 12 straight hours with no interruption. It was amazing!

With big sister out of school, his eat/sleep schedule looks something like this:
7-7:30a – wake up and have a bottle
9:30-10 – nap
11:30ish – solids
1:30-2p – nap
3ish- nurse and/or bottle
5 or 6 – nap (if needed)
6-6:30 – solids
8:30-9 – bottle and bedtime

Sometimes, he’ll want to nurse for a few minutes before his second nap and just take a bottle once he wakes up. We have playtime or run errands between eating and sleeping.

Milestones:

He still only has the 2 teeth, but they’re fully in and very sharp!

He is fully crawling now! And he is fast!

He can pull up to standing. This terrifies me! He’s still not very sturdy, so he falls over a lot. I have to watch him pretty closely to make sure he doesn’t bonk his head too hard.

He sits up by himself fairly well now. He still topples over occasionally, but for the most part he’s got the hang of it. I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable enough to let him sit up in the tub by himself, but we’re getting close. He can also get into a sitting position from crawling.

He can feed himself puffs or teething crackers, but no pincer grasp yet. He still palms everything.

He’s added a few new sounds to his vocabulary. His favorite noise to make right now is probably ‘buh’, but he likes ‘dadadadada’ too. Still lots of ‘w’, ‘g’, ‘b’, and ‘d’ noises.

He can copy facial movements. This has been particularly helpful for feeding purposes; if I open my mouth, he does too.

He’s responding to his name (most of the time). He also responds to ‘gator’ which is one of our nicknames for him.

He wants to put everything in his mouth.

We’re getting to a place where he’s starting to only want me, or he gets upset when he can’t see me. If I’m not around he’s generally okay, but if he has a choice in the matter (if he knows I’m home) he seems to prefer mama.

When you put your hand in front of his mouth, he’ll start making sounds so you can play the ‘wah wah wah’ game with him.

He still doesn’t like the paci as much as Mia did at his age, but he is using it more than he was before (probably because of teething). He used to only want it for sleeping, but now he’ll put it in his mouth other times during the day too.

Things I want to remember about this month:

Jason’s first Father’s day with 2 babies!

I left him overnight (2 nights) for the first time other than when he was 4 weeks old and I was in the hospital. It was hard for me, but I had a great time, and Nate had lots of fun with daddy, sister, and his grandparents!

The look on his face when I got back from said trip. He pulled out his paci, smiled, and reached out for me.

He smacks his hands on things (high chair tray, bottle, me) when he wants more of something.

He loves to splash in the pool or bathtub. He’s not as much of a water bug as Mia was/is, but he does seem to enjoy it unless the water is too cold.

His favorite things:

Big sister, snuggling, peek-a-boo, throwing toys or anything else for that matter, pulling off his bib/socks, pulling up to standing, my phone, chewing on tags, smiling at everyone, playing with/throwing balls, grabbing faces, swinging, eating, being tickled

And now, the pictures!