I Can't Believe It... 9 Months

Napping on an afternoon stroll.

Can you tell which sweater and hat are mom's favorite?

Playing with the baby in the mirror.

This month has brought on so many new behaviors from Lydia. I love this age so much. She's sleeping really well, eating all her vegetables, and is generally a very happy baby.

Lydia still fits in all her 6 month clothes and is wearing a few 9 month things, although they are a little large on her. She is still wearing size 2 Seventh Generation diapers during the day and Pampers Baby Dry 12-hour diapers at night.

Her appetite has really picked up since last month. She eats 4 or 5 ounces of formula when she wakes up. Breakfast is mixed-grain cereal and stage 2 fruit at 8:30 am followed by about 2 ounces of formula. She eats stage 2 vegetable purees mixed with oatmeal cereal at noon, another 4 to 5 ounce bottle at 3 pm, and more baby food at 5:30 pm. Sometimes in the afternoon she feeds herself some o-shaped puffs, but that's mostly for her to work on her fine motor skills, not for nutrition. I'm mostly buying the Earth's Best glass jars of food plus some Sprout foods. I haven't made any of the food myself yet, but I will try it soon. Lydia is cutting her top front teeth right now, so she should be able to handle coarser food any day now.

The big news is that as of three nights ago, we are no longer doing a dream feed at 10 pm! We are feeding her a 6 ounce bottle at 7:15 pm when she goes to bed, and so far she's slept right through until 5 or 6 am.

That wasn't the case all month though. That's definitely a new thing. For the most part Lydia was a wild sleeper this month. Most nights she picked up her fun habit of waking between 2:30 am and 3:30 am to babble a little bit and play with her toys. The good thing about this month's wake ups compared to last month's is that Lydia puts herself back to sleep this month. She wakes up, plays with her "Polly with the Pigtails" doll or her "Jesus Loves Me" owl, then drifts back to sleep. What an angel! The sad part about the nighttime routine is that recently Lydia doesn't want to be rocked to sleep. It kills me when this happens. I love getting to rock her while she drifts off to sleep in my arms. She smells so sweet from her bath, and those sweet baby sighs are the best. A few nights ago she started squirming and crying while I rocked, so I put her in her crib awake where she played with her toys for a few minutes then fell asleep. That happened three nights in a row, which is one of the reasons I dropped the dream feed those nights! I was scared I wouldn't get her back to sleep! Tonight she let me rock her though, so maybe she hasn't totally given up on our little routine.

Her babbling has definitely picked up this month. She loves it when I imitate her. I try to get her to imitate me, and sometimes she will, but generally she just looks back at me confused (and cute). We get lots of squeals and screams and lots of consonants, but no words yet. I think she's just beginning to recognize the word "Walle". She loves Walle and watches him constantly. She wants to be his friend SO BAD, but he still is not interested.

Lydia's efforts to sit up are going pretty well. She can sit on her bottom as long as she's fairly still, but the child is a wiggle worm and will suddenly decide to lunge forward/backward/sideways and fall over. I guess that's how all kids are starting out. I know I need to let her fall and knock her head some so she "learns" why she shouldn't do that, but that's hard to do! She isn't crawling yet, but when we are playing on her quilt she can creep and roll to whatever toy she wants. I keep showing her how to crawl, which I am sure looks hilarious. She'll get the hang of it soon, and I'm sure I'll wish she hadn't!

We've really been working on getting Lydia to nap in her crib, and for the most part, she's taking naps there now. Morning naps are no trouble at all. She goes down in her crib for 30 minutes to an hour. Afternoon naps are a little hit and miss, but when she gets to sleep good she'll sleep for an hour or so. On the weekends I am bad about snuggling with my little napper on the sofa instead of putting her in her crib. But I'm her mamma so I can spoil her like that!  ;P

This age is so wonderful, and my daughter has brought me so much joy! I know this phase won't last forever. Too soon we could be fighting a picky eater, a light sleeper, or temper tantrums, but for now I am trying to enjoy this wonderful period in our lives!