A week late, but… my best buddy is 18 months old! She impresses us every day, and I love her sweet little self so, so much.
C at 18 Months
This is essentially the same as the last couple months because it’s all still so true. C is so fun and so funny. She has excellent comedic timing, and makes us laugh every day. She has lots of strong toddler opinions, and she makes them known. But she is still very adaptable and the very sweetest. She’s great at playing by herself, and her imagination seems to be going wild right now. She loves pretending to cook, feed us, clean, and talk on the phone. I often don’t know exactly what she’s doing when she’s doing her own thing (and it usually changes in about 30 seconds) but it’s fun to watch.
Right now, one of her big projects is figuring out the buckles on her car seat and high chair. Also, the locks on our doors. She also loves to engage with us and throw/catch balls, wrestle around, play with race cars and her plethora of stuffed animals, build and knock over towers, and be chased around the house.
She loves to see what I’m cooking and snack on ingredients, help get laundry out of the dryer and unload the dishwasher, guide the vacuum and mop, and undo (or redo) any attempt at organization she can reach.
We call C an outside kid because she is always so happy to be outside, and she gets crabby when she’s been inside too long. Now that it’s hot out and she and I both heat up quickly, we end up outside several times a day for shorter spans of time. Sometimes this looks like hanging out on our deck at the water table for a few minutes, and others it looks like going to the park in the morning, walking in the shady woods, or drawing with chalk and helping me with yard work.
C is a little athlete and she really doesn’t stop moving. Everyone who spends time with her comments on this. I can’t imagine what she’d do if she wasn’t moving all the time because it’s really all I’ve ever known. She loves experimenting with new ways to walk, doing sprints down our front hall, rolling around on the couch and ottoman, and trying to climb everything. She recently mastered walking down the stairs without using the rail (though she will use it if she needs to). Occasionally, she uses all fours to get up the stairs, but she can also climb up without assistance.
She loves to point at things so we’ll tell her what they are. If we get it wrong, she’ll continue pointing and shake her head at us till we provide the correct answer. She’s also great at finding the correct object/animal/color/body part when asked.
And we’re starting to get words from our little physically-motivated toddler, which is so fun. We haven’t been concerned about her lack of speech because she understands pretty much everything we say to her, identifies all sorts of things when asked, and communicates clearly between signing and showing us what she wants. But she has the cutest little voice, and it’s cool to hear her using it beyond babbling.
C loves dogs and other animals, dolls, books, pictures, mirrors, music, sunglasses, big kids, running water, and anything she can climb.
She loves rhyming songs/poems (and she’ll let you know if you’re doing the wrong one), being carried while you run, and being spun around. We love finding new ways to make her giggle.
C lights up when you clap and tell her she did a good job, and she also claps whenever she thinks she did a good job. She loves books, and especially likes pointing at everything in a book so you’ll tell her what it is. Sometimes, she also goes off and sits by herself and looks through her books, which is adorable. She really does not like sitting still for diaper changes.
C has all her teeth except her two-year molars. She’s acting like those are bothering her a bit, but they’re not there yet.
Sleep
This month threw me for a loop with sleep, possibly even more than last month. It has been unpredictable and hard. Some sleep schedules we’ve seen include:
- 9pm bedtime / 12pm wakeup / no nap
- 10pm bedtime / 9 am wakeup / 1-hour nap
- 9pm bedtime / 6:45am wakeup / 1.25-hour nap
- 11pm bedtime / 2 hours of awake time in the middle of the night / 10am wakeup / car nap
- 9:30pm bedtime / 4:45am wakeup / 2 car naps
- 10pm bedtime / 8am wakeup / 1.25-hour nap
- 9:45pm bedtime / 9am wakeup / 2-hour nap
- 9pm bedtime / 7am wakeup / 1-hour nap
It’s been wild. I would say the most common schedule is bedtime between 9:30 and 10, wake-up between 8:30 and 9, and a 75-minute nap. But by “most common,” I mean this happens 2-3 times a week. All the other days are wild cards.
We gave her milk downstairs for a few weeks and it worked beautifully. She did that, and then we went upstairs and brushed her teeth and snuggled to sleep. Then, she started drinking her milk downstairs and that very short rest period was all she needed to get her twelfth wind of the day. So, for now, we’re back to drinking milk upstairs in the dark before we snuggle / rub her back to sleep.
Right now, getting her C to sleep usually takes about 45 minutes, not including getting her dressed and brushing her teeth. But sometimes it takes an hour or more. And once it took two. Oof. Getting her down for a nap is usually easier (when she takes a nap), and only takes 20-30 minutes.
I generally give her a bottle of whole milk to wind down. After she’s done drinking, she wants to lay on my shoulder. I rub her back, she burps about 10 times, and I start talking to her or rocking her in silence. When I talk, I recite a book or three and then chat with her about our day and how much I love her and like watching her grow up.
She generally falls asleep like this and then I wait a bit before transferring her to her crib. Sometimes, she can’t seem to get comfy on me, so I lay her in her crib and rub her back while I talk her to sleep. And occasionally, she wants me to leave while she’s squirming around in her crib and she puts herself to sleep. But sometimes she gets very mad if I dare leave before she’s asleep.
We aim to get C upstairs around 9pm. We’d shoot for earlier, honestly, but she’s usually still playing a lot, and it’s hard to stop her.
I’m not super looking forward to transitioning her to her new room in the midst of this period of messy sleep, but we’re getting close to the point where I think we need to do it. So, I’ll hopefully report back on that next month.
Eating
C eats very well most of the time. Her stretches of eating less usually coincide with illness or teething, both of which we had a bit of a couple weeks ago. She loves pretty much all vegetables (really in a raw-onion phase right now) and fruits, and eats eggs, cheese, guacamole, and noodles of all sorts very consistently.
She’s a little more into meat these days, but she doesn’t always go for it without a nudge. There can be chicken sitting in front of her and I’ll ask if she wants a bite of chicken and she’ll say yes, so I show her it’s right there, and then she goes to town.
We eat dinner as a family, and C and I usually eat breakfasts and lunches together, and she snacks within reason. We usually try to avoid big snacks too close to meals. If she’s hungry, she does well with fruit and veggies (and occasionally Cheerios) as “appetizers.” Some days it seems like she hardly eats anything. Others, I’m shocked that she’s eating so much.
C still loves water but is more curious about other drinks now. We give her tastes when she asks. She isn’t big on chocolate milk or most juice, but when I had grape juice for my gestational diabetes test, she finished the little bit I gave her. She loves LMNT electrolyte drinks, which we thought she’d hate because they’re so salty. We took a gamble on letting her try Diet Coke, hoping the carbonation would freak her out. She loved it. Oops. We compromise by giving her unopened Diet Coke cans to chew on, but once she figures out how to open them, that’s over. Fortunately, she still loves water, and she’s very big on ice.
Schedule
We fit most of our plans into the pre-nap time, since C naps so late these days. I usually let her get up whenever she naturally does, have breakfast, and clean up. Then we run errands, go outside, or go on play dates.
We eat lunch between noon and 1, and then she plays or helps while I clean up. Her nap generally starts between 2:30 and 3:15 and ends between 3:30 and 5. After her nap, she’s often ready to go outside and play or play with her toys as soon as she’s had a snack. We eat dinner around 7, maybe squeeze in a little more outside time, and let her get all her energy out by running all over the couch, tumbling around on her Nugget, or climbing up and down the stairs. I get her up to bed once she crashes or when she admits to being ready.
Things I Don’t Want to Forget
- How peaceful she looks when she falls asleep on me and how hard she passes out sometimes. It doesn’t always look comfy, but it’s so sweet. I love talking her to sleep. It’s so sweet that she wants to rest on me a little more these days.
- She gets frustrated with having a ponytail partway through the day and insists on going through the rest of the day with her hair in her face. Yes, I could cut it. No, I’m not going to.
- When she wants anything, she signs “please” really, really hard, nods with half her body, and looks up at you with big brown eyes.
- She loves signing “again” when she hears a song she likes or wants you to keep reading the same book.
- When we get out of the car at home, she gives me a big hug and then almost always points at the sidewalk chalk or toy car in our garage to let me know she wants to stay outside.
- Starting around Memorial Day, she became obsessed with American flags. Now, she points them out everywhere and wants to go visit the little flags neighbors have in their flower beds.
- She still loves to play with my makeup and clothes while I get ready. This mostly amounts to getting all my stuff out and strewing it across the room. But it’s sweet and takes all of five minutes to clean up later. Sometimes, she pretends to put various products on herself. And sometimes there’s still a little makeup on a brush and she ends up with blush on her nose.
- C still loves the tags on her toys and rubbing her fingers on anything that vaguely resembles tags or nubs. She plays with the strings on my shorts, the extra length on my watch, my hair, the diamond on my engagement ring, and the strap on my bra while she’s winding down. She’ll absentmindedly play with the fringe on a blanket or a tag on her toy while she’s playing.
- She says “mmmm” when she wants a kiss. And she’ll randomly climb onto your lap and “mmmm” in your face. It’s like she just realized she loves you so much that she has to give you a kiss right now.
- She likes to duck between your legs when you’re standing, and she’ll go back and forth for a while before she gets tired of the game.
- When I pick her up, sometimes she’ll lay her head on my shoulder and just go totally limp for a few minutes.
- Her squeals and babbles. She has a lot to say.
- When she doesn’t want to be put down, she’ll pull her knees into her chest and refuse to put her feet on the floor.
- When she doesn’t want to be picked up, she makes her armpits go limp so she just slides through your grip.
- She has the best, most genuine giggle ever, and she’s experimenting with different laughs right now, which is so cute.
- Whether you’re laying on the floor or sitting on the couch, she treats you like a jungle gym and climbs and rolls all over you.
- When we think she’s tired or it’s time for nap/bed, we’ll ask if she wants milk. Sometimes, she insists she’s not ready and shakes her head aggressively. Other times, she desperately signs “please” and heads to the stairs for bedtime.
