8 Months with C

Somebody very special is 8 months old! She gets cooler every single day.

C at 8 Months

C is so, so great. She is so silly, so happy, and so chill. It’s been a crazy few weeks, between prepping our old house to sell and prepping the new house to move into, and she has handled it like an absolute champ. Naps have been on-the-go. Nights have been later. And she’s so adaptable.

She is also about as stubborn and determined as can be. Right now, she’s working so hard to stand on her own and walk. Everything, no matter how tall or short, stable or wobbly, is a tool to help her stand.

After never showing interest in the stairs at our old house, the first time we came to the new one after closing, she confidently climbed right up them.

If she’s holding a toy or remote or something that she’s focused on, she can stand without support. If she realizes she’s doing this, she either sits down – which she can now do with a decent amount of control – or reaches out for stability. Her balance is improving rapidly. As it should, since she practices all the time. Her Little Gym coaches recommended we try the next class level up since she basically crawls away from every activity, now unimpressed by the things she’s been doing there since she was 3.5 months old.

She still loves peekaboo and crawling toward things she knows she shouldn’t so someone will wrestle her away. Pretending to gobble up her arm/leg/belly results in some of the best little giggles and she loves being upside-down. She lights up when you clap and tell her she did a good job (and this often saves her from tears when she takes a minor tumble).

C now has six teeth. The two newest ones gave her a good bit of trouble, and she’s definitely happier now that they’re all the way through.

C is pretty great at independent play when she’s in the right mood, though she also spends a lot of time in a please-hold-me mood. She loves to be on the move, too, and she is capable enough to be quite a danger to herself. I spend a lot of time trailing behind her or trying to convince her to come back and play with me.

Sleep

Bedtime is usually not a big deal. Putting C down for the first time usually takes 20-45 minutes, including story time and Jack heating up a bottle of milk if she’s extra hungry. If she needs anything after that in the evening, it’s typically only once and takes around 5-15 minutes.

Usually, she lets me nurse her to sleep. Occasionally, she decides she wants to put herself to sleep after she’s full of milk. So, I put her down and rub her back and sing to her. Sometimes this works, sometimes, she wants me to pick her back up. We make it work.

Sometimes, she gets up once during the night and once during the 5:30-6:30am hour right now. Most of the rest of the time, it’s just during the 5:30-6:30am hour. This works pretty well for me, since she usually needs her diaper changed once to avoid leaks, and I’m usually up around 5 to pump. Most of the time, she just needs nursed and goes right back to sleep, either in my arms or shortly after I set her in her crib.

Naps are less tricky than it used to be, but still not that consistent. C mostly seems to do best with 2 naps a day. This works well when her morning nap is over 1.5 hours and she doesn’t wake up before 7. Her second nap is very often 30 minutes. If that ends before 3, the end of the day can get a little tough. I hope for at least one good nap a day, and usually get it in the morning. When she wakes up mad from a too-short nap, I can often nurse her back to sleep for a bit.

Early bedtimes pretty much always backfire and result in multiple wake-ups throughout the evening. I usually start getting C ready for bed between 6:45 and 7, and put her down for the first time around 7:15-7:30. Some nights, she’s up at 11:30 and then sleeps the rest of the night till she needs a little milk around 6. Other nights, she sleeps till 4:30 and then gets up for a little more milk at 6. Others, she just gets up at 5:45 for some milk and goes back to sleep.

I’m sleeping okay most nights, but it could be better. I try to go up to bed around 9pm-10pm, read for a few minutes, and then pass out. Depending on when I went to bed and how tired I am, I get up between 5 and 6. This is the best way to make sure I can pump 5+ ounces of milk in one, which is about how much she takes if she needs extra before bed. C is usually up for the day between 7 and 8. If she gets up earlier, I try to nurse her back to sleep or let her play in her crib unless she’s mad. If she gets up earlier than 7, she’s usually not in the best mood.

Feeding

C eats very well, and is still extremely distractible when nursing. If she hears dog claws on the floor or we’re in a non-home environment, she often decides she can’t eat because the world is too interesting. This means that many nights we need to give her at least a couple ounces of pumped milk – and usually more like 5 ounces – before bed because she realizes she’s starving after not eating enough during the day.

I haven’t been as intentional about introducing new foods to her this month, but I try to give her the opportunity to eat solids at least once a day. She still mostly plays with food and mashes it around in her mouth or sucks on it and then spits it out. She impressed us the other night by knowing exactly what to do when I put a little cup of water up to her lips. It was messy, but she got the idea.

Schedule

Right now, C eats every 3ish hours. I offer a nap about 2.5-3.5 hours after she wakes from her last one. Bedtime is usually about 4 hours after her last nap. If she nurses, gets a little sleepy, and wakes back up when she’s full, either at naptime or bedtime, I usually wait a bit before trying to get her to sleep again.

Things I Don’t Want to Forget

• How peaceful she looks when she falls asleep on me. It’s harder every day to put her down because I adore the cuddles. But she usually sleeps better on her own unless I’m helping with part 2 of a nap.
• The way she examines things with her index finger right now. She points and pokes and strokes everything, and she’s been working hard on her pincer grip and pretty much has it.
• She crawls away so quickly and almost always stops partway to her destination to check that you’re watching her or following her.
• C loves the tags on her toys and rubbing her fingers on anything that vaguely resembles tags or nubs. She plays with the hem of my shorts, the extra length on my watch, my hair, the diamond on my engagement ring, and the clip on my bra while she’s trying to fall asleep.
• She loves giving high fives. She gets so excited when you ask for one. On a late, crabby car ride, I reached my hand in front of her face to block the sun. She absolutely lit up and started high-fiving my hand. And then she got really into it and used her other hand to stabilize mine so she could high-five me faster.
• How she kicks her feet up when she’s nursing so i play with them and kiss them.
• Instead of dramatically rolling away from me when she’s done nursing, she now uses her very strong core to try and sit up.
• Her squeals. Sometimes they’re happy and sometimes they’re just how she uses her voice, but they are the best.
• How she calms down and gets so excited the second I pull out a book to read.
• She thinks it’s absolutely hilarious when we yawn.
• When she wants picked up for any reason, she reaches for you, and it’s so sweet and pure. Usually, she’ll then lay her head on your shoulder for at least a second and it melts my heart.
• She loves to watch and touch Ben and Willis. Now that she can chase him, Ben is wary of her and prefers to be the one to approach her. Willis pulls away when she touches him, but doesn’t run away like Ben.

Things We Use and Love

• Pretty much everything from her 2-month post. She doesn’t love the pacifiers except to bite. She has outgrown the Podster, but it served us well when she was teeny.
• Pretty much everything from her 3-month post.
• Pretty much everything from her 4-month post. We’re done with the weighted sleep sacks, but I’d use them for a future kiddo.
• Pretty much everything from her 5-month post.
• Pretty much everything from her 6-month post.
• The only thing I listed in her 7-month post.