9 Months with C - Ellen Slater

Today marks three-quarters of a year with this little peanut! She is so much freaking fun.

C at 9 Months

We’re amazed at C every day. She is so silly, so happy, and so chill – most of the time. It’s been a fun month settling into the new house, and she’s thriving. She loves to go off and play with toys (and not-toys) in every corner of the house, and she equally loves to cling to my legs while I’m doing chores or lay across my arms while I’m reading her a story. C loves to be outside. We take a lot of pre-nap walks and she likes to play in the grass while I work in the flower beds.

She is still working so hard to stand on her own and walk. We are pretty convinced she can physically do it, but usually if she tries, she freezes a little and then either sits down or reaches out for help. Any day, though! She can cruise on furniture or push a toy or empty box, but seems to find that limiting, and much prefers holding onto your fingers and running wherever she wants. And she does run. It’s so cute.

We moved her to the next level of Little Gym and she loves it.

She gets so excited when we get out of the car and she realizes where we are each week. Most of the other kids are a little older and can walk, but they’re also a little more social than the littler babies, so she engages with them a little more.

C loves dogs and pictures of animals, and we’ve been to the zoo a few times.

She had a little interest in the gorillas, but mostly, she was interested in watching the big kids run around.

This is all from last month, but it’s still true: 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 still has six teeth, but whichever ones she’s working on are tricky. I notice her sucking on her gums in discomfort a lot, and she won’t let me near her mouth to figure out what’s happening in there.

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 most of the way to sleep and then I give her a bottle to finish the job. Sometimes, she wakes a little in the transfer to her crib and I rub her back and sing to her to resettle her.

When she gets up once during the night and once during the 5:30-6:30am hour right now, I consider it pretty normal.

However, the last few weeks were pretty rough. She’d wake up around 11:30-midnight and be up for 30 minutes (bearable) or 2-3 hours (less so). And if she was up for 2-3 hours, I was up for 3-5 hours. She would fall asleep on me, and then I’d go to put her down and she’d wake up. Or, she’d wake up right as I crawled back into bed. And then she wouldn’t resettle.

I’d tag Jack in after an hour or so and she would be wide awake, until suddenly she wasn’t and he would put her down. And then 20 minutes later, she’d be up and I’d go back in. She wasn’t hungry, and any time I tried to nurse her she’d bite me. So, it was just a very frustrating waiting game. This happened maybe twice a week for 2 or 3 weeks. During this time, C was so sweet and usually not mad as long as one of us was holding her. But from a parent sleep perspective, it sucked.

Anyway, fingers crossed that we’re back to normal, because it works pretty well for us. Most of the time, if she gets up in the middle of the night or early in the morning, 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. Her morning nap is usually a little over an hour starting between 10 and 10:30. She has been doing about 45 minutes on her own and then 30-45 minutes cuddling with me. Her second nap is very often 30 minutes. This can be frustratingly quick, but actually the timing is usually pretty perfect with when we like her bedtime to be.

Jack usually gives C a bath and starts getting her ready for bed between 6:45 and 7. I put her down for the first time around 7:30-7:40.

My sleep has been crappy with C’s sleep being a bit of a mess, but 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 sitting, 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 than 6:45, I try to nurse her back to sleep. 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 4-5 ounces – before bed because she realizes she’s starving after not eating enough during the day.

We’ve been much better about family dinners and me-and-C lunches since settling into the new house.

She’s so fun, if super messy, at mealtimes, and it’s sweet to see her exploring new foods and textures.

Schedule

Right now, C nurses every 2.5-3ish hours during the day and eats 2 solid meals. I offer a nap about 3-3.5 hours after she wakes from her last one. Bedtime is usually about 4 hours after her last nap.

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. I love that she’s in a phase of wanting help with naps.
The way she reaches out to touch everything from the wall to the banister to the buttons on the oven when we carry her through the house. She gets so excited when you let her get close enough to touch.
When she reaches out to touch the baby gate, she tries to hang on it. She loves hanging on things and doing pull-ups.
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.
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. And when she’s really tired, she melts down the second a book is over.
She loves it when you sing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, The Grand Old Duke of York, and I’ll Make a Man Out of You.
When I’m laying on the floor in her room, she’ll come crawling super fast from across the room and give me an open-mouthed kiss. Sometimes it’s on my ribs, sometimes on my forehead, always super sweet. And then she collapses onto me.
She thinks it’s absolutely hilarious when we yawn or fake sneeze.
When she wants picked up for any reason, she stretches as tall as she can and reaches for you. It’s so sweet and pure. Sometimes she tries really hard to stand up while she does it, to make herself as tall as possible.
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 usually doesn’t pull away when she touches him anymore.
She throws her arms overhead and clasps her hands and looks at you expectantly, so you’ll tell her she’s “soooo biiiiig,” and then she looks so proud of herself.

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.
My Serenity Kids pouches – I use these to supplement some meals because the ingredients are amazing and it’s a different texture to play with. I squeeze a little on a spoon and let her get it to her mouth or just let her try to suck the puree from the pouch.