8-month update

Evan turned 8 months old on Thursday this week.  He started his 8-month "birthday" with a trip to the doctor, not for a regularly scheduled check up (that won't happen again until next month), but rather to make sure he didn't have an ear infection.  This past week he had started to not finish his bottles and/or flat out refuse some of them.  This worried me that he could get dehydrated so I put in a call to the doc.  The nurse told me that his symptoms (extra fussiness, refusing bottle, grabbing his ears) could either be due to teething (which he is cutting two teeth on the bottom right now) or an ear infection.  Given that I'd seen a few of my fellow mom's posting about their babies having ear infections show up at their regularly scheduled check ups (thus, fairly out of the blue with minimal symptoms in the young one) I figured it would be worthwhile to get him checked.  The good news is that we can rule that one out!  His ears looked fine!  The bad news is that there isn't a medicine that will just make him better, and he's just very sensitive to the teething I guess.

Eating:
Prior to refusing his bottles or drinking less, he was taking 5 oz per bottle still.  Now we're putting 3.5 oz in and he's just barely finishing that.  He loves his solid food though!  New foods we've tried in the past month include apricots (in an apple/apricot mixture).  He loves this, and it smells so good to me too that I wouldn't mind having some!  Given the constipation he's been having this past month, he's also started eating a lot of prunes and pears, which he loves both.  We stopped giving him rice cereal for the time being since it can be constipating and thus only feed him oatmeal for cereal.  We've also started mixing prune juice in with his cereal to help his regularity.  He still won't take apple or pear juice, but he will take really little sips of prune juice or plain water in his sippy cup now.

We tried butternut squash and green beans with him too.  Green beans were a no-go at first, but the next times we tried them mixed in with some carrots and he tolerated them more this way.  He's also had his first meat, in a sweet potato chicken dinner that he loved, but the texture was a bit strange to him at first.  And late this month we also started him on blueberries (mixed with apples).  I hope to start giving him some easy to gum/swallow finger foods in the next month, as well as keep introducing him to more new foods.

He also now has three meals of solid food a day: fruit for breakfast, cereal and fruit or veggie at lunch, and fruit and veggie (or a meat dinner) for dinner time.  Snacks are still just his bottles, which he has three bottles during the day at daycare, and then I nurse him about three other times per day (first thing in the morning, before bed, and middle of the night wake up feeding).  I'm wondering how much longer we'll be doing the middle of the night feeding, but for the time being I think it helps keep my milk supply up, so I'll stick with it until told not to (or until he stops waking up for it).

In related mealtime news, the batteries finally ran out on the Sassy ferris wheel suction toy that we routinely put on his tray table while we prep his food!  My mom got him this toy, and while he loves it, it had kind of been a pain to have around the house as there was no on/off switch.  It plays music when the ferris wheel gets spun around, however, even the slightest vibrations (like us walking by the surface where the toy was sitting) would set it off.  I can't tell you how eery it was to hear that toy start playing music in the middle of the night, when nothing should have been moving nearby to set it off.

Sleeping:
Evan's been consistently waking up at least once per night for a feeding.  Then, mid-way through this past month he started waking up several times per night crying.  In the end, we think it was due to his teething (which the doctor also said this age is common for teething and thus for nighttime sleep rituals to get thrown a bit out of whack).  Luckily that only lasted about a week and now he's back to his once per night wake up, but it's closer to 2am now, while it used to always be around 4am.

He goes to sleep very well at bedtime (around 8pm), sometimes falling asleep during nursing, but other nights he'll seem wide awake still when we finish nursing.  Nevertheless, he's always been so good about going to sleep once I put him in his crib.  Sure, he may cry for a bit, but never longer than a few minutes as he rolls around getting comfortable for the night.  He often sleeps on his side or flat on his stomach/face.  The latter is my least favorite, but I just have to trust he knows how to lay in a position so he can breath.  We also stopped using his Snuza sleep movement monitor this past month.  It had given us a few false alarms recently, and since he had a rash just under the top of his diaper we wanted to rule out that the Snuza was causing it.  Plus it can't be comfortable to have that on your stomach, when you sleep on your tummy!

He usually takes two naps per day, occasionally a third if one of his two regular naps is shorter.  We shoot for nap around 9am and then again after his lunch (by 1pm).  He'll usually sleep for 1-1.5 hours each nap.  He still has to nap in his rocking chair, as the crib is only for nighttime sleeping in his mind.

Developments:
He is starting to occasionally push himself onto his hands and knees, but only for mere seconds.  However, this is the next step before he'll be crawling.  I predict that by my 9-month update, we'll have a crawler on our hands!  [Strike that!  As I am writing this post, he just pushed himself onto his hands and knees, staying up for quite awhile and even rocking back and forth a bit, then he laid down, and did it a few more times!  Any day now..... :O]

He has gotten very good at rolling all around and pivoting his body around on his tummy.  And his sitting skills are getting better, as he holds himself up much taller and can even correct himself if he starts to wobble a bit.  I still like to have my arms ready to catch him just in case he topples, as it usually is a face plant fall that happens as he falls to the side and a bit forward.  While laying on his back, he also likes to kick both feet in unison against the floor, making a loud thump sound.  I'm just glad we have carpeted floors, since I would think it could really hurt doing on that on a hard surface floor!

Evan's also started to show us that he likes music and "dancing", as you can see in these videos: Baby "dancing" and More baby "dancing"

Evan smiles and laughs a lot now.  He finds so many things funny.  He still loves to play patty cake, and really laughs when I make raspberry sounds to him (I blow my cheeks up full of air, which I think probably looks funny to him to start, then he squeals in delight as he hears the sound as I push the air out by pressing my hands into my cheeks!).

Firsts:
Evan has his first two teeth coming in on the bottom.  I felt the first on March 18th, and then the second within one week later.  Both times it was Evan that grabbed my finger, put it in his mouth, and let me feel it.  Otherwise, he hates us sticking our fingers in his mouth (including when we try to put on the baby oragel that we've used on occasion when we think his teeth really hurt).


Evan met my dad ("Papa") for the first time this month.  Dad had been deployed in Africa for the past year, so it was especially exciting to have him visit given how long it had been since we'd seen him and that he got to meet his new grandson too!  They got along quite well. :)

Evan started babbling this past month!  And now he's babbling a lot (mostly dadada or rah rah rah these days, but he started with nana's and has thrown in some goo goo's sometimes too).  He also is working on B sounds, mostly saying "boh" when he fills his cheeks with air and lets it out.  He thinks his sneezes are so funny, and he breaths so heavy in and out, in and out when he gets excited.  The last couple days he even has a little whistle sound sometimes when he's doing those heavy breathing exercises.  He also learned to imitate me when I say "ahhh" and put my hand (or a stacking cup) to my mouth, such that when I put my hand (or a stacking cup) to his mouth he'll say "ahhh".  (See for yourself in this video: Say "ahhh")


Evan also took his first swing rides at some parks we visited while enjoying the impressively warm and early spring weather this year.

Growth:
At the doctor's appointment Thursday morning, Evan weighed 18 lbs 7 oz (though this weight was taken with his diaper on).  This is up only one pound from his 6-month check up weight, so he's definitely slowing down on the weight gain lately.

Evan's been consistently wearing size 9 month clothes now, and even some of them are starting to be a bit short in the torso for him.  Most of his 6-9 months sized clothes are too short already, so we've been sticking to Carter's brand size 9 months.  Given the warm weather this past month, we even had to buy some more summery size 9 month clothes.  Most of his sleepers are starting to get too short as well, so we're starting to put him to bed in more two-piece pajama outfits.  For his diapers, we didn't get to use cloth as much this past month since he had some rashes that we were trying to get under control (with vitamin A&D ointment, then lotrimin AF, and then Aquaphor).   Thus, he wore a lot of size 3 pampers diapers this past month.

Favorites:
Books: Fuzzy Wuzzy Wombat (ritual nap time story), and Playful Puppies board book with squeaky puppy. Also the owl on the last page of Baby Animals...."whoooo's in bed, and whoooo's awake?"

Toys: teething beads, his Elmo doll (from Nana Louise), stacking cups (just to knock them together and put in his mouth), Tolo rolling shape sorter (loves to shake the shape rattles and put them in his mouth, or roll the whole basket around, and he easily grasps those little shapes too).  The jumperoo is still a good place for him to play when we can't watch him closely or we need to let him get some jumping energy out, but we seem to have him on the floor more these days as he can entertain himself so well with all of his toys on the floor, rolling and pivoting around to reach for and play with them all.  He really grasps objects well, even small items, and he pays more attention to the finer details of his toys.  And he loves tags on anything!

Time of day: He's always really happy and playful in the mornings.  When he wakes up for the day (around 6:30-7am), he doesn't cry, but rather just babbles in his crib until we go get him.  Here is a video I shot this morning (after he rocked on his hands and knees), in which you can see how he loves to play with his puppies book:  Morning play.  (Too bad he didn't get back up onto his hands and knees for me though!)  It's so incredible to watch him learn and grow, and I'm also always amazed how much he learns in just one month (attested to by the length of this post!).  I can't wait to see all that happens in this next month!