9-months old!

Today is Evan's 9-month birthday!  I feel like it was just yesterday that I was writing his 8-month update, but it is pretty normal now for time to just fly by.  Evan had his 9-month check up on Thursday, and he weighed in at 18 lbs 10 oz (33%).  This is only 1 lb 3 oz heavier than he was at his 6-month check up, and his percentile did go down, but not by enough to concern our doctor.  His height was 28 1/4 inches (48%) and his head circumference was 44.5 cm (36%), both of which are right on target given his percentile for those measurements at 6 months.

Firsts

His first "crawl" and first finger food all took place in this past month and Evan has just started to get his first tooth on top.  I had suspected this last week, but Evan wouldn't let me get my finger his in mouth to confirm it.  So it was confirmed by his doctor at his 9-month check up on Thursday.  First bath in the bathroom and first naps in his crib (in which he actually slept!).

"Can you see my two bottom teeth? (Pardon my drool stains, but I am teething you know!)"

Meal time

Evan is still not drinking much from the bottle.  We usually shoot to give him 3 oz of breastmilk in a bottle, and he sometimes doesn't even finish that.  He does however love his solid food!  New foods he tried this past month are: chicken, blueberries, spinach, corn, zucchini, garbanzo beans, turkey, barley flour, potatoes, peaches, and raspberries.  All of these new foods were pre-made baby foods, often mixed with other things (chicken and turkey were in dinners mixed with rice or other veggies, most of the new fruits were in mixes with apples or pears).  Thus, it's hard to know if he liked the new flavor, or didn't really mind it as it was a subtle change from the other flavors he's already had and liked, but I think corn was definitely a hit.  Peaches were one new food served on their own, and he didn't care for them!  I thought all babies loved peaches, but I think they were too tart for him so we have to mix them in with other fruits.  We have still been buying him organic (Earth's Best or organic Gerber) for most all of his baby foods.  And he still has to eat a lot of prunes (or prune juice mixed into his oatmeal) given he's fighting constipation most days.

This next month we'll be starting to give him some finger foods, to try to learn to feed himself and not have just pureed foods.  Today I decided to try letting him feed himself for the first time, and so I got a frozen slice of avocado out and gave it to him to see what he'd do with it.  In the end, I ended up holding it up for him and he sucked on it (yay, he likes avocado again!), but I think it was too cold or slippery for him to grasp to feed himself.  Plus it will take him awhile to learn how to do that anyway!  But, as the avocado thawed, it easily mashed in his hands, which he proceeded to smear across his tray table and also get all over his face and hair!  Thus, we had to head to the bathtub after lunch time today!

Sleep time


Evan goes to bed around 8pm each night so well still.  In recent weeks he hasn't fallen asleep during his bedtime nursing, and yet he still falls asleep on his own after I put him in his crib, mostly without any fuss.  Sometimes he has even started to smile at me as I'm singing his lullabies and "tucking" him into his bed, and it makes me want to pick him right back up and snuggle him some more!

He has still been waking up a few times during the night, however this past week or so we stopped feeding him at overnight wake ups.  We'd give him his pacifier, change his diaper, or suction his nose or apply some oragel if need be, and then put him right back to bed.  It seems like this has actually helped him sleep better overnight, as his overnight wake ups are happening less frequently and last night he even slept from 8pm straight til 4:30am again!  I think teething has not helped his overnight sleeping though, and he is getting a new tooth on top now (tooth #3), so it's hard to say how his nighttime sleep will continue.  The downside to not nursing him overnight now is that it will probably cause my milk supply to dwindle, so I just have to be very good about pumping and feeding him regularly during the day! But, it is nice when it's John's turn to go tend to him, that I get to lay in bed and pretty much go right back to sleep now! :)

Evan's been napping in his infant to toddler rocker chair for the past few months, but he's now sitting up so well that he's trying to sit up in the chair, and thus I don't think it's going to work for naps much longer.  Thus, this weekend I'm trying to have him nap in his crib.  We had tried in the past unsuccessfully, but I can happily say that he's now taking his second nap today in his crib.  The first one this morning was easy; he went down without a fuss.  Sure, he quietly played in his crib for about  a half hour, and then only slept for 30 minutes (normally sleeps for at least an hour), but it was a start!  This afternoon took a bit more coaxing by me to get him to calm down and go to sleep.  He cried pretty hard a few times, but finally wore himself out.  I typically just had to put his pacifier back in and stand in his room so he could see me and that helped calm him until he was tired enough to fall asleep.

Growth and development


As I predicted in the 8-month update, Evan would be crawling by now, and sure enough he is.  However, it's not a true crawl, but more like a creep where his body is fully touching the ground and being dragged along as his arms pull him forward.  While this sounds like a slow movement, Evan's gotten pretty fast at it, especially if there is something he wants (i.e. cat, book, remote control, etc).  Speaking of things he wants, he seems to want to go after new things that he's not played with, which typically are not things he should be playing with (electronics like our laptops, cell phones, or remote controls, etc), and he has broken free of the living room a few times now.  Baby-proofing is underway, and we are also getting our basement carpeted so we can have a baby-safe play room down there.

Check out Evan's not-so-slow creep

While Evan is a good sitter, he still hasn't learned (or tried) to get to a sitting position on his own.  He also doesn't pull himself up onto furniture or anything yet, but he does stand well when we stand him and help him hold onto something.  We lowered Evan's crib mattress this past month, in anticipation that he may begin to pull himself up soon.

He loves to babble, in all different tones and pitches.  He's also learned how to use his own hand to bat against his mouth as he says "ahhh", and his raspberries are now more often like trills of various notes rather than just spit sessions.

Evan's still wearing size 9 month clothes, but we have just this past week started him in some 12 month items, such as some onesies and sleepers.  When we use disposables, he still is wearing size 3.

Bath time

Evan loves his baths, and we sit him upright on the toddler side of his little tub now.  He loves to play with his ducky and splash in the water.  I think we're going to need to get him some more bath toys given how playful he gets in the tub now.  He even tooted in the tub for the first time (as far as I'm aware) today, which I think I got a kick out of more than him.  (haha)  We started bathing him in the bathroom (as opposed to the kitchen counter) for the first time last week.  We set him in his tub inside the regular bath tub so that when he kicks and splashes we don't have to mop up the kitchen floor!  

When we gave him his first bath in the bathroom, I pulled out his bathrobe (supposedly 0-9 month size) to have him wear back to his changing table.  (We used to just dress him on the kitchen counter next to where we had his tub). Turns out it's a bit short and I had to keep pulling it down so as not to "expose him" for this photo!

Play time

Evan spends most of his time on the floor, either sitting up and playing with his shape sorter or stacking cups, or laying on the floor scooting around after things he probably shouldn't play with (i.e. cat, electronics as listed earlier).  He still loves his jumperoo also, and is probably about needing it adjusted to the final height (setting 3).  About a week ago he was in his jumperoo and was just laughing and laughing, at what we think were shadows on the wall.  He definitely knows how to entertain himself!  And he is really good at playing independently, but we also like to play with him too!

Check out Evan Goofing around

We read stories together and Evan seems to pay attention longer to the books.  He still loves Fuzzy Wuzzy Wombat, the owl on the last page of Baby Animals, and his Playful Puppies books, and he also has started to love the last page of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (in which he turns into a butterfly!).  He always smiles at that page, and lately seems to gets excited on the prior page as if he knows what's coming next!

I love my little guy so much and am so proud of all that he learns each day.  And I am also excited, because as I've seen in the past, so much can happen in just one month and I can't wait to see what happens on the next page!