WOW! The last three months have been a whirlwind of emotions, milestones, and changes! I am also in full planning mode for her first birthday because I just cannot contain my excitement. She continues to challenge me, motivate me and love me every day. Her smile is infectious and her personality is starting to really form. 

Not to mention, we celebrated our first holiday season with her and it was so magical. I have it on my list to write a separate blog posts specifically to the holiday season. I am hoping to get that published in the next few weeks before mom kicks in on that time frame. 

One of the hardest things we went through was a few weeks before she turned 9 months, Sweet Girl, came down with not only the ‘pandemic virus’ but the flu! We have no idea how she got both since we really do not leave the house and go to our set few places. The first 24 hours were the absolute worst. It took two of us to try and soothe her and by the time nighttime rolled around she actually slept like a 9-11 hour stretch because she was just exhausted. After we got through that she seemed to be feeling better the rest of the time. You could tell she was still sick but the screaming had stopped and her smile had returned so we were just happy to see her comfortable again. 

At her 9 month check up we learned she was 19 pounds 10 ounces with her head circumference being 50th percentile. She is 28 inches tall and above the 50th percentile right now. I am not sure how the percentiles work (if its location based) as I have seen other doctors give different percentiles for similar height, weight and overall size. She seems to be evening out a bit which is great! This appointment was our best one yet because there were no shots involved, just a quick eye exam that showed no signs of problems as of now. 

Now for some of her MILESTONES

A friend of mine whose son is three months older than Sweet Girl told me last year that each hour/day/week he does something new. We are at that stage now where things are changing by the millisecond it feels and although I get so excited, Mom is not okay lol. From six months to nine months she had the following “firsts.”

  • She is crawling everywhere & pulling herself up on to everything;
  • She will stand herself up and wobble before falling down;
  • She had 5 new teeth that appeared within three weeks of each other;
  • She still loves the color yellow – anything yellow she gravitates to immediately

Overall, I feel we still have a fairly consistent schedule. We are still trying to get her to sleep through the night. Moms, this is your reminder that every baby is different. Some sleep 14 hours, others are good with 20 minute power naps. Please remember to not put so much pressure on yourself and little one and just do things that work for your family.

Each day varies but for the most part her SCHEDULE is

  • 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM – Wake Up/Eat/Diaper Change/Change into an outfit for the day
  • 7:00 AMish – We go for our morning walk with our pup Theodore
  • 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM – Play time (sometimes she would go longer)
  • 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM – Nap time
  • 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM – Eat, diaper change, and have play time (sometimes she would go longer)
  • 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM –  Nap time
  • 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM – Eat, diaper change, and have play time (sometimes she would go longer)
  • 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM – Bath time, story time, feeding, and bedtime
  • 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM – Sweet Girl is still not sleeping through the night. Everytime we make progress she begins to teeth and we regress.

I have always gone to bed early and woken up early so her 5-7 am feeding is when I get up for the day and try to get at least one cup of coffee in before she wakes up for the day. 

Her FEEDING schedule goes something like this…

As much as I wanted to do baby led weaning (BLW), Sweet Girl had other plans. We still work on solids but she prefers purees so much more. We did find she LOVES peanut butter, so we tried peanut butter oatmeal and she cannot get enough of it. She adapted pretty quickly to three meals a day, a snack or two throughout the day, and only really has a bottle before nap time and bed time. 

We are learning she is very independent and prefers to do things without our help so we have found giving her the pureed pouches are a great option as she can feed herself. 

We also have been working on her drinking water out of a water bottle and she loves it! We always have a water bottle for her to help her stay hydrated throughout the day. 

I really want to do my best to not expose Sweet Girl to any artificial ingredients, dyes, natural flavors or additional excitotoxins. I realize at some point she is going to eat some of it but I want to hold off as long as possible as her brain is going through the most development in these first few years. After speaking with the doctor, I did some research and found two brands (so far) where their ingredients have nothing else (citric acid, natural flavoring,ascorbic acid, etc.) except the food. I was surprised at how many organic purees have various amounts of chemicals in them for longer shelf life. Beech-Nut products (organic or not) and SPROUTS pouches have been the only ones so far to have the food only as the ingredients list. 

Throughout this entire process she still prefers vegetables way more than fruit. 

When Sweet Girl has her AWAKE TIME she still parties hard, if not harder as she gets older aha

Now that she is crawling and a little more mobile, we set up a play area for her that is blocked off so she has space and time to herself. She does very well playing by herself and exploring all of her toys. When she wants to walk we put her in her walker and she will run as fast as she can around the house. If we open the sliding door, she runs outside. It is amazing how much she loves to be outdoors and loves the pool. No matter how cold it is, she loves to splash and play. 

We are working on teaching her sign language. She knows “more” which is so exciting to see her begin to communicate with us. She still gets frustrated very easily but we are trying to help her understand the ways of this world. It’s a process right?!

Over the last few months, we have learned these are some of her FAVORITE ITEMS

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