Firsts:
- He perfected his army crawl, often in pursuit of poor Oscar! He is so obsessed with her and loves to crawl toward her. The feeling is not mutual, though! He isn't crawling on hands and knees and I don't know that he ever will since he's gotten pretty fast at his army crawl.
- He got his 4th tooth and has 2 more on the way!
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| You can see his 2 top teeth in this photo |
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| He liked chewing on the spoon. It must have felt good on his gums. |
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| Our happy boy with his pickle |
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| Black Friday ads = best baby toy |
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| So much love for Grandma Joan! |
- He finally mastered sitting up independently.
- He had his first surgery, which you heard all about last week.
Challenges:
- Sleep is still a challenge. With all the ear infections he's had, we haven't felt comfortable letting him cry for long when he wakes during the night. I follow the sleep training professional Cara of Taking Cara Babies on Instagram and she said you can't sort out sleep issues when a baby is sick or has ear problems so that made me feel good about our decision to not try to get Paul to eat less at night. After getting tubes, his sleep hasn't improved but I am sure his body is so used to eating multiple times a night. We need to work on getting him to sleep for longer stretches because 3 wakes up (sometimes more!) is not sustainable for us. We'll tackle that after we get a clean bill of health for him - hopefully at his 9 month appointment this week.
Eating:
- He really likes purees and we are getting to eat him more things, especially veggies mixed with things like pears. He is VERY particular about the texture of purees, though. I tried to make a butternut squash puree for him but he wouldn't eat it. He just pushed it out with his tongue as it wasn't as smooth as what he's used to eating. I tried thinning it out with water and it did not make a difference. So for now we are just going to buy purees.
- He eats 3 "meals" a day - oatmeal cereal in the morning and then a puree at lunch and before bed. His calories primarily come from breast milk, which is where his nutrition should primarily be coming from up until 1 year.
- He has no interest in eating anything besides purees, though. He will chew things up but then spits them out instead of swallowing. I'm going to talk to his doctor about this at his 9 month appointment but I've heard from other friends that it took awhile for their kids to eat more than purees. I'm trying really hard to not compare how Paul eats to other babies. This is easier said than done when I see other kids chowing down on solids/feeding themselves. But I guess Paul is just doing things at his own pace.
- His favorite food is pears but he also loves prunes, apples, oatmeal cereal, and any vegetable puree mixed with pears. He hates green bean, pea, or carrot purees. I honestly can't blame him, though. I've tasted them and they taste pretty awful.
Growth:
- He weighed just over 16 pounds when they weighed him at his pre-op physical in mid-November so I'm thinking/hoping he'll be 17 pounds at his appointment this week. He's still hanging out around 4-5th percentile. He finally moved up a size and wears 6-9 month onesies. He's still in 3-6 month pants and 6-month sleepers fit him best as the 6-9 month sleepers are too long for him.
Loves:
- He is still a very social baby and loves seeing other kids.
- He loves playing with his little people animals. We put them in a bucket and he loves digging through the bucket of toys and chewing on all of his animal friends.
- He loves being carried around in the laundry basket!
- Rough-housing is still popular, too!
- He loves being read to. His favorite books are Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can you?, Peek-a-Who, Snuggle Puppy, and Good Night Moon.
- He loves pushing this truck around. Once he figures out that you can pull back to make it go far, he's really going to enjoy it. But for now he has fun pushing it and then catching up with it.
- His favorite person is Oscar. He lights up, squeals, and waves his arms when he sees her. She's curious about him but is generally annoyed by him pursuing her. She has started to growl and hiss at him but I don't think she would ever bite or claw at him.
- And he's still entertained by his jumper. It's really nice to be able to put him in the jumper to 'contain' him while I do things like pump or meal prep.
We are excited to celebrate our first Christmas with a little one! We are skipping the visit to Santa as Paul has developed some stranger danger and while I know crying photos can be funny, I think it's more sad than funny when the baby is Paul's age. No judgment for anyone that took their kid to see Santa at this age - we are just opting to wait until next year when he's a bit older. I'm excited to see what he thinks of the tree at my parents. I think he'll love the bright lights!
I can't wait for Christmas, either, and showing him the lights & decorations! I spent the whole weekend putting them up, so there's lots to see!
ReplyDeleteAs long as he's eating purees, I wouldn't worry at this point as he's growing. It will be interesting to find out if his ears are all cleared up, though, and he can get on a better sleep track!
I don't think it will affect him if he doesn't see Santa this year, and he may not like him next year either! Some kids are so afraid of bearded red man!
3+ wake ups sounds challenging! But I think your decision to wait for stricter sleep training makes sense. As for skipping Santa, it makes sense to me. I do love the crying kid photo, but if I knew it was a good possibility, I probably would make the same choice as you to skip.
ReplyDeleteHe's so cute! We didn't take Isla to see Santa at that age either. I find the whole Santa thing weird in general.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a good idea to skip Santa this year. I think it's so much better to take him when he's enchanted by Santa and the possibility that it's really HIM right there! You'll have plenty of years for that. Why deal with a screaming baby when you don't have to?!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe Paul is already 9 months old! Where did the time go? I am hoping and praying he starts sleeping better at night now that he's had his tube surgery. I don't know how you're functioning on such broken sleep!
Wow -- 9 months and cute as a button. Here's hoping he starts sleeping better. His body may have trained itself on that schedule, like people do. Fingers crossed. I have such a hard time functioning on minimal sleep and that would be a tough one.
ReplyDeleteCarson is almost 2 and had a Santa meltdown with tears -- not the I'm scared kind of screamy tears but the "how could you do this to me?" kind. So, maybe another year. (Cameron -- 4 mo -- was fine!)
He is so adorable! I hope he gets a clean health report at the next appointment! Sleep training is no fun but it is worth it in the end <3
ReplyDeleteWe have been lucky with Santa visits. We got to a SUPER low key place, free and no line. I wouldn't want to deal with the mall and overpriced photos. My kids haven't cried, but when they resist at all we just get in the picture with them so they don't have to sit on Santa's lap or anything. I never really found the idea creepy until I had my own kids and then I was like... you don't have to sit on his lap, lol. Elmo is also at the place we go and I think my kids prefer to see him over Santa anyway ;)
Aw what a happy baby. I wouldn't worry at all about the puree vs. solids thing - he's still young. I think half my brothers didn't get any solids until over a year. He'll eat when he's ready.
ReplyDeleteI loved the video you posted of him making the truck noise! He's done things at his own pace his whole life so it makes sense that he just continues to be his own little person. His smile is the most precious!!! It's going to be such a fun holiday season for y'all!!!
ReplyDeleteHe has changed and grown so much! Love that he loves Oscar so much. Olivia also really really loves all the pets in her life!! It's cute how at such a young age they are so attracted to animals! I bet he will love the Christmas tree. Olivia has amazingly mostly left ours alone. She sometimes will pull an ornament off and I just say nooo, and take it and put it back on the tree and then try to distract her with something else lol. It sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.
ReplyDeleteI loved the videos that you posted about him scooting around on his arms... it's so cute how they make it work when they're little (I remember my nephew always scooted around on his but, before he mastered crawling ;)).
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweetie!! The army crawling is so cute, and it's adorable how much he loves Oscar. Yeah, I hate to see babies crying - it's just heartbreaking, so I totally get wanting to wait to take him to visit Santa.
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