Dear Nolan: Months 8-10

Dear Nolan,

Here we are, another 3 months since my last letter. Not a whole lot changed in your 7th month. You continued to do well with the formula supplementing and we continued to try to get you to eat solids. The only thing I really found that you liked this month was a Zucchini Peach Smoothie. You continued to sleep in our bed, take naps whenever and wherever I could fit them in and be a generally happy baby. 

At the beginning of August, you turned 8 months and got your first two teeth (on the bottom) fairly close together. You continued to crawl regularly, especially towards the dog’s water bowl. Aside from eating dog food, which you love, you also started eating strawberries and puffs. But that’s about it. You mostly ate formula and nursed regularly, including multiple times per night. 

You also liked standing at your music table or holding onto people’s hands. You love your brother and sister and have definitely started interfering with some of their activities with their crawling.

At the beginning of September, you had your 9-month appointment. This was the month where a lot of things changed for you. At your appointment, you weighed 20 pounds, putting you in the 53rd percentile for weight, up from the third percentile at your 6-month appt. As with the previous months since we started adding formula, you ate 4 or 5 (3oz) bottles per day and the rest from nursing. You were still not interested in solids and I even talked to a feeding therapist briefly to determine if I needed to take any action before you turned one. She reminded me that you really weren’t all that abnormal, I was probably just comparing you to your brother and sister who were super into solid foods. She encouraged me to make it a goal to put you in your high chair with food 3x a day, vary the temps and textures, encourage you to get messy and also get a nuby brush to help stimulate your gums.

Pretty much the next week, you started to turn the corner with food a little bit. You started actually consuming some solids, including Bamba peanut puffs, vanilla yogurt, Go Go Squeeze fruit and veggie pouches and some Serenity Kids veggie pouches (Aff link) (i always put them in a bowl so you can practice with your spoon. Plus you would occasionally eat some baby cereal with fruit, pancake, and avocado. Right near the end of the month you finally ate what I would consider a full meal once or twice. Feeding you has been a lot of work and we’re certainly still not over the hump, but we’re making progress and you’re certainly more interested in solid food now than you were a few months ago so we’re just going to keep trucking along! In the past week, you’ve definitely hit a growth spurt and I’ve started giving you a bit more formula and nursing you more.

You continue to be a fairly happy baby, as long as mama is around. You love standing and pull yourself up on anything you can. You’ve also started taking some steps to move sideways along couches and even a few steps with your little walker toy. You can also climb the stairs, although mommy tries to keep you off of them for the most part so we don’t have to deal with that yet. I think you’ll be walking in no time! You also have your top two front teeth SO CLOSE to coming in…but they’ve been SO CLOSE for over a month now and we’re still waiting.

You’re still wearing size 3 diapers and mostly 9 month clothes. Some 12 month and a few 6-12 month pants fit. 

Your other big change this month was your sleeping arrangement. You’ve been sleeping in our bed since you were born and this month I moved you to the pack and play in our room. You were definitely ready and although you still don’t sleep through the night, you started putting yourself to sleep in the pack and play, waking up several times to nurse but then going right back to sleep in the pack and play. 

And then yesterday, we moved you into your own room! We took your sister out of the crib and gave her a big girl bed and moved the crib into what was once the guest room and is now your room! I already miss you, but I think it’ll be good for you to have your own space. You did great your first night in the crib. Cried for an hour, fell asleep sitting up for a little bit and then slept well, waking up twice to nurse and then going back down easily before getting up for the day at 5:45. Then you took two naps in the crib- it’s nice to have a dark spot (thanks to the blackout curtains daddy hung) with a loud sound machine to put you for naps. 

My hope is that moving you away from me, now that we were both ready, will help you start to sleep longer stretches and as such, naturally start the night weaning process. We’ll see how it goes over the next month or so!

Hard to believe you’ll be 10 months on Saturday. 

Mama loves you, sweet boy!