Mabel's Ninth Month

Stats: At 8.5 months, she was 16 pounds 13 ounces (30%).  She wears both 9 and 12 month clothes, but we'll probably need to put the 9 month clothes up soon. 

As of today, which is technically a few days past her 9 month birthday, we noticed her first tooth.  When we told Matilda, she made the sweetest face and said, "Oooo.... like a big girl?  She's going to talk soon!"  It was adorable.

Sleep: Lots of change on this front.  We were having a lot of issues with sleep this past month, namely 1) she required so much rocking to get her to sleep (and if she didn't like the rocking chair, like at my parents' house, then you'd have to walk and bounce her) and 2) her night wakings were getting at of hand.  Sleep while we were traveling was absolutely terrible.  One night I had to sleep with her on me the whole time.  When we're home, she's consistently waking up twice, but one of those wakeups was at least an 1.5 hour long.  A few times, she was up over 3 hours a time in the middle of the night.  Obviously, we knew all of this wasn't sustainable, so once she got over her last cold (about 2 weeks ago), we made up our mind to turn the boat around. 

To start, Jason got her on a consistent nap schedule.  She's taking two naps.  Her morning nap starts between 9:30-10 and her afternoon nap starts between 2:30-3.

Secondly, we started a gradual sleep training regimen, known as fading or camping out, that's gone like this:

• The first two days, we reduced our rocking intensity to just a soft rock. 
• The following two days we just sat still with her in our arms while she worked to get herself to sleep. 
• The next two days (which were the hardest by far) we put her awake in her crib and we could stand or sit next to it and physically and verbally soothe her as needed. 
• Then the next two days, we sat in a chair a bit further away and didn't physically interfere other than helping her from the standing to sitting/ laying position (because she kept getting stuck in the standing position). 
• Then we moved the chair to the door for next three days and really tried to have minimal interactions. 
• Today is the first day that we've just put her in crib and left the room while she's still awake.

It hasn't been easy, but I think it's gone ok.  Hopefully it's worth it in the long run.  She's still waking twice a night, but we aren't having to spend hours in there with her.

Eat: Mabel wasn't eating many solids the first half of the month, but we've really kicked it up the second half.  She's eating solids 3x a day, and has mostly moved to finger foods.  She's had buttered toast, pancakes, chicken, and a variety of fruits and vegetables (including artichoke leaves as seen in the bottom of the post).  Her favorite foods so far are probably mango and blueberries.  She likes those baby puffs too, but I'd rather her not have too many processed foods a this point.

Play/ Milestones: First off, I kinda love the next picture of the girls.  They had built a fort and were playing "camping" nicely together. 

Anyways, Mabel continues to work on her mobility.  She can crawl around the house to find you if you're in another room.  She's also cruising at this point too and has just started some assisted walking with her walker.  We're still working on sitting if she's pulled up on something, but I think she's finally getting it (thank goodness... it gets old having to help her down all the time).

Mabel has started to be much more vocal these past couple of weeks.  She likes to squeal and babble and make clicking sounds with her tongue.  She LOVES throwing her head back and making this huge cheesy grin with a little cheesy laugh.  It's adorable.

She's also mastered clapping and loves to clap all the time.  She likes to bounce and dance too.  We've started reading books at our nap and bedtime routines and she's starting to enjoy that as well.  She likes patty-cake and interactive songs like "If You're Happy and You Know It". 

Oh, and she is pretty good at her object permanence box.  (I have a really cute video of her working with it, but it was too big to upload.)

Christmas 2017

Christmas this year was definitely filled with it's up and downs (downs including my Grandpa's passing and Mabel having another cold and sleeping miserably), but overall, we enjoyed spending nearly a whole week with family.

Matilda was thrilled with all of her gifts (especially her numerous costumes) and Mabel had a good time opening her gifts as well.  And by opening, I mean eating all the wrapping paper.

As always, Christmas Eve was spent with Jason's family.

And Christmas morning was with my parents.

(I love the next picture of the girls quietly doing what they enjoy best... Matilda looking through her books and Mabel whacking things. 😊)

We headed to Jason's aunts for Christmas lunch, which was delicious.  We also enjoyed a fun game of White Elephant.

 

And my brother and his family joined us the next day and the rest of the week. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Mabel's Eighth Month

Remember how last month I had mentioned how the girls had been sick a majority of the month and we thought they were getting better but Matilda had come down with a cough?  Well that cough ended up being RSV and we all ended up getting it.  Matilda missed a day of school and was better after a couple of days, but Mabel got pretty sick.  It moved into her chest and she got bronchiolitis.  She wouldn't eat because she was so congested and her throat hurt so bad (despite us trying nursing, bottles, sippy cups, frozen milk pops, syringe feeding, etc.), and she got so dehydrated she had to go to the ER twice to get IV's.  Since Matilda was feeling better, we sent her to stay with my parents the week of Thanksgiving while the three of us tried to recover.  The girls were healthy for two weeks and now they both have terrible coughs again.  It's so frustrating. 

But, despite being sick, Mabel continues to make leaps and bounds with development - mostly around gross motor skills. 

Stats: Wears 9 month and 12 month clothes.  No teeth.

Sleep: Sleep has been tough, tough, tough this month.  She's been waking 2-3 times a night. 

I feel like we missed the prime opportunity for her to learn how to self soothe because we were having to comfort her so much when she was sick.  Now she relies on rocking to get her to sleep.  When she wakes at night (which has been crazy frequent), she wants to be rocked back to sleep again.  We're trying to put her down slightly awake and giving her time alone, but we don't seem to be making much progress (especially since now she's sick again).

We bought her a little muslin lovey to help her self-soothe.  She's starting to use it some, so maybe this will help in the long run.

She's still napping three times a day, usually.

Eat: I feel like that nursing strike a couple of months ago was actually a blessing in disguise.  When she was refusing to eat when she had RSV, the not nursing part was the least of my worries.  Instead we just worked on getting liquids in her any way possible.

Also, despite her seeming so interested in food for months now, she hasn't really enjoyed eating them.  We've tried a variety of purees, but she hasn't been terribly fond of them.  We've tried finger foods too, but 1) she doesn't have a great pincher grasp yet and 2) she still has a really sensitive gag reflex. 

She did have her first taste of lime though, as seen in these pictures.  Teeheehee.

Play/ Milestones: Mabel is all about gross motor skill development.  She's legitimately crawling.  She can maneuver into sitting and pull up on things.  She's at the very beginning stages of cruising now too. 

She likes playing with all kinds of toys.  We have age appropriate toys scattered around for her, but she also likes getting Matilda's toys off the shelves too.  She loves playing with the guitar.  She bangs on it, strums the strings, and uses it as a walker.  Ha.  It really is one of her favorite "toys".

She's starting to be more interested in books, especially the touch and feel kind.

She responds to her name and will reach out if she wants someone else to hold her.

She is an extremely smiley baby.  She loves looking at faces and will smile at most anyone that locks eyes with her.  We went to a performance of the Nutcracker Ballet this past weekend, and she loved flirting with all the people behind us.  (And she made it through the whole show!)  I'm looking forward to celebrating her first Christmas with her this month.