9 months. Already. It's hard to believe it, but this little lady is growing up. This month brought some new milestones and achievements, but also some challenges. I gotta say, though, I love having a baby in the house at Christmas time. Watching her take in the sights of the season is delightful. Even though she doesn't understand what we're doing and what we're celebrating, there is joy and excitement oozing out of this one and her big sister. What a blessing.
I wrote with our 8 month update that my goal while having daddy home for an extended period was to work on Miss Riley's sleeping pattern. I'm very pleased to say we are no longer sleeping in mommy and daddy's bed for the majority of the night. In fact, Riley had her longest stretch of sleep about a week ago when she slept from 8:00-11:00 woke to eat and then slept until 5:30, ate again and went back to her bed until 8:00! I know to those of you with good sleepers this doesn't sound like much, but let me tell you this was a huge achievement! I'd been struggling with how to go about working on Riley's sleeping issues. I didn't feel good about using a "cry-it-out" method and the few times we attempted this it only led to hours of screaming, a very sad baby and a heart broken, frustrated mommy. Not for me. So...late one night I was on the internet and came across a book called "The No Cry Sleep Solution." A few clicks of the mouse and a few days later it arrived. I won't take the time now to go into the details about it, but I am feeling much better about Riley's sleeping patterns these days. The biggest thing I got from the book was a good reminder that not all babies sleep "all night" and that's ok. I was spoiled with a good sleeper in my first baby. I've realized that Riley is just different in this way - not because of anything I've done right or wrong - simply because she's a different baby with different needs and a different personality and that's ok.
I would still use the word serious to describe my little peanut. She tends to be content to watch the activity of the house (preferably while in mom's arms) and just take it all in. She's not "on the go" yet and I'm totally ok with that. This being my second time around as a mom, I'm fully aware of the fact that being mobile - while cute and exciting - brings lots of new challenges and dangers. She'll do it eventually. I'm in no rush. Riley is babbling more and has started clapping whenever we cheer for her. What a cutie pie!
Riley visited the doctor last week for her nine month check up. We were happy to not need any shots, but did have a little concern following her visit. Riley hasn't had very significant weight gain since her 6 month check up. She weighs 15lbs 13oz which puts her in the 6th percentile (down from the 26th percentile at 6 months). We're not sure what to attribute this change to. Riley is still nursing 6-7 days during the day/night and I haven't noticed any drop in milk supply. However, she has not been a big fan of solids and I haven't really pushed it. I figured she do it when she was ready. But to have a change in her weight gain pattern is a little concerning to me. So...our goals for the next few weeks are to work on increasing mom's milk supply and try to get RK to eat more solids. Just in the past few days, her appetite has improved with some new foods we've tried. She really likes eating table food and not baby food - so we can now add yogurt, beans, cheese, eggs, pancakes, turkey meat, peaches, mandarin oranges and avocado to the list of food she likes. Hopefully when we go back to the doctor in a month for a weight check we'll see a nice big gain!
1 comment:
Loved that book too! Glad you got some sleep :)
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