Emilia is 8 months old since Saturday! It's so hard to take a clear picture of her anymore since she moves around SO much, ha ha ha! The entire time we tried to take these shots she was doing her crazy rocking back & forth dance so almost all of them came out blurry!
Height/Weight: This month we had her developmental check with the public health nurse so I actually have some proper stats to share! She is weighing in at exactly 9kgs which is about 19lbs 14oz and her height or length is 64cm. The nurse said everything looked perfect but she does want to check her height again after her first birthday as she is in a very low percentile for her age...aww! We have a little shrimpy baby, he he ;) She did also say that she's not worried about her as she looks perfectly proportionate and sometimes babies' bones only start to grow a bit more when they start crawling/moving around more. As I've said before, Jonathan is only 5'5" and I'm 5'4" so we are expecting her to be quite petite!
Routine: Emilia has started napping for shorter periods of time now, so she will typically either take two small ones or one longer nap in the afternoon. She usually sleeps for a bit after her first milk feed (around 11am) but this only lasts about half an hour or so. She also only nurses 2-3 times a day and then again at night time. Our routine looks a bit like this:
9am - Wake up & play with her toys in the co-sleeper or our bed while I get dressed/makeup/hair etc.
10am - Watch Peppa Pig in her exersaucer while I make breakfast. Eat breakfast with me.
11am - I bring her up to her room, she plays in her crib while I tidy up & put away laundry, etc. Then I dress her for the day, bring her back downstairs & give her a milk feed which usually sends her to sleep for about half an hour.
1pm - Eat lunch with me.
2pm - Plays on playmat.
4pm - Short milk feed followed by a nap.
5pm - Plays on mat or exersaucer.
6pm - We start preparing dinner and she usually sits in her highchair to watch.
7pm - Eat dinner with us.
8pm - I bring her up for her bath and get her ready for bed. Change her into pyjamas and bring her down for her bed-time feed.
9pm - I feed her to sleep on the couch then settle her down. She normally wakes again right before we go to bed at about 11pm and then goes to bed with us where she "dream feeds" to sleep (this is the same as last month!)
Sleeping: Emilia is still sleeping with us for the most part although she does nap in her co-sleeper or swing and I have put her into the co-sleeper at night but she doesn't last very long...the longest has been about half an hour. I'm slowly getting her used to being in her own bed in our room. She's definitely not ready to sleep in her crib in the nursery yet!
Eating: Last month we switched entirely to baby-led weaning (which basically just means self-feeding). It was a completely natural progression and we actually just went along with our instincts on this one...Emilia hates being spoon-fed and only wants to feed herself so baby-led weaning suits her down to the ground! In the last month she has become such an amazing little eater...we almost can't believe it! She now loves food and will try anything we put in front of her. She has tried all kinds of things such as olives, eggs, avocado, cheese, chicken, duck, rocket, noodles, pasta, rice, baby corn, peas, carrot sticks, fromage frais, ham...the list goes on and on. But her favourite food by far is cherry tomatoes. She LOVES them so much, she likes to suck the juice out of them! She now pretty much just eats whatever we eat (although obviously considerably less) and we stick to 3 meals a day.
Sizes: Emilia is now fitting into 9-12 month clothing and her last box of real "baby clothes" which I got quite emotional about! I can't believe how fast the first year is going...it seems like only yesterday she was a tiny baby :( So many times I see clothes for her age and think, god that looks huge...she would never fit into that, but she does. And then I want to cry. Ha ha ha! In terms of nappies she still wears size 4+ in Pampers Active-Fit.
Milestones
- She can now say "mama"! I'm soooo happy! I love hearing her say it, it's like music to my ears...ha ha although it also makes it a lot harder to ignore her if she's calling out and I'm trying to get things done. Whereas before she would just recite "dadadada" over and over and I could convince Jonathan she was calling him, now the tables have turned!! ;)
- A few days ago she played "peekaboo" with me herself (as in she pulled the bed covers over her face, then pulled them down and giggled when I said "peekaboo!"). That was amazing to witness, and not to mention so sweet!
- Teeth! She is sprouting teeth like there's no tomorrow...ha ha ha! I swear, one day she woke up with about 4 new ones. It's insane! Her two top front teeth are almost down and the two top canines are also visible. Eek. Thankfully they don't seem to bother her though, so that's good!
- Picking up tiny objects - she practised this a lot last month too but has just recently gotten really good at it. She will notice the tiniest crumbs or speck of something on the table and attempt to pick it up with her thumb and forefinger. I even saw her once try to pick up a slithery piece of banana off the table, then when that didn't work she put her mouth up to the table edge and tried to scoop it in! I thought that was quite clever of her actually :)
- Standing with support. I mentioned this last month too and she is still doing it! She has not really crawled properly forwards yet but she can go backwards...I wouldn't call it real crawling though...more like wriggling!
She also loves her fairy princess mobile as you can see! :)