Gerrit: 8 Months

Wow, this month seemed to fly by! I felt like we had just done Gerrit’s 7 month photos, and here we are doing the 8 month ones.

Age: 8 months on 27 June 2015
Weight: 21.2 lbs
Height: 28.25 inches (a rough guess… he was very wiggly while I tried to measure him!)
Teeth: 1 — it started coming through right before he turned 8 months
Clothing Size: 12 months
Diaper Size: size 3
Milestones: actually sleeping through the night (9+ hours!), sleeping in the crib all night, creeping, standing with less support, saying “Mama”

Sleeping: First of all, yes, Gerrit slept through the night!! Once. One single night. But I took it as a very good sign! I was not expecting him to keep doing it, since that just isn’t the way Gerrit works, haha.

I started playing around with his naps this month. I wasn’t sure if he was ready to transition down to 2 naps, because he usually fought me hard on that last nap of the day. He mostly took 3 naps during this month, although there were some days of only 2 naps. It usually depended on how early he had woken up that morning (5:15 was our earliest morning) and how long his naps were that day. Gerrit & I still usually napped together for the first nap of the day, since I was still needing the extra zzz’s! Naps ranged from piddly little cat naps (half an hour to 45 minutes) to fantastic 2 hour naps (usually with me). His worst day of naps was a 1-hour morning nap and a 45-minute afternoon nap. Seriously… how was he functioning on that little sleep?! He slept great that night though, which is why I considered dropping the 3rd nap. Other days with only 2 naps resulted in frequent night-waking though. As did days with 3 naps. I’m telling you, this kid is not consistent!

At night, Gerrit’s sleep ranged from no night wakings (can I get a hallelujah?!) to 5 night wakings (shoot me now), although 3-4 was the norm. His nights with only 1 waking were the nights he slept 6+ hours during the first stretch, 7+ hours in a stretch, and then the night of 9.5 hours of sleeping bliss. That amazing night was June 17, and I keep waiting for a repeat of that night. 🙂 It was about a week after that that Gerrit was probably teething, so I shouldn’t be surprised that he was a bit more restless.

The first few days of his 8th month, I was still bringing Gerrit to bed with me between 4 & 5 in the morning, because he refused to go back to sleep in the crib at that point. But then he started doing better with going back to sleep in his crib, and it continued almost every night! It was really weird for Andrew and me at first, haha. We woke up and the sun was up, but there was no baby in the bed. Crazy! I’ll admit, I kind of missed it at first, but I think that’s why I continued napping with Gerrit for that first nap of the day: I needed that snuggle time with him.

Eating: Breastfeeding is going well. I feel like since he turned 6 months, breastfeeding has been a fairly low-stress activity. Gerrit eats well, takes solid feedings before sleeping, and has gotten really good at latching back on quickly if he comes off and realizes he’s being sprayed in the face with milk. 🙂 He also started handling my boobs more. What I mean by that is, he would position them like a baby with a bottle might. It just seemed like he was gaining more control with his hands and fingers this month.

Just as a side note, I now know why moms enjoy breastfeeding so much. When a child nurses well, drains a breast, and stays latched on, breastfeeding is wonderful! I had no idea what that was like until the past couple of months. I was seriously dreaming about the day Gerrit would be done nursing, because it was a chore for both of us. But if things continue like this, I’ll be happy to breastfeed past 12 months if he wants to.

Gerrit + solids = play time. I felt like the finger foods I was giving him were just being used as teething toys for the most part. Occasionally, I would find bits of food in his diaper, so I knew he was eating something but you could see he was still primarily breastfed. Which isn’t bad, of course, I just figured that by now I’d be seeing more solids in there.

So I started offering purees and rice cereal mixed with fruit puree. No luck there either. He would make a face and spit it out. Every time. I had a little success getting purees into him if I let him use the spoon, but that spoon usually got flung at the wall or on the floor at some point, so that got pretty messy.

I’m trying not to get discouraged or worry about it, but it does disappoint me a little. I just thought he would get the hang of things more quickly than he is. He genuinely seems to enjoy the finger food though. Nothing seems to taste bad to him, and he likes to mash things around in his mouth, but most of it just comes back out again. We will get there though!

Mommy Update: I’m doing well! Still at about the same weight, but I have no interest in trying to lose any weight while breastfeeding. I have a great supply right now, and I don’t want to mess with that while Gerrit is still almost entirely consuming breast milk.

(Did I seriously not get a picture of the two of us this month?!) 😦

Best Moments: I think one of the best moments was hearing Gerrit say, “Mama.” At first, I was sure it was just babbling, because he would just repeat the “ma” sound all the time: “mamamama.” But he smiles when I say “Mama” back to him, and he’s more likely to say it when he’s upset and actually wants me.

Another best moment was that night that he slept through the night! Seriously, it feels so good to sleep like that after getting used to sleeping in 2-3 hours increments all the time.

Likes & Dislikes: Gerrit still likes standing & walking with help. Sometimes it seems like that’s all he wants to do! He’s often trying to crawl on top of me to stand on my lap, and he will fuss and whine if I don’t help him out.

Gerrit likes practicing his crawling to some extent. He will get up on all 4s and rock back and forth, then drop down on his belly and try to move. He gets frustrated fairly quickly though.

He still really enjoys sensory activities, especially anything to do with water! He splashes around in the bath and makes quite a mess, haha!

I also introduced “sand play” with Gerrit:

It’s just white cornmeal, not actual sand. I’m glad I did cornmeal, because one of the first things he did was grab a handful and put it in his mouth! It’s messy though (the powder gets everywhere), so we usually do this outside.

Here is a sensory box I made for him:

It has a different texture on each side. His favorite side is definitely the one with bubble wrap!

Gerrit still dislikes being left alone for any extended period of time. But he is getting better at playing by himself:

He also dislikes when you don’t help him walk around when he wants to! I’ve tried letting him try out his walking toy, but he doesn’t have the balance for that yet. So I’m usually either stuck with sore knees or a sore back from helping him walk around the house.

Memorable Events: June was pretty low-key for the most part. Andrew celebrated his first Father’s Day though! Gerrit and I made a picture for him and framed it:

I also got another shirt set like I did for Mother’s Day:

Other than that, I just made a special brunch for the three of us. I made honey-ricotta pancakes with blackberries and oranges. I let Gerrit have some, but left out the honey-ricotta topping. I didn’t take any photos of our brunch, but here is the recipe I used if you want to try it! We thought it was delicious!

This is not actually a memorable event, but this IS one of my favorite outfits on him:

I think the worst part about baby clothes is that they grow out of the cute ones so quickly! Gerrit is definitely getting more wear out of his clothes now that he isn’t packing on the pounds so fast, but it still seems like I am packing up a too-small size too often.

 

So that was Gerrit’s 8th month! Like I said, it really seemed to fly by, and part of the reason is probably because Gerrit is so much more fun to play with now. As we head into month #9, we will be baby-proofing things, I’m sure!