8 months!

Weight: 18lb 3oz (~60 percentile)

Size Clothing: She's wearing 9 month sleepers. She wears 6-12 month or 9 month dresses, onesies, and pants. Her feet are small still tho and she fits in 3-6 month shoes!

She's hardly in sleepers anymore but she looks like a baby when she is!

Milestones: She is army crawling like a champ now. She hasn't started pulling up or sitting by herself yet. Kind of worried but at the same time kind of relieved that we only need to baby proof things close to the ground. I have a feeling she might be a late walker! She has 2 teeth now. The week before she sprouted the first tooth she was fussier than normal. Just kind of whiny. But I think it was also cause she was tired from daycare and because it was a gray wonder week time. Her sleep thankfully wasn't affected at all. The second tooth didn't seem to affect her much. She's sitting up alot better. For the most part I can leave her by herself but she still tips over sometimes... I kind of think she lets herself fall tho. She goes from sitting to crawling by herself. She learned to open drawers and to not crawl into the wall or other furniture (for the most part).

Standing, nbd

Food: She has been eating 3 solid meals a day. She doesn't seem to like it very much. The only thing she loves are mum mums and puffs. She is getting better at the pincer grasp. But she usually just grabs a puff with her fist and shoves it in her mouth. She's been slowly eating more finger foods. But mostly still purees at this point. She eats about 1-2oz of purees 3 times a day. Im trying to incorporate finger foods but she isn't too interested in it unless its a puff or mummum. For finger foods so far she's eaten bananas, blueberries, chicken and carrots. She'll eat it but doesn't seem to enjoy it that much.

Started using high chairs!

Schedule: She seems to be in between 2 and 3 naps a day. A typical day at home looks like this -
7am - wakeup, 7 oz bottle
8am - ~2 oz puree fruit, alittle banana, puffs
9-11am - nap!
11am - 6oz bottle
12pm - 2 oz veggies and meat puree, puffs
1-3pm - nap!
3pm - ~7oz bottle
5pm ish - catnap sometimes
6pm - dinner 2oz of meat and veggies, puffs
7pm - ~7oz bottle, bath, brush teeth, sleep!

the naps at home usually range from 1.5hr to 3 hours. On day care days her naps are usually 30-45 min 3 times a day

Sleep: she's been STTN like a champ. No hiccups this month. Usually down around 745pm and up around 7am. I can usually hear her chatting to herself as early as 6, but usually closer to 630-7am. Her naps are good at home. I love that I can put her down in her crib for night time and naps and she doesn't cry anymore. If she's not ready to sleep she'll play with her blankie alittle, but she's usually out within 10-15 min if not sooner. I"m pretty sure the 3rd nap will be gone by 9 months.

Her favorite things: She loves being thrown in the air by her daddy. She loves sitting in shopping carts now too. I noticed that she gets really excited when I drop her off at daycare when I punch in the security code at the front door. she knows that sound! She loves exploring now that she can crawl better. She loves it when we read to her, well when she's not trying to eat the book. And she definitely loves her blankie. It definitely calms her down when she's fussy.

Her cheese face!! 

Shopping cart for the first time, nbd

Family pic on the 4th of July! Didn't even have to tell hubs to wear red! :-)

Starting to be mischievous

Trying out the ergo.. I spy a monkey!

Changed to convertible car seat!

Rooting on the worst team ever

And for Auntie Kar- the ultimate cheese face!

Sleep routine

Evelyn is only almost 8 months and I've already forgotten what it was like when she was a newborn! So I decided to write everything down so I remember how I got her to sleep well. Hopefully the next baby will be just as good! (disclaimer: i know every baby is different so this may not work for all babies. this is just what worked for my baby)

Our little burrito

From day 1, we put Ev in a crib for most naps and night time sleep. I didn't want to deal with the transition later on. She took to it well from the beginning. She's never had a problem being put down for night time sleep and naps in the beginning. She was basically just sleeping around the clock as a newborn and barely cried. She'd eat, and basically fall asleep while eating or soon after. Then I'd put her down to sleep. I tried to do 2 naps in the crib every day so she would know crib = sleep. If she was sleeping in her crib, the routine was swaddle and white noise. In the beginning it didn't really matter at all though, she could sleep anywhere and be okay with it. So we let her sleep in the pack and play downstairs, in her boppy, carseat etc etc. We didn't swaddle or use white noise if she was outside her room though.

1 month!

For night time sleep, we started good sleep habits early. We followed the moms on call method. I think it gets a bad rep sometimes as being a cry it out method, but i hardly think it is one. I'd feed her, diaper change, swaddle, white noise, then lights out. She never had issues being put down in the crib for night time sleep. After she was 2 weeks old (basically regained her birth weight), everytime she woke up at night, I'd wait about 2 min before getting her (basically made sure she was fully awake as babies will often times seem like they're awake but really still be sound asleep). After waiting, I'd give her a paci, and she'd fall back asleep. I did this 3 times before I fed her again. As a newborn, she'd only last another 30 min before I'd feed her. As she got older, the paci timing started to spread out to an hour, then a couple hours, and by 7 weeks she was sleeping through the night (6+ hours). By 7.5 weeks, she was sleeping 10+ hours. At this point she wasn't even waking up for her paci anymore. I think by establishing the habits so early, she never had any regression issues (I was dreading the 4 month regression i hear so much about, but she didn't show any signs of it!). She only had about 1 week from the time she was 7.5 weeks to almost 8 months old when she woke up in the middle of the night and that was because of her diarrhea/diaper rash issue. Once I changed her she went right back to sleep. Teething and swaddle weaning hasn't caused her to wake up in the middle of the night as well which i am so thankful for.

Always looks so peaceful!

Naps were a little trickier. Her naps have been awesome lately, but before that it was definitely hit or miss. From the time she was a newborn to 8 weeks her naps were good, she was so sleepy, she'd just eat then go back to sleep.

• At 8 weeks - 3 months I did try to get her to follow the EASY (eat activity sleep you) schedule but she could barely stay awake longer than 30-45 min (which included feeding time) so she basically just went right back down for a nap after eating. She was swaddled, white noise, and then put in her crib for naps. For a nap routine, I'd swaddle her, let her suck on her paci for a couple min until she was almost asleep, then take out the paci and put her in the crib. Most days she went right to sleep, some days she'd cry. I'd give her 5-10 min and if she was still crying, I'd pick her up, let her suck on her paci for a couple min, then put her back down. She never had to do this more than once. At that age, her naps were always long, 2-2.5 hours so I never had issues with cat naps. 

Loves napping with daddy!

• At 3 months I decided to swaddle wean since she was about to go to daycare and her nap routine had been solid. This was the only time I did CIO. It took 3 days for her to get used to being without a swaddle. She didn't have an issue being put down for a nap, but she did wake up in the middle of the nap (about 1 hour in) and couldn't put herself back to sleep. I knew she was capable of sleeping 2+ hours for a nap since she'd been doing it for that last 3+ months so I let her CIO. The longest she cried on and off was 40 min. After that it was about 20 min, then she stopped crying. During the 3 days she learned to self soothe with her thumb. It was so cute. That lasted about a month or so until she decided she didn't like her thumb anymore (good so no bad habits formed but bad that we had to find another way to self soothe). That was also the point in which she didn't want to suck the paci anymore (also good she didn't form a bad habit with the paci, she basically dropped it completely at this point, but bad bc we had to find another way to get her to sleep!). I tried to implement EASY more which was better at this age. her awake time was a lot less than most kids her age tho. I think only about 1 hour max?  

First night swaddle weaning

• So around the 4.5 month mark we redid the nap routine by just putting her in her sleepsack then cuddling or reading a book and then putting her down. I also introduced a lovey at this time ( a pink blankie). She didn't really take to it at first, but now at almost 8 months shes loves it! But anyway, at 4.5 months- maybe 6 months I'd do the simple nap routine and put her down. Most days she was able to put herself to sleep. But some days I'd have to go back in and pick her up and give her more cuddles to calm her down, then try putting her back down. she didn't ever need this more than once. She did start waking up halfway through naps during this time and would sometimes have trouble falling asleep. but i didn't get her unless she'd already slept for 1.5 hours at least. she'd usually fall asleep within 15 min, usually less. 

Starting to move around the crib more!

• From I think 6 months to present she's been my awesome little napper. I do it more on a time basis since I can tell when she is fussy she wants to nap. So it's usually about 2 hours after she wakes up. She gets in her sleep sack, we read a book, whitenoise, then i put her in her crib with her blankie. she doesn't cry anymore. she just plays if she's not tired but will usually be asleep within 10 min. She seems to use her blankie to help her fall asleep. She sucks on the tags or stuffs it in her mouth or smells it. I'm okay with that tho since she only uses it in her crib. She sleeps for about 2 hours twice a day.  The 3rd nap is usually alittle shorter. At almost 8 months shes about to drop her 3rd nap. Most days she takes a short catnap around 5pm. but if she had a long 2nd nap she skips the catnap. 

Her and her blankie!

Having said all that about the naps, i think i may have trained her to sleep in her crib TOO well. Up until a couple weeks ago, she'd have trouble if we were outside the house. She couldn't stay awake very long, but she couldn't sleep very well outside her crib. This was good and bad since we usually weren't out so it was fine most days, but the days we were she was fussyy!! i think for my second child, I'd probably try to have them sleep 1 nap out in the stroller or carseat or something, but i'd definitely rather have a child who can sleep in her crib well then outside the crib. now shes good though since she can stay awake longer and isn't too fussy if she doesn't get a full nap. i def recommend the snoozeshade tho! it helps so much. i just put that thing over the stroller and shes out in a couple min. 

anyway, i wrote this mostly so i remember what I did to get Ev to sleep well. I know this won't work for all babies but it worked for mine! I hope the next baby loves their sleep as much as ev!!