Category — baby

Putting this out there so that in case it never happens again I will have record that it did, at least once. Declan slept in his crib for 11 hours straight last night. My little man is growing up!

Month 9 was full of changes in these parts.

- A certain baby is sleeping in his crib at night! He isn’t sleeping through the night and every night is a different waking pattern, but we can put him down around 7:30 and know that he will be asleep at least until about 11:30. This has been a life changer. I put him down and can wash dishes, do laundry, blog, or just veg on the couch for a bit! It is very nice to have time to myself again. Next step is to move the sewing machine out of the nursery, as I now have time to sew but can’t because it’s in his room!

-The teeth count is four fully in (two top and two bottom) with one more that just broke through on top and I think one or two more making their way up on the bottom.

- We had our first allergy scare this month. Declan had always been sensitive to dairy, but he is older now so I started to reintroduce it to my system in the form of vanilla latte’s. Right around that time I gave him some scrambled egg off my plate. The day of the egg and the entire next week his face had a red rash on it. I switched back to iced coffee and the rash is gone. I am not sure if it was the milk or the egg (babies under a year old aren’t supposed to have egg whites..oops) so now we are kind of tip toeing around, praying he won’t have severe egg OR milk allergies, becuase those don’t sound fun at all.

- For the most part day-care drop offs are now without tears! Woohoo! (More so for Bryan, since he drops him off).

- Lots of standing and walking along couches and chairs and tables and anything else chest-high.

- No words yet, just lots of G’s, D’s and C’s.

- We have started giving him a lot more finger foods (peas, corn, chicken) which he loves! He is still taking three bottles while I am at work (I am still breastfeeding and pumping while at work) and the pediatrician says it’s time for us to switch him to two bottles and substitute the third with a meal.

- He will do the ‘touchdown’ sign on command.

- As you can tell from the picture above, it is becoming more and more impossible to keep this kid still! Bryan was trying to keep him smiling and laying while I took the pictures but he was still rolling around. He loves moving around, checking out everything he isn’t supposed to touch, chasing the cats and just overall keeping us on our toes. I am not looking forward to when he starts to walk!

I have to point out Declan’s outfit this time. Bryan’s nickname when he was little was Bronco Buster and while I was pregnant I found these little vintage overall’s with the words Bronco Buster on the waist! They just now fit and were so cute on him!!

Overall 9 months has been so much fun. Month 10 will bring his first plane ride, his Christening and his first Thanksgiving! I can’t wait!

Bought Declan’s christening shoes. Boy are they white!!

(I can never resist a POP up sale)

Happy Monday!!

I learned pretty quick that story time wasn’t an easy thing with a baby who likes to eat anything and everything. I read about these books… somewhere? At $5.00 each, the Indestructibles books are well worth the money. Declan has pulled, bitten, slobbered on, crumbled and crawled over these books and I just smooth them out and dry them off and they are like new!

On a side note, we let Declan play with an old laptop that I have. I believe what I said was “What harm can he do to it?” and before I could finish the sentence he had ripped off the letter C and had it half way to his mouth. Well, that answers that.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I always appreciated baby product reviews when I was pregnant (heck, I still do!) so I wanted to review a few of my favorite products.

We love love love our stroller. I first posted about it here. We purchased our UPPAbaby Vista stroller knowing it would last us through not only this baby but the next one as well. It includes a bassinet and a seat that can be back facing or forward facing. You can purchase a car seat adapter for it but we didn’t, we instead bought the infant seat cushion and used that. This ended up working out for us because Declan hated his car seat! We only used the bassinet a few times because Declan preferred to be up where he could see what was going on, but we did use it a few times for naps. We still have him facing backwards and have upgraded from the safety bar to a snack and cup holder for him since he loves to eat puffs!

(We are insanely blessed to live here)

(I added this one cause it is just so cute!)

One of the biggest reasons why we chose this stroller is the many options it offers. Bassinet, car seat, rear facing, front facing, sitting up, full recline, double seat, standing area for older kids (that’s right, it can hold up to three children at once!) it is the stroller that grows with your family. When we have our next little one we will purchase the second seat that attaches below the first. No double-wide strollers here! The storage basket underneath is very spacious as well and it is positioned so that you don’t kick it when walking. I would say the only cons were the price, although I would say it is worth it) and that we had to buy a separate attachment to get a drink holder. Those two things aide I would definitely recommend this stroller to anyone looking to buy one stroller for a growing family.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I always appreciated baby product reviews when I was pregnant (heck, I still do!) so I wanted to review a few of my favorite products.

You find a dirty silicone covered spoon at the bottom of your purse.

Last weekend was grandparent’s Day, and since both sets of our parents became grandparents when Declan was born I honored the occasion by ordering each set a notepad from Pinhole Press. They were a hit and I heard there was some fighting over who would get to use it! Ordering was easy and the customer service was great, I will most definitely be using Pinhole Press again.

This month has been full of ups and downs. This month he:

- Began day care 3 days a week. He still cries when Bryan drops him off, but once he gets past his first nap he seems to do okay.

- Got his first cold. He made it through two weeks before the day care cold began. A runny nose and fever turned into a runny nose and cough. I took him to the doctor and we were told to wait it out. He now just has a cough and is back in day care (he was too sick to go all last week) so I am hoping he doesn’t get a new illness right on the heels of this one.

- While sick he nursed a lot more and ate less of his purees so we didn’t make many advances in food this month. He still doesn’t like fruit purees, although we have found that he likes Watermelon and peaches if we put it in his mesh feeder. He has also gotten really good at eating his puffs and loves to jam the baby mum mums in his mouth!

- Transitioning to his crib wasn’t really working, and then with him getting sick we just kept him in the bed. We keep talking about getting him in his crib but are hesitant to go the Cry It Out route. He doesn’t really know how to self soothe (although he can do it as we have seen it) which is the main problem. We know that this is because of the choices we have made along the way (bringing him into our bed in the first place, letting him nap on us, etc.) so we are just trying to feel out the best way to make the transition. While we have enjoyed having him in our bed, we know that he needs to be able to self soothe and to sleep longer periods of time. We are ready to put him to bed at 7 or 8 and have a few hours of us time. Whether that is spent blogging, reading, watching TV or just catching up on laundry, that extra few hours would be wonderful!

- We booked our trip back east! I am excited to go back (it has been a few years) and to be in New York again. We will have him christened and then have Thanksgiving with my in-laws, it should be fun! We booked a non-stop flight through Jet Blue which I hope will go smoothly. My youngest sister is flying out with us (she is his God Mother) so it will help to have an extra person, not to mention a whole side row of seats, to keep him busy!

- Crawling has been mastered. He is now pulling up on everything and letting go with one hand. He can’t quite catch the cats yet but he is getting there!