Wow, 8 months feels way to close to 1 year for comfort... these months keep flying by! This month brought lots of needed sleep and a lot less tears...
Sleep: I was so excited to write this post because I can officially report that we've had an awesome month of sleep... I'm now a full believer in crying it out. I wrote about this in my last monthly update, but we had just started so I wasn't sure if it would work out or not, but it definitely did! We had 3 nights of crying when Lucy would lay down, the first night was an hour, the second night was 40 minutes and the third nigh t was 20 minutes... these nights she would also wake sporadically through out the night, but I wouldn't go in unless she continued crying over 15 minutes and typically she'd put herself back to sleep before that. After three nights of this, I now have a baby that goes down for naps and bedtime without crying and doesn't wake in the middle of the night except to nurse around 4-5am (of course this is about 90% of the time... we do have rough days here and there).
I was a little apprehensive about this whole "crying it out thing" but I was really at my wits end, and I was starting to notice that Lucy was becoming more manipulative with the crying, for example, she would cry for a minute than wait for a minute to see if we'd come get her, then repeat. She'd also gotten into the habit of crying till we'd come in, so we would do the 5, 10, 15 minute wait schedule, but she got used to knowing after a certain amount of time we'd be back in to soothe her and give her a paci and would never stop crying.
I think this, in combination with kicking the third nap has led to some amazing sleep! Her schedule right now is two 1.5-2 hour naps (9-11am and 2-4pm roughly) and then night time sleep is from 7:30pm-7:30am (with a nursing at 5am).
Eating: Lucy is still nursing, and is on a normal meal schedule (breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a bed time nursing and a middle of the night nursing). She rarely wants to be spoon fed anymore (totally her strong willed personality coming through) and mostly likes to eat finger foods so I typically give her frozen mixed veggies, cut up fruit (apples, grapes, pears, prunes), cheerios, or sweet potato chunks.
Milestones: Not many changes since last month, besides perfecting the skills she has already acquired - she still loves to practice holding no hands, cruising and crawling. She did recently start waving, but typically won't do at the normal "hi" and "bye" times, usually just randomly throughout the day... it's pretty adorable. She also can get up the stairs now... which adds a new dynamic to baby proofing the house! She is "talking" more, using her ba's, ma's and da's a lot, but hasn't associated them with anything yet. She still loves to squeal in delight.
Temperament: This month was probably one of my favorites so far in terms of easiness and routine... probably mostly because of the increased sleep I got, but also because I felt like things became a little more predictable. When Lucy was first born, she was very routine and easy for me to take care of, but months 4-7 seemed to be a little wild in terms of knowing why she was crying and what each day would bring. This past month I felt like I totally understood why Lucy was crying, what not to do to avoid the crying, and what to do once the crying started... now that I write that I realize 90% of my day is shaped around avoiding tears!
Some things I have noticed about Lucy's personality - she is constantly on the go and hates to be strapped down for a diaper change or in her car seat... she is such a go getter! She doesn't like to sit in my lap to read or sing songs, no matter how animated I get, she'd rather be crawling/cruising on to the next thing. She knows me! this is has been fun and not so fun, I love that Lucy sees me and wants me when she's sad, but at the same time, this has been difficult when I've been trying to do something and need to set her down or need someone else to hold her. At the same time, she's totally comfortable with other people (she typically only prefers me when she's hungry or sleepy), she has not showed any signs of stranger anxiety yet when she goes to the Grace nursery every Saturday for church or Ben's parents every Thursday for my Bible study.
New also this month have been little baby temper tantrums... I can't help but laugh when she does this... whenever Lucy wants to be held (again bc she's hungry or sleepy) and I set her down, she wips her head back or forward and starts whaling, like it's the end of the world... I know it won' t be later, but for right now, I just think it's so darn cute!
Stats - thinking Lucy is around 18 pounds
Pictures! Again, I could not get Lucy to sit still or really look at the camera... but I snagged a couple good ones.
This is how we started...
The she moved to one side...
The back...
Now to the other side...
Towards mommy...
Down to the ground...
