10 months old

 My Sweet Baby Boy,

I love you more and more each day. Your smile makes my heart warm, your dancing and your laugh make me giggle, the way you become more mobile, talkative and clever every day amazes me.  You’ve grown so much in the past ten months, both physically and developmentally. You’re very bright and curious, you always have been, but it’s really starting to show these past few months how much you’ve learned in your ten short months! 

You took your first steps this week, and you are SO proud of yourself when you walk all alone. Although you’re only taking a few steps before you start to wobble and we have to catch you, I’m still so proud of you! You’ll be running in no time!

You’ve got 4 teeth now, although the top two are just poking though. I can’t wait to see how your face will change when we can see that adorable little gap-toothed grin! 

You do so many cute and funny things. When you’re playing with your wooden animals, you like to growl like your making animal sounds. When daddy puts on country music you get so happy and start dancing (flapping your arms!). Your favorite song right now is Gord Bamford's “When Your Lips Are So Close”.  You like to put whatever you’re holding near my mouth and if I pretend to chew it, you laugh hysterically! You can wave, give kisses and high-fives. You love pointing the remote control at the TV and pressing the buttons… such a boy!  You love to play tug-o-war with Lucy and the blue bear, and you also throw her the tennis ball to fetch! Your favorite toy (this makes your daddy SO proud) is your mini hockey stick.

You now nurse 4 times during the day (when you wake up, after both naps, and before bedtime) and sometimes once during the night. It took some effort to get you to sleep without breastfeeding, but now you go down really well with just a minute of rocking and a quick song. You also sleep much better at night now that your can put yourself back to sleep consistently!

You eat 3 meals a day and 1-2 small snacks, and you LOVE healthy food. Fruits, veggies and yogurt are your favorite. When mommy is at work, you drink whole milk and water out of a straw cup no problem too! I was so stressed that you wouldn’t drink anything when I went back to teaching part-time, but my first day back, you drank milk from a straw bottle like it was something you had always done!

You’re ten months old, but I still can’t believe I haven’t known you for years. You’re my main man, my sweetness, my monkey, my Easty Beast, my Boo-ka-boo. I love being your mommy. I wake up so happy (even before 6:00 am!) because I get to spend my day with you.  Although you’re almost a toddler, you’ll always be my baby.

Love you to the moon and back.

- Mama

8 months!

Easton is 8 months old! (closer to 8.5 now, but whose counting!?)

He's crawling like a machine, but is getting bored with it and wants to be standing as often as possible, and 'walking' with a chair/activity table/walker, whatever else he can find! He's a SUPER curious and high-energy baby, and I must say I'm a bit nervous for when he starts walking independently... because I'm pretty sure running will quickly become his favourite method of transportation! 

He's also babbling a lot, with 'ah' and 'eh', clearly winning for favourite words! He laughs hysterically when we rough house with him, and gets very excited when he gets to play on our bed! It's hilarious actually, he can't contain himself and turns into a little panting puppy, crawling all over the covers and burying his face into the pillows and giggling! It's so cute. 

 

He's mastered the 'pincer grasp' so meal time is one of his favourite times! He'd much prefer to be feeding himself little pieces of whatever we're having than being spoon fed puree. Some of his fave finger foods are: apple (baked so its good and soft), pear, peach, tomato, cheese, potato & sweet potato, cheerios, egg, chicken, and those little puff things (which don't really have any nutritional value but do contain 40% of his iron needs, so I give him a handful each day just so we're covered). The only thing he'll tolerate being spoon-fed is yogurt. He's also tried lasagna, butter chicken with rice, various stir fries, grilled cheese and tomato, and many more 'grown up' dishes! As much as he loves food, he's still very much enjoying his milk, nursing about 6 times a day. 

Here is what Easton's routine looks like these days (with lots of activity time and outings with mom and dad in between!):

7:00 - Wake up and Breastfeed

8:00 - Breakfast (usually a handful of Cheerios, 1/2 pc of fruit, and some yogurt)

9:30 - Breastfeed and Nap (45 mins)

12:00 - Lunch  (usually something like; cheese/egg/meat, a veggie and a fruit. 

1:30 - Breastfeed and Nap (1.5 hours)

4:00 - Breastfeed and Snack

6:00 - Dinner (whatever we're having!)

6:45 - Bath

7:00/7:30 - Breastfeed and Bed

(He still has 1 middle-of-the-night waking which could occur anywhere between 11 pm and 5 am! I nurse him and he goes back down easily). 

It took us ages to transition from 3 naps to 2, but now that we're there, we find it much easier because it means we can go out and get things done without rushing back so nap time doesn't occur in the car! (He always wakes up when we stop). He pretty much nurses to sleep, but I always sing to him before I put him in the crib (You are my Sunshine), and I know he's partially awake because he opens his mouth for his pacifier every time! ha ha! Nursing him before nap time has been the only way I've been able to get him to take a good feed since he started noticing everything going on around him and is super distractible!  

What else is new? OH, he's got 2 little teeth on the bottom and they kind of surprised us because he really didn't show any major signs of teething. Maybe a bit more drool that usual and a few more night wakings for a couple of days, but that's about it. I hope thats a trend that continues for all his teeth! When they first came in, he bit me a couple times while nursing, but nothing lately, so fingers crossed on that too! 

In terms of size, I'm not sure what he weighs right now but if I were to guess, I'd say about 21-22 lbs (just based on the fact he was 18 lb 10 oz at his 6 month appt). He's wearing 12 month clothes for the most part, and has size 3 feet. He's about 29 or 30" tall. Percentile-wise, he's always been in the 75th for weight and 95th for height (surprise surprise!)

All in all, he's a very good baby! He's active and energetic, always happy and smiling :) We have our share of meltdowns, refusals and sleeping issues, but we can't imagine life without our monkey! He's completes our little family (for now!) and we're having a blast!

On Breastfeeding...

Alright so I wanted to do this post during World Breastfeeding Week, but looks like I'm a month late. It's been a busy summer! Anyways, here we go...

Breastfeeding is hard. A lot harder than I expected. Before Easton was born, I figured it would be convenient, cheap and of course, the healthiest food for him. I was right about those things, but what I didn't realize was how exhausting, painful, INconvenient, and frustrating it could be.

For the first 8 weeks of his life, I cried a lot when I fed him.  No one told me how painful it would be, how my nipples would be tender, raw, cracked and bleeding. How I'd have to sit with him attached to my boobs for 45-60 minutes every 2-3 hours, 24 hours a day, for weeks. How I'd have to fight him to take a bottle of expressed milk so I could go out for more than 3 hours, a fight I would lose, time and time again (and still do, to this day!). I researched breastfeeding before he was born, but I guess because I had already decided I wanted to do it, I didn't really think much of the downsides of nursing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm COMPLETELY pro-breastfeeding. It's the way God (or 'nature' if you'd prefer) intended for babies to be fed. There are so many wonderful benefits to breastfeeding, and I plan on nursing Easton beyond his first year of life, as long as he's interested in doing so (within reason!). (Don't worry... you wont find me whippin' out a boob at the mall for my 4 year old... not that there's anything wrong with it if that's what you choose, it's just not for me!).

I guess you could say I have a love-hate relationship with breastfeeding. Mostly love, but there's some hate in there too, I'm not gonna lie! I've been nursing Easton for 8 months now and there have been several instances where I've wanted to quit, but I've persevered because I know its the healthiest choice for him, and I want him to have what's best.

Speaking of what's best... I recently stumbled upon an amazing article over at "Alpha Parent"  which chronicles the timeline of a breastfed baby, outlining the benefits for each month of continued breastfeeding. I've done somewhat of a summary here...

IF YOU BREASTFED YOUR BABY FOR...

1 week: You’ve provided your newborn with Colostrum, the most valuable food he will ever ingest in his lifetime and skin-to-skin contact which helps regulate the baby's temperature, breathing, heart rate and sugar levels.

1 month: You’ve provided your baby protection against food allergies up to 3 years old and respiratory allergies up to 17 years old

6 weeks: You’ve lowered the risk of chest infections up to 7 years old

3 months: You’ve provided your baby a 27-40% reduction in the risk of asthma, enhanced development in the key parts of the brain, a 19-27% reduction in the incidence of Type 1 diabetes and lower incidence of ADHD

4 months: You’ve provided your baby with protection against ear infections and respiratory tract diseases for 1 year, and a reduced risk of SIDS.

6 months: You’ve provided your baby with protection again eczema during the first 3 years, and a 19% reduction in the risk of childhood leukemia

7 months: A breastfed baby is more likely to score higher on intelligence tests, and be generally more active and alert than babies who did not have the benefit for their mother’s milk.

8 months: Your child will be less likely to need orthodontic work or speech therapy.

1 year: Your child is more likely to display better social adjustment when they begin school, have a lower risk of heart disease, a lower mean blood pressure and total cholesterol, a lower prevalence of obesity and type-2 diabetes as an adult. You’ve saved more than $1200.

2 years and beyond: A child breastfed for more than 2 years will have fewer types and shorter duration of illness, less medical care than their non-breastfeeding peers and a higher IQ.

Benefits for mom:

•   Reduces the risk of breast cancer

•   Reduces the risk of uterine and ovarian cancer

•   Lessens osteoporosis

•   Promotes emotional health by reducing the likelyhood of postpartum anxiety and depression

•   Promotes postpartum weight loss

As you can see, breast milk is truly AMAZE-BALLS! I'm proud to be a breastfeeding mom, and I'm proud of the women I know who breastfed their babies for ANY length of time. It's one of the greatest gifts you can give your child. With that said though, I certainly don't believe myself to be better than mom's who feed their children formula. I gave Easton one bottle of formula every night for a couple of months until he flat out refused to take it around 4 months old. How you choose to feed your baby is a very personal choice and is dependent on your own personal situation. There are also so many reasons why the breastfeeding relationship comes to an early end (or can never begin in the first place), but as moms, we all want to do what's best for our babies and that's what matters most.  As long as we're nurturing, loving, responsive and supporting mothers, our children will thrive :)

1 week old

8 months old

Sleep Math...

Baby sleep - Something I've found to be one of the biggest mommy mysteries! As babies grow, their ability to stay awake for longer periods of time between naps and nighttime gradually extends. The hard part is knowing WHEN and by HOW MUCH to extend their awake times to achieve the optimal results. Extend awake time too long and you've got an overtired baby on your hands, high cortisol levels, and disastrous sleep. Put baby down before they've been awake long enough, or for too many naps, and you risk really messing up their night time sleep!

Since he was born, Easton has gone through many sleep changes and struggles. Most recently, about a month ago, he started fighting bedtime and night sleep in general. He went from sleeping from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am with only 1 feed (10:00 pm... without even waking), to waking every 3 hours and the only way to get him back to sleep was nursing (he was never hungry, just wanting comfort). We tried the "Sleep Easy Solution" like we did at 4 months, but it just wasn't working this time around! I really wasn't sure if it was teething or a growth spurt or the due to the many developmental changes he's growing through right now, but nothing that worked before seemed to be working this time around!

Anyways, last week, we were out of town and got home about an hour after his normal bedtime so he didn't end up going down until after 9:00 pm. Well, he ended up sleeping through until 7:00 am without a single wake-up! I was tempted to put him down at his normal 7:00 pm bedtime the next night, but I wanted to see if putting him down a bit later would result in another amazing night, so I put him to sleep at 8:00. Sure enough, another full night's sleep! We were on to something! For the past week, he's been going down at 8:00 pm and waking at 7:00 am beautifully. Looks like 11 hours of night sleep is our magic number!

In terms of naps, he's currently transitioning from 3 naps to 2 naps, but we've yet to find the perfect timing for those naps. If his 2 naps are too early in the day, we've got a 5 hour stretch before bedtime and he just can't handle that! But if we takes a cat nap around suppertime, he'll end up staying up way too late!  If we stretch his awake time too much, he's a grump and ends up taking short naps. We still have to find that 'sweet spot' like we did with night time sleep. Hopefully we'll figure that out soon and have a perfect all-around sleeper! Here's hoping.

Anyways, just wanted to do this quick sleep update so I can refer back with baby #2 someday! I'll leave you with some 7 month shots of E which I forgot to post last time! I'll be posting again in 2 weeks when he turns 8 months :)

A quick 7 month update

Mr. Easton will be 7 months tomorrow and since last week, he's started crawling! …Oh.... and he’s pulling himself up to standing too! What the heck!? My little baby went from laying on his back to play and falling over repeatedly while trying to sit, to full-on mobile, exploring, independent little man in just a month! I’m so proud of his accomplishments this month and while it’s a whole new ball game now (can you say constant vacuuming!?), I couldn’t be more excited that he’s able to get where and what he wants on his own! He’s discovered that the dog food is off-limits, the door stoppers make a loud vibrating noise when you try to pull them off the wall, the high-chair looks like a fun thing to climb, and you can’t crawl through the sliding glass door, no matter how hard you try! 

       

That's it for now :)

Half a Year Old!

Easton is half a year old! Ok.. so he’s 6.5 months now… I’m a couple weeks late.

Since my last blog post (Easton’s 5 month update), here’s what has changed…

Sleeping

Overall, Easton’s sleep has drastically improved! He naps 3 times a day, usually going down for his first nap at 8:30 or 9:00. Nap #1 usually lasts 1.5 hours, and his next two naps are about 45 mins each (one at 12:00 and one around 3:00). He occasionally takes 2 longer naps and I think he is close to being able to do that consistently, but for now, three naps is working best.  His nighttime sleep is also pretty good. He goes down around 7:00 pm and wakes up once to nurse around 11:00 or 12:00, and then sleeps until 6:30 or 7:00 am! For now, I don’t mind the one wake up because his sleeping is WAY better than it was a few months ago. He has also started rolling onto his tummy to sleep sometimes (although I put him down on his back) which is like his mama! It’s hilarious to look into his crib… he’s got 6 pacifiers lined up along the back, so he can always find one! He sleeps in a sleeper with a light cotton sleep sack, hugging his stuffie Moe the Monkey.

 

Eating

We started rice cereal and some beginner purees (homemade) at about 5 months after the go-ahead from his doctor, but then I gave up because he just wasn’t quite ready or interested enough. We started up again a couple weeks later and he’s been doing really well! He eats solids 3 times a day, and still nurses 6-7 times a day.  His favorite purees are pear, peach and squash and he also loves mango in his mesh feeder. For breakfast he usually has oatmeal cereal mixed with a fruit puree and some warm breastmilk. Lunch is usually a veggie puree and some rice cereal with BM and sometimes some plain yogurt. Dinner is usually veg puree with rice cereal and sometimes some fruit for dessert. He devours mango! He eats finger foods occasionally, like tiny pieces of bread, potato, avocado, and rusks. He loves the ‘Mum Mum’ rice rusks.

The only negative of his eating habits is that he refuses to take a bottle. He took one up until 3.5 months life a champ, and then just decided it wasn’t for him. This makes it hard to get away for more than a few hours. I photographed a wedding last week and he was with daddy all day… stubborn little guy went 10 hours without milk! He was fine, ate lots of solids, and hardly fussed, but it still bothers me. We’ve tried several different bottles and nipples, to no avail. He will drink water and diluted juice from a sippy cup, but once we put milk in it, he just spits it out! Boob man, til the end!

Growth

At his 6 month check up, Easton weighed 18 lb 10.5 oz and was 28 inches long. He’s in the 75% for weight and the 95% for height! He’s wearing mostly 12 month clothes and he’s almost too big for his infant carseat!  We’ve got the next stage one already (up to 65 lbs), and we’ve been using it for a couple weeks because the infant carrier is just way too heavy with him in it. Its been working well, the only annoying part is when he falls asleep in the car, we cant just bring him in in his carseat like we used to.  

                                        

Milestones

Since about 5.5 months, Easton has been sitting unassisted really well! I still put the boppy pillow around him just in case he falls over (which sometimes happens when he’s reaching for a toy), but I would say, he’s now mastered sitting and playing. It’s SO nice to be able to sit him down in his little play area with a few toys and he can entertain himself while I get things done!

I definitely think he’ll start to crawl in a couple of weeks! He’s able to go from a sitting position onto his hands and knees, but hasn’t quite figured out what to do from there. He’ll reach like he’s going to crawl, but then go onto his tummy. He’s really close though! He also pivots around on his tummy and can commando crawl (backwards!). He’s starting rocking back and forth while on hands and knees.. maybe he thinks he’ll just propel himself forward! He’s a determined little guy.

He also LOVES to stand and hold onto things, and smashes his hands in excitement while babbling away! He sometimes takes a few steps when I’m holding his hands, which is pretty cool! He surprises me every day with the things he’s able to do.

Overall, I am just LOVING this stage of babyhood. Easton is such a happy and laid back baby. He is so full of love, determination and cuteness! He cuddles me at night, laughs with me when we play together, smiles when he sees me for the first time, and just loves me unconditionally, as I do him. I never knew I could love someone the way I love him! Watching him grow up so quickly, master new skills, and show us little hints of his personality, is the most amazing thing to see. We love our little man, and although we’ve only known him for 6 months, can't even remember what life was like before he arrived!

Sleep "Learning" and Easton's 5 month update!

Well, it's been ages since my last blog post... I'm not going to lie, its because this past month was completely exhausting!

We moved into our new house at the end of April (when E was 3.5 months old), and the move actually went really smooth. What STOPPED going smoothly at that time was Easton's sleep! Up until we moved, he was sleeping in a bassinet beside our bed, from 8 pm until 2 am (when he woke for a feed) and then until 6 or 7 am, when he woke for the day. Now, I don't know if it coincided with our move, or something that happens to many babies around 4 months, which I've also read, but seriously the first night in our new house, he woke up 5 times! Since then, (up until 4 nights ago) he continued to wake up 3-5 times a night and the only thing that would put him back to sleep was the boob. He outgrew his bassinet around 4 months, and because I was waking up every couple of hours to feed him at night, we ended up co-sleeping, just to give everyone at least a BIT more sleep.

Enter exhausted/sleep deprived mom, trying to set up her new house, photograph and edit Spring family photos, and plan for a week long trip out of province, just Easton and I! Something needed to change. I was becoming increasingly irritable and stressed out, and its impossible to be the best parent you can be, in that state.

After doing a ton of online research and deciding that letting Easton "cry it out" was not a route I was comfortable taking, I tried every known settling technique in the book. Rocking, swinging, singing, swaddling, white noise, more blankets, fewer blankets, back sleeping, side sleeping, soother, no soother, rice cereal before bed, every possible combination of these things, EVERYTHING. Nothing worked. Except the boob. I knew I couldn't continue this way forever. Letting babies nurse to sleep is not teaching them healthy sleep habits. It's not teaching them sleep habits at all, its Mommy doing all the work! It's imperative that babies learn how to settle/sooth themselves, and fall asleep on their own.

I remember a friend of mine saying that she was beginning to "sleep train" her daughter, so I asked her how it was going. She told me her little girls sleep had done a complete 180 in just a few days. WHAT? Nothing can work that fast, can it? She recommended the book she had followed, called "The Sleep Easy Solution". She told me it DOES require a few tears, but its completely worth it in the end to have a well-rested, happy, healthy baby who can get through the day without fussing, put themselves to sleep, and grow and learn the way their supposed to!  Well, on Wednesday, in my zombie-like state, I rushed to the library and borrowed the DVD (too tired to read) and watched it, took notes, and decided I would implement it that night!

I was scared. I didn't want to listen to my poor baby cry. I thought it would just shatter me to leave him in his crib, in the dark, crying, and not go in and pick him up and cuddle him and nurse him back to sleep like I normally would have. I had to. My old approach CLEARLY didn't work and Easton's sleep (and ours) was just getting worse and worse.

Without going into all the details, the "Sleep Easy Solution", has worked wonders on Easton's sleep in just 3 days, since we started! The first night wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be (it was probably harder on me than it was on him!), and he slept in his crib the entire night (he still had 2 feeds, but we're working on dropping that to one, next week), from 7pm - 7am with very few tears! Night #2 was even better, and last night was incredible! He only cried for 8 minutes total, in 12 hours! His naps have greatly improved as well, and he is consistently taking 3 naps a day. His total sleep each day is 15 hours, which is optimal for his age. I'm so proud of him and so glad I took the plunge into "sleep learning" as I prefer to call it :)

I also feel LOADS better already, from just a few nights of less broken sleep. I've been able to get through the day without stressing over the littlest things, pay more attention to helping Easton grow and develop, and be the mom I wanted to be! I'm sure we'll have hiccups, between teething and growth spurts, but we've set the foundation for Easton to be a good sleeper his whole life, and I owe it to The Sleep Easy Solution. They should pay me! I'm totally going to be their new biggest advocate!

Ok, enough on that, Easton accomplished a lot in his 4th month of life! (He'll be 5 months next week). He rolled over from back to front, then front to back, on his own, and is also able to sit up unsupported for about 20 seconds! He LOVES to stand (with support) and is very strong! He started on solid food a couple weeks ago (our doc gave him the go ahead at his 4 month appt!), and so far he's tried rice cereal, banana, sweet potato and apple puree. He doesn't love solids yet, but he's doing well! He was 15 lb 16 oz at his 4 month appointment and 27" long, and I would guess he's about 17 lbs now. A big boy!

That's all I'll bore you with! Hopefully I'll blog again in a couple weeks, with some photo updates.

Have a good one :)