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 :)