Big Moves

I was flipping through Adly's baby pictures the other day and it reminded me how big of a deal all of her milestones were back then. When a baby is 3-6 months old, there are some huge milestones they pass, but each of them are pretty far apart. Therefore, when they come it practically becomes a national holiday for you and your family.

Fast forward to the 9-12 month phase and milestones begin happening at an alarming rate. So much so in our case that these days it's a mere, "Oh! She just did that. I should probably get it in the baby book soon". That's not to say I care any less....its just that they're happening so often it kind of loses the need for a huge party each time. Therefore, I felt it was time for a mid-month check-in. Adly is quickly approaching 11 months which is just dumbfounding. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by.

In the past few weeks, we've made some big changes as far as feeding Adly goes. We've been cutting back on the amount of formula she's been eating and are now down to three bottles a day. In addition to that, we've also cut out her night time bottle. Someone once told me the nighttime bottle was the most important one to drop early on....because the last thing you want is a two year old who can't go to sleep without a nightcap. And I'm not talking about the kind of nightcap we all like, ya know what I mean? There is a lot of advice you are given when you are pregnant, and it doesn't stop once the baby is here. I try my best to just hold on to pieces that I think will suit our family. So far, she's handled the transition just fine. We replaced the ba-ba time with reading a book, which I think is an important night time routine anyways.

In addition to cutting back bottles, we are also trying to transition from bottle to sippy cup. In my ideal, glorious motherhood picture I had in my mind, I would've loved to transition right to a regular cup. There are some natural mama's who succeed with this early on- around 6 months- and I give them major kudos! I however, just don't have the patience for it yet. We've tried a few times and the result is a big mess and me holding the cup constantly. Therefore, what has worked best for us has been transitioning to a sippy cup. Another piece of advice I was given that I held on to was to use the sippy cup with formula to ease the transition. This, just like the bottle introduction, has been an expensive process. Because as with bottles, no two sippy cups are alike. Just like babies. So a sippy that 99% of moms LOVE means that your baby just might not. And the kicker is, you won't know until you've opened, disinfected and used the sippy. We've got quite the collection sitting in our cupboards! Thankfully, we were successful with one such sippy. So far we only have one because I wanted to be sure this was "the one" before I ordered a few more. What I like most about this sippy is the handles and the measuring lines on the side. Adly seems to only like a sippy with a rubber nipple that she can bite. The hard plastic ones are useless in our case.

Photo credit: Amazon.com

We're also experimenting like crazy with foods. She seems to love pretty much anything we give her except avocado. She's just like her dad in this case- loves guacamole, hates avocado. Our doctor gave us the advice to feed her what we're eating so that she starts liking what we like from the start. This has helped majorly with creating foods for her to eat. Her favorite by far is her daddy's famous roasted pork loin. She gobbles that up any time its available. The pieces she eats are getting bigger and bigger as she's learned how to chew and deal with swallowing too much. Watching her "choke" a little is still super hard. Her latest trick is to shove a whole bunch of food in her mouth, hide in her huge cheeks and then work her way through it. 

Speaking of chewing, she's also currently cutting three top teeth. I have to mommy brag a little and say so far we've been blessed with a pretty easy teether. She is seriously a teething champ. I didn't even know these three teeth were coming through until I saw them as she giggled laying down. Her reaction to teething seems to be just sleeping more. She's napping better than ever and the only other side effect has been drooling. Ok, baby brag over.

Now on to what we're struggling with....Adly's latest cognitive developmental process has been testing the limits. This comes by way of trying to sneakily work her way towards no-no zones, (electrical outlets, cords, drawers, toilet). She knows it's a no-no as she sits and shakes her head at me, then dives for it. When I remove her I'm usually met with a tantrum: cries, a VERY angry face and lately, slaps to the face. I will say this has been a very hard process for me. I know its normal (google told me so), but still it's very hard to see your sweet baby start to act badly like this. It makes me sad and wish she would always be happy. But she comes from two very strong willed parents, so there is no doubt her "determination" is here to stay. I've tried many parenting tricks of the trade to deal with this....we still have no magic answer but the best seems to be leaving her alone for a minute.

Lastly, she's begun pulling herself up to standing! This has been really exciting, yet terrifying. There are so many more things she's getting into now so babyproofing is a must that I've put off for too long. With this new feat also comes more boo-boo's. She's pretty shaky on those legs and is fine when she's on the rug pulling up using the couch. But this ability is carrying over into other areas of the house like cabinets, the pantry, bookshelves, anything that has a ledge. We're in the process of bolting everything to the walls, but the different areas of the house have different landing pads for her body when it comes crashing down. We've had a lot more tumbles, screams, and huge tears in the last few days as she learns to deal with her new ability.

So many things, all in the last few weeks. It seriously amazes me how much they grow and change at this stage. For now I'm willing time to slow down before my baby turns a full year old.