Naps: We started the transition from 3 to 2 naps this month. Most days he takes 2 naps, but about once a week he will need the third catnap at the end of the day.

A need to adjust Henry’s nap schedule seems to have been the reason that Henry’s naps started getting shorter after the holidays. When Henry gets offered naps at the wrong time, he naps poorly. His naps end up being short and not restorative, or else a decent length but he’s very restless.

Feeding: Henry’s feeding schedule during the day still remains the same with him breastfeeding at 6:45am, 11:00am, and 3:00pm. We’ve moved his bedtime bottle up to 6:00pm to match the change in his napping and bedtime.

There was a period of about a week where it was a real struggle to get him to breastfeed. It was difficult to get him to maintain a latch for longer than 4 minutes. It would then take upwards of 10 minutes to get him to latch again. The cause ended up to be a combination of Henry being too full from solids, and having sore gums due to teething.

Clothing: 12 month or 6-12 month with a few 9 month pants

Bedtime: 7:00pm

Eating: Henry still really enjoys eating solids, especially the foods he’s familiar with. Whenever he tries a new food with a noticeable flavor, his lips pucker up and eyes squint as if he’s eating a lemon. If he doesn’t like the taste or texture, he will hang his tongue out of his mouth and “huff”.

This month we started mixing some spices like cinnamon into his oatmeal or applesauce. He also tried sweet potato and blueberry this month, as well as some of the fruit and veggie squeeze pouches that we use when we’re away from home at mealtime. Sucking the purees from the pouches is one of his favorite things about eating right now.

He currently has solids every 4 hours, and approximately 1 1/2 hours after his milk feeding. We really have to keep an eye on the clock for when he eats solids, and somewhat limit how much he eats. Otherwise Henry’s stomach is too full and he is not able to drink as much milk as he should at his next milk feeding. If we try to give him solids right after a milk feeding, we run into the same problem of him not being hungry.

We started to introduce sippy cup as well this month. It took him a little bit to learn to suck from the spout. Now that he’s learned to suck, he’s currently learning that the flow rate is much faster than he’s used to with his bottle. Also, he’s still learning that he should swallow the water rather than let it dribble out of his mouth.

Sleeping: Henry is really good at telling us when he’s ready to grow up with regards to sleeping. We’ve mentioned before that Henry has had periods where he progressively gets more and more restless at night. Each of those times has been solved by giving him a little more freedom to move around. After a few nights of him struggling to fall asleep because he felt too restricted, we said goodbye to wrapping. He now wears a fleece Halo sleepsack over his Zipadeezip.

He’s done really well with the transition. There were a few days that he got frustrated during a nap, but we’ve been able to make it through the nights without any middle-of-the-night crying or special comforting. I’m so thankful that we were able to take the transition slowly, and before he started rolling in his crib.

Development: Things have really started to pick up in terms of physical development. Henry rolled onto his tummy for the first time towards the end of this month. At first he didn’t completely understand that rolling over moved him closer or farther away from something but once he got that concept, he’s been on the move ever since. Sometimes he barrel rolls across the floor while other times he just flip flops back and forth.

Now that Henry understands that rolling will get him closer to something on his left or right, we’re seeing him transfer this understanding to things that are in front of him. When he’s trying to get to something in front of him, Henry will roll onto one side as far as he can before he flips over and then roll onto his other side. He’ll go back and forth until he can finally reach the thing he wants. I’m thinking this is a precursor to army crawling.

Learning to roll has also helped Henry to be a lot more comfortable on his tummy. He has no problem spending a good portion of his play time on his tummy. He’s gotten a lot stronger with his arms and will push himself onto his arms into something like a cobra pose. He’ll use his arms to help him rotate on the floor before he takes off rolling again.

We’re also hearing lots of vocal development. For a few days, the only sounds Henry made were loud squeals and shrieks. Now Henry has started exploring how his jaw can be used to make different sounds. There have been lots of “ya-ya” and “wa-wa” sounds with the occasional “da” and “ra”.

Henry is starting to interact with his reflection in the mirror. He also looks back and forth at other things reflected in the mirror, trying to make sense of how it can show up twice.

We’re starting to see some mimicking from Henry. One of my favorite examples is after we’ve kissed him repeatedly on the cheek a couple of times, Henry will lean in towards our cheeks and “kiss” us with an open mouth.

Likes and Dislikes: This has been the case for awhile but Henry loves to run his hands through hair. Adam lets him run his hands back and forth through his hair as fast as he can, and Henry can’t help but to laugh.

Henry still loves peek-a-boo. He especially likes it when we peek around door frames or pop up from the side of the bed. There have been a few instances as well where Henry seems to be initiating a game of peek-a-boo. He will take a toy, raise it in front of his face and close his eyes, and then pull the toy back down. He gets a big smile on his face when we shout “peek!” and he does it again.

Another big favorite of Henry’s are strings, ribbons, and ropes, or anything that fits into that category. He loves pulling on hoodie strings, untying shoelaces, and bending, flexing, and chewing on ribbons. Henry has also classified power cords into this category so we’ve had to keep a watchful eye on him.

About 50% of the time Henry does not want his diaper changed either because he’s tired or because he’d rather be sitting up and playing. At this point it’s easy to distract him with a toy to hold.

New This Month: This month was the first time that Henry had someone babysit him when he was awake since before Thanksgiving. We’ve had people “watch” him at night after he goes to bed in that time just not during the day. I wasn’t sure how Henry would handle being left with someone else but it didn’t seem to really phase him. Oddly though, he had a more difficult time if it was just him and Adam at home at bedtime.

Henry caught his first cold this month. He was really congested at night, and then would have a runny nose during the day. He actually fared better than me and Adam though; we were both feeling miserable with runny noses, coughs, scratchy throats, and pressure in our ears for close to a week.

Henry’s third tooth, the front top right, showed up at the end of this month. The one seemed to bother Henry more as it was making its way out compared to his first two teeth.

Other Notes: We had a few days this month where Henry was incredibly clingy. Being near him within range of sight and touch were not enough for him; he needed to be held. Thankfully it was just a short phase where Henry was reminded that while we can walk away from him, we will come back.

Swimming lessons started to get progressively worse and worse for Henry. Just being in the locker room stressed him out. He got to the point where he would start crying as he was getting undressed before lessons. Adam was able to rework his work schedule on swimming nights so that he is able to join us for lessons. Since Henry is used to showering with Adam, we figured this would be a good way to build some positive associations with the pool. Things have been getting better, but Henry is definitely exhausted from holding himself together by the end.

Adam went on a business trip to Montreal for a week this month. This trip was a lot easier on both me and Henry than Adam’s last business trip that he took at the beginning of July.

Mama and Papa Update: Looking back, we can’t believe how much growing and changing happened this month. Henry went from staying wherever you set him to barrel rolling across rooms, and from cooing and gurgling to producing syllables. He seems so much more grown up; you can definitely tell that he’s closer to toddlerhood than babyhood at this point.