My favorite part of the day is when Merrick gets home from work and we all sit in the front room and play. It seems like Owen is learning new things daily, so we laugh and watch him in amazement. I can not even explain how much love we have for this little guy.
Some new things he has picked up in the last few weeks include: Shaking his head "no" at us if we tell him no, clapping and saying "Yay", crawling around like a mad man, saying "ba ba" and "ma ma" and just moving his lips when we say "da da", pulling up and standing on anything and everything, giving high fives,standing in his crib, eating more finger foods, really drinking from a sippy....
We are not sure how he picked up telling us no but it's pretty funny. As soon as we tell him "no no" for instance crawling towards the lamp cords he will stop mid crawl and shake his head and laugh and keep going. I've been working on his saying "Yes" and shaking his head but he would rather tell me no.
I have also started to branch out with the foods he's eating. I was pretty cautious and strict with the "finger foods" I will admit I would break up a single puff into about 5 sections because I was paranoid of choking. He now has the chewing or I should say gumming part down. So I give him full puffs and cheerios. Only thing that worries me now is he likes to shovel them in his mouth really fast and hold them in his cheeks.
We have also tried, cooked carrots, avocado, bananas, scrambled egg yolks, cheerios, pancakes and of course puffs. We usually give him little bites of what we are eating too. I'm determined he will not be a picky eater like his Father! :)
He has he 2 bottom teeth. No signs of the next one to pop through.
We are still going back and forth with sleeping. We have good nights and bad nights. For about 2 weeks he was going down perfect and sleeping all night. Until this week, he would wake up screaming and nothing would work to get him back to sleep until we rocked him or brought him to our bed but even then he wasn't comfortable. I was afraid he had another ear infection because he was been tugging on his ears so much he was making them bleed. After the sitter told me he wasn't taking a good nap I called the Dr and got him in to check his ears. No ear infection and no swollen gums. So the Dr has a pretty good guess he's having separation anxiety at night which is very common with his age. She asked us questions assuming that is what was going on before she even checked his ears. She gave us some tips and unfortunately it's something he just needs to get over and teach himself how to self soothe (which I thought he had already mastered). Last night we made it through the night without picking him up but it was so hard on us especially when I know he is crying out for us. Let's hope for a better night...
We start his bedtime routine about 7:30, he has a bath which he still LOVES and then bottle and bed around 8. He gets up in the morning anytime between 6-7:30 depending on which day of the week. On workdays we have to leave the house at 7 to get him to the sitter and work.
He takes a 2 hour nap at the sitter from 12-2 and usually sleeps both on the way to Bloomington and on the way home. On weekends or days I'm home with him he usually needs a morning nap.
He is also having some pooping issues, so we are laying off his favorite breakfast which is bananas and cereal. Both which cause him to be constipated :) The Dr told us to give him juice and plenty of water which we always have but he has started to finally really drink it out of his sippy. Seems to be helping.
He weighed around 18 lbs on Monday. He's starting to grow out of his 6-9 month clothes and fitting into some 12 months clothes.
He eats 3 meals a day. Breakfast which consist of cereal (Rice or Oatmeal) and a fruit usually bananas. Lunch which consist of a fruit and veggie, a snack after nap time and dinner again a fruit and veggie. He has between 3-4 7 oz bottles a day. Morning, lunchtime, dinner, bedtime. Some days he can do without the dinner bottle. He loves to snack and have his finger foods. If I need to get something done around the kitchen or eat I can usually put him in his highchair and give him some snacks and a sippy and he's a happy boy.
I've already started to think of his 1st birthday party plans. Merrick thinks I'm nuts! It's only 4 months away :)
That first picture is SO cute! What a big guy!
ReplyDeleteThe sleeping thing? Been there. He will learn, and after Brayden did that a couple of times, I let him cry for 30 sec-one minute and generally he went back to sleep. It is hard to do it and I never let him cry longer than a full minute, but it worked! :-) just my experience. It does seem more like an hour when they are crying like that though, trust me!