8 Months Old!

Abigail is already 8 months old!! I feel like I say this every month, but time is just flying! It's so crazy to me that she is eight months old. Next month will make nine months and then she'll have been out in the world for as long as she was growing inside me! Now that's crazy. She is doing great lately despite some teething and not feeling very well. Both Abigail and myself have come down with some sort of cold or virus - it's her first time being sick and while I'm feeling awful, it doesn't seem to phase her too much. She is coughing and has a runny nose though, so I know she can't feel too great! 

Abby still just has one tooth, and it's really visible now! We keep thinking that she'll start cutting her second one soon, but so far I don't see anything yet. We had some major nursing struggles while she was teething, and honestly some days are still a struggle. There have been times in the last few weeks where she would only nurse in the very early morning, and then completely refused nursing for the entire rest of the day. I pumped and offered bottles, but she often even refused those. Things are a little better now, but she still doesn't nurse much during the day and she takes a bottle before bed. Thankfully, for now, the biting has stopped at least. I keep reminding myself that she won't starve quietly...and I just hope that she is getting enough milk. 

Abigail is doing pretty well with her night time sleep again lately. Most nights she is in bed between 6:30pm-7pm, and she usually sleeps straight through until 5am-6am before waking up to eat and then going back down until 7am. Of course, there are always exceptions to this. Basically, I've learned never to expect anything. I would absolutely love for her to go back to sleeping 11-12 hours straight a night, but it will happen in its own time I suppose!  Naps have been pretty consistent lately, and we've gotten into a good 2-3-4 schedule. This means that she is usually awake 2 hours before her first nap, 3 hours before her second nap, and then 4 hours before bed. There are days where she won't take a long nap and then the schedule is thrown off, but for the most part that's how naps have worked out lately. It's been nice to have a predictable schedule!

With Abby on a more consistent nap schedule, we have been able to get out of the house more for story time at the library and play group in the neighborhood. I love taking her out and socializing her with other children - it's good for both of us! Although I'm pretty sure we may have picked up this bug at the library. You can't win them all!

Abby has gone back to eating more purées again lately. All of a sudden she stopped wanting to feed herself and wanted us too feed her instead. So, for now, we are doing a combination of purées and table food. I made some more purées the other day and incorporated some quinoa into some of the cubes. I have to admit that while making the purées takes a little time, it's really convenient to be able to just grab a few cubes out of the freezer and pop them in the microwave. I usually give Abby some table food (broccoli, pasta, cut up fruit, mixed vegetables, couscous, scrambled egg and cheese, etc) first and then warm up her purée while she munches. That way she gets a lot of different flavors in every meal and has the experience of feeding herself, but I also know that she's getting more calories, protein, and nutrients from the purées. I'm sure she'll change her preferences again soon and then we will have to figure out a new system. She keeps us on our toes, that's for sure!! Here are some pictures from the last few weeks :)

Feeding Miss Abigail

Before we were ever pregnant, I knew that when the time came for our baby to have something other than breast milk to eat, I wanted to make my own baby food. We're not super crunchy people- we don't eat all organic or always SUPER healthy. And I don't necessary see anything wrong with buying baby food...I just knew that I wanted to try making purées at home in an effort to save money and feed our baby healthy, real food. So, when we were pregnant we registered for a Baby Bullet, which friends generously gave us as a shower gift. I researched making homemade baby food for quite some time, and when Abby was around 5 months I started getting serious about figuring out how and what we were going to feed her. At first, we talked about not doing cereal at all. But as she got closer and closer to 6 months old, I started doubting that choice (I'm not even sure why!) and we gave Abby some oatmeal baby cereal mixed with breast milk as her very first food. She loved it! From there, I made several different purées - sweet potato, carrot, pear, apple, summer squash, and pea. The freezer was stocked! For a week or two Abby seemed to be ok with eating purées, although she never seemed to really enjoy it and often completely refused. I was at a loss! One night at dinner, I just decided to give her some of our food, and I put some steamed cauliflower and green beans on her tray. She immediately grabbed the food and started eating! I was kind of shocked to be honest. She LOVED feeding herself, and even without teeth she chewed away on the cauliflower and ended up eating quite a bit. After that, Dave and I talked and decided that maybe a Baby Led Weaning approach would be a better fit. At first, she had a hard time getting small foods to her mouth, and we mostly gave her large, soft pieces of food that she could get a good grip on. On a whim, I picked up some puffs (something I thought we would never give her!) in order to see if it would help her pincer grasp develop more. Of course, she loves puffs! Even better, eating those and Cheerios has really helped her self-feeding abilities. Pretty quickly, we started giving Abby more and more table food. Now, at nearly 8 months, Abby eats almost all the fruits, vegetables, and grains that we do. The list of foods she has tried (and liked!) is quite long, and includes things like asparagus, whole eggs, quinoa, melon, chicken, ground turkey and beef, broccoli, beans, avocado, pasta, cheese, etc. The list goes on and on! Breakfast is usually either scrambled egg with toast, or fruit and Cheerios, or something similar. Lunch these days is something like broccoli with pasta and shredded cheese, and for dinner Abby usually just gets a little of whatever we are having, as long as it's not too spicy. The Baby Led Weaning approach is definitely not the route I thought that we would take when introducing Abigail to food, but so far it's been working out great! It's easy for us, and more importantly, she loves food and gets excited about meals. Of course, breast milk is still her main source of nutrition, and she still nurses around seven or so times a day. I'm hopeful that Abby will continue to like food and will grow up with an adventurous appetite like her parents!