8 Months Old!

My baby is 2/3 of a year old! Since the gestational ticker for pregnancy really includes the two weeks prior to conception, Oliver was alive in the womb for just shy of 30 weeks, which is about 7 months. This means he has now been out of the womb for a month longer than the time he spent in my womb. His weight gain slowed down by 50%, but that must be normal for babies this age because at 16 pounds he's now at 4.3 percentile (compared to 3.8 last month). Ian and Oliver both weighed 9 pounds at 4 months, but Ian weighed 18.5 pounds at 8 months. Over the past month I put away the last few 0-3 month articles of clothing that he had still been wearing, and he's begun wearing some 6-9 month clothing in addition to the 3-6 month clothing he's worn the last few months. He also moved up to size 3 diapers a few weeks ago. He goes through 3-4 diapers a day.

He hasn't made much progress with his feeding skills. He seems to want the food and enjoy it, but he hasn't figured out what to do with his tongue. A lot of it is ejected. He's had rice cereal, many different fruits, and sweet potatoes thus far. I decided to try him on truly solid foods a couple of weeks ago, and he actually does better with that as far as not as much comes back out. He's had Ritz crackers, Gerber biscuits, banana flavored puffs, and a few bites of a pretzel. Hopefully before he turns nine months old he'll figure out how to swallow baby food. As for nursing, he's down to just one feeding a day (when he first gets up in the morning). Up until about 10 days ago he was still nursing several times a day, but he started biting me, which really hurt even though he doesn't have any teeth yet. He was only nursing for super brief periods of time (aside from the first feeding session), and I wasn't willing to continue those tiny nursing sessions if I was going to be in serious pain each time. It upsets me, but my best way of dealing with it is to try not to think about it. At least he's still nursing once a day. Something is better than nothing, right? Sometimes I am tempted to analyze and try to figure out if I should have done something differently, but that really isn't going to do me any good. If the FET does result in another pregnancy that results in another preemie, then at that point it will be beneficial, but otherwise it's pointless. I know the first four weeks he was in the NICU I certainly gave it 110% as every single day I pumped 8-12 times a day around the clock in addition to nursing him around the clock once he was two weeks old.

 

His sitting skills continue to improve, but he still topples over from time to time. He enjoys playing with a wide variety of toys. He puts most of them in his mouth, and if he's sitting in his highchair, it doesn't take long for all them to end up on the floor. We keep the exersaucer in our bedroom, and he goes in that when I'm getting a shower. He jumps in it and rocks it back and forth in addition to rotating around playing with the all of the toys. Over the last month he's improved some as far as not crying as much when he's in his car seat. Until the last month unless he was asleep or had a bottle in his mouth (thanks to Nadia), he was crying in the van. Now he's sometimes content even when he's awake and not being fed. He usually does pretty well in the stroller, as long it's in motion. Hopefully this means he'll be able to handle spending lots of time in the stroller at the Magic Kingdom next month.

He only slept through the night twice over the past month, but the last three days he woke up at 4:45, 5:05, and 4:30am, which is a slight improvement in the right direction. I'm hoping over the next couple of weeks he'll adjust his wake up time closer to 6am so I don't have to let him cry it out. He usually sleeps for another two hours after that feeding, so he has been getting about 9-10 hours total of sleep at night. I rarely get back to sleep though, which is why I really want to give up the 4am feeding. He does really well with naps. Lately his first nap has usually been from 9-10:30am, and his second nap has typically been from 1:00-3:30pm. A short nap for Oliver only lasts 45 minutes, and a long nap for Oliver lasts a full three hours. He usually naps for a total of four hours a day, which is more than Nadia or Ian ever did. It's very easy to put him down. Sometimes I put him to sleep with a little milk, and other times I put him down when he's fully awake. He does an excellent job of soothing himself to sleep without any crying. His nap schedule gets messed up on Sundays. Usually he takes a short morning nap at church, but today he was awake for 6 hours straight as he couldn't stay asleep in the pack n' play in the church nursery. Yesterday I made the mistake of taking the kids to the mall in the morning to buy Nadia some smaller cleats. I won't be taking them anywhere in the morning any time soon as it really messed up both boys' schedules. He is like his big sister and sleeps on his belly. Sometimes when he wakes up he rolls onto his back.

 

I had planned to take Oliver to get his picture taken professionally once he was able to sit independently, and so all last month I kept thinking, I need to make an appointment, but I figured I'd wait until Easter had passed because I know the studios are busy right around Easter. That was a mistake. I hadn't taken him since November. I found out a couple of days ago that ALL (3,100) Picture Me and Sears portriat studios were closed down a few days ago. I know that in some places Target and JcPenney have portrait studios, but none of the stores within 100 miles of our house do. Now I have two choices - do it myself (will be easier once the outside is prettier and I can do some outdoor shots) OR pay a LOT more money than I've ever paid for pictures before. I feel badly as I already was feeling guilty that I hadn't taken Oliver for pictures as often as I took his siblings, and now the cost just skyrocketed. My thinking at the moment is I'll do more pictures myself (and start framing ones I've taken more than just framing professional ones), but I think we'll splurge in August for a professional shoot that focuses mostly on Oliver but also includes a family photo. I'll do Nadia's 5 year shoot myself, and Wendy can probably help me with Ian's 4 year shoot in December. The upside of all of this is I think it's going to force me to work on improving my skills (and maybe buying some things like a remote for my camera and a sheet to use as a backdrop). I certainly never dreamed that many studios would be closed suddenly in one fell swoop. I feel badly for all those who must have lost a job when that happened! I am grateful I have a better camera than I did when Nadia and Ian were infants. Speaking of pictures some of these (the ones without the 8 months sticker) were taken yesterday. I have so many pictures that I'll save some for later this week. I'm motivated right now to improve my skills a little before our trip to Florida!