Anna is 9 months! It’s hard to believe how fast it’s going by. I thought my first baby grew up way too fast, but I was wrong. I feel like everything is going by so much faster the second time around. It’s crazy to me how quickly things change from month to month when you have a baby. She’s always doing something new.
Since my last baby update post Anna has learned how to officially get up on her knees to crawl. She pulls herself up on everything and she’s learned how to crawl up stairs. She keeps me on my toes all the time. I forgot how much you need to watch them at this age. She also loves to put everything in her mouth, including the small crumbs on the floor.
Feeding
Anna has been eating solid finger foods for a couple months now. She’s doing great with them. I usually feed her whatever we are eating, but I always keep some substitute food on hand because she is still learning how to chew and sometimes can’t eat everything we do. She eats pretty much everything I give her, which is good, because it’s helping her brother be less of a picky eater. He see’s that she’s eating the dinner food I made and so he wants to eat it too.
As for breastfeeding, we have done 9 months strong, but I feel that it’s time to start weaning her. I have such mixed emotions on this. I’m feeling ready to be done. I’m ready to move on to the next chapter. I want my body back to myself and I want to wear normal bras again… or no bra. 😂 Anna is showing signs that she is ready too. She pretty much rarely nurses during the day. I have a hard time getting her to nurse or take a bottle during the day. She only eats well before naps and bed time. I’ve slowly starting to wean her for a month now by giving her more bottles.
Here’s what my schedule has looked like the last couple months (not including her solid foods).
7 am- nurse and pump
10 am- Breastmilk bottle
1 pm- nurse
4 pm- Breastmilk or formula bottle
7 pm- nurse
I have now eliminated the 1:00 and 4:00 feedings to formula bottles. Her 10:00 bottle is currently still breastmilk, but I can already tell that my milk supply is going down, so I will soon be eliminating that morning pump and just doing a formula bottle. The morning and night nursing will be the last to go. She’s also still eating in the night. I want to stop that soon, but I still feel like she needs it because of her not wanting to eat during the day.
The decision to stop breastfeeding is a very personal choice of a mother. No one else can make that choice for you. I struggled with a lot of guilt after I stopped breastfeeding Jack just before 7 months. This time around I told myself I wouldn’t let myself feel that same mom guilt. As much as I’d love to breastfeed a full 12 months, I knew going into this I probably wouldn’t make it to 12 months, but I wanted to go longer than I did with Jack. I’ve been able to breastfeed Anna longer than Jack and I also was able to exclusively breastfeed for almost 9 months. That’s more than I had planned for. I think it’s a hard transition for any mother whether you breastfeed for a day or 2 years, but I do feel like it’s the right time for us now.
Sleeping
Anna’s sleep is not bad, but it’s not great either. Apparently there is a whole 8-month sleep regression and I’ve noticed it. Like I said before, she’s still waking up to eat at night and I’m still feeding her. She is so active during the day that she doesn’t want to just sit and eat. I plan to re-do the sleep training that we did a few months ago and finally cut out those night feedings completely. Once she’s fully on bottles, I don’t plan to be making bottles all night long.
She also isn’t the best napper. She is down to one nap a day. That’s all I get during the day is one nap, unless we go for a car ride. She’s healthy and happy though, so I’m not going to force feedings or naps just because that’s what the books say. Kids don’t come with a manual and sometimes you just have to go with it.
Life with 2 kids
Each month something gets a little easier and something gets a little harder. Jack turned 5 last month and even though he’s pretty independent and easy to talk to, he still has his moments. Anna is a really easy going baby, but now that she’s crawling she’s everywhere. Jack loves to lead her into trouble. He thinks it’s hilarious when Anna gets into my spices in the pantry or eats food off the floor while I try to sweep. Jack spends most of the day yelling at her because he doesn’t want her to play with his toys, but as soon as she goes down for a nap he won’t stop asking me when Anna is waking up. He says she’s his best friend.
Over all the two of them have been keeping me extra busy lately. I’m always excited for bedtime, but then of course I miss them once they are asleep. They always make me smile.
Favorite baby products
This month I’ve been spending a lot of time going through baby clothes and gear that we aren’t using and getting rid of it all. I can’t believe how one month you can be all about a new favorite baby product and the next month they don’t use it. This month I can only think of 3 baby products that I really love using.
The Honest Company Detangler & Fortifying Spray
It’s no secret that my baby has a lot of hair. She was already getting lots of tangles. I’ve been using Honest Company Detangler Spray for the last couple months and we love it. It really helps with the tangles and makes her hair much easier to comb after bath time.
Elastic bows
Little Martin’s Electric nail trimmer
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