Friday, December 02, 2011

9 months old!

Inga developed so many new skills between 7 and 9 months. She started crawling right around 7 months and learned how to pull herself up to standing at 8 months. Now she's cruising the furniture, sometimes using only one hand. She's also mastered a speed crawl. This past month, Inga got two more teeth, so now she has a matched set of top & bottom teeth. The fourth popped through this morning.

Maybe those teeth explain why her nighttime sleep has completely deteriorated. It's a good thing that Inga is so cute and content during the day, because her sleep has gone down the toilet over the past month. Ever since she started standing up, she wants to do it all the time, even at 3 am. Instead of squirming and fussing when she wakes up at night, she immediately pulls herself up to standing in her crib. This, of course, wakes her up completely and then I have a wired baby on my hands who won't fall back asleep for 1-2 hours. (She'll stand in her crib, jump up and down, point and babble at the windows or light fixtures. If I bring her into bed with me, she crawls around and plays with our faces. Anything but sleep.) She's also been waking very frequently all night long--often every sleep cycle. The best stretches I've been getting this past month is 2 hours at a time. So between the frequent waking and the night "parties," I am totally wiped out.

When people joke about how parents of newborns are sleep-deprived, I just laugh. For me, the first 6 months are so much more restful than the next 6 months. Newborns just nurse and sleep, nurse and sleep. It's when they start rolling around and crawling and standing up that their sleep--and consequently mine--goes to pot. Give me a newborn any day!

I've mulled over possible strategies with my friends, my sister, and my husband. But honestly, now that I have 3 kids I have learned that I know nothing about raising babies. It's SO easy to think you know it all with your first. Then you have more kids and everything gets blown out of the water. So my strategy is to wait it out. Her sleep will eventually get better, right? RIGHT?!?

We did take one fairly drastic measure today: we moved Inga's crib out of our room and into an empty bedroom down the hall. (She's been sleeping predominantly in her crib for the past 2 months; she has become more sensitive to our noises and movements and sleeps better in a crib than with us.) Maybe this will help? I have a feeling I'll be sleeping in that bedroom a lot for the next few months, but at least I can have my own bedroom back. It will so fun to actually turn the lights on and not have to creep around in the dark. I can even flush the toilet and brush my teeth and not worry about waking Inga up! The things you think are awesome when you are a parent...

So onto another parenting topic: solids. I'm still withholding solids but Inga is quite adept at picking up every crumb that falls off the dinner table. She's as good as a dog! Her diet lately consists of peas, Cheerios, pomegranate seeds, and popcorn kernels. I've also let her gnaw on apples and sugar snap peas. Between Inga's frequent night nursing and delayed solids, my cycles still haven't come back and I am quite happy with that.

Pictures coming soon!

21 comments:

  1. I remember the excitement of being able to turn on the light when going to bed when we moved my son to his own room for his first sleep stretch.
    I agree with your waiting-it-out strategy, probably that's the only thing that ever worked with my son. Some things I had some influence over, but his sleeping habits? He was/is the boss. Hang in there!

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  2. Yes deff moving the crib out of your room will help both of you, but the down side is it will probable take some getting used too. I had to let each cry it out for 2 nights, well Lizzie never really cried just loudly protested! After that they get the point that I'm not comming back in. If you do move her back in try using a noisey box fan. Everyone will notice it the first few nights, but then you will never want to sleep with out it! I put a box fan in each of my kids rooms. Face it at a corrner and turn that baby on high! And it's "good night Gracie" They don't hear a peep from the rest of the house at bed or nap! Trick is- if they hear it, they will play! Noise = AWAKE FAMILY = Fun I'm missing! Or you could get a white noise maching, But the fan is cheap and helps with good air circlation.
    My box fans are the BEST $11 I ever spent!

    Good Night!, hopefully!

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  3. Definitely the more kids you have the more you realize you don't know! Every kid is so different it's crazy.

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  4. I can relate to the standing up thing. My son HAS TO STAND all the time, even when half asleep, which creates alot of bonked heads on the crib. He has only just started to lay and play on the floor again within the past few days. He is 11 months old now.

    He is my first, and honestly, from having younger siblings and working with children for a long time, I know I have hit the jackpot. I told my husband we got all the good baby traits in one kid, and all our others are going to be hell-raisers. lol

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  5. You could've had my newborn, who would get up at 8 am and NEVER go to sleep until 1 am, not for one single minute. She had magical staying power. And it wasn't like she slept through the night after all that daytime awakeness either: she would still nurse every 2 hours all night, just like she had all day. It was like that for the first year of her life, got slowly better after that, but she never really did take naps, and when she did, she had to be in my lap, or she'd wake up.

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  6. Nine months....the nightime cosleeping got ruined for us and all five of our babies were so distracted that i could have definitely thought they were weaning or not getting enough etc. Wiggly n wild. You know it gets better. Hugs and hang in there...

    Xoxox Joy

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  7. Don't you think your baby is telling you something by eating any garbage she finds on the floor? Feed her!!! Why would you "withhold" solids from a 9 month old?

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  8. Yes, I do remember the standing in the crib and crying. I was dreading it with this baby, but she never did it.

    I'm thinking your baby is also waking because she is hungry. Their needs change and they need so many more calories in the day as the get older. If they aren't getting enough during the day, more night awakenings happen. She is ready for table food if thats what you had in mind to go straight to. Just an idea!

    Hope you all get some more sleep soon!

    Julia

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  9. I think that one reason Inga is waking so frequently is because of the skills she is mastering-- the standing, cruising, crawling. I know my 7 1/2 month old likes to pull herself up in the middle of the night too.

    However, if you have noticed that Inga is waking up every 2 hours at night then I would suggest feeding her more. She's 9 months so she will be able to accept most soft adult food. Try it for a week-- you might be surprised! I know that all my daughters started waking frequently at night between 6-8 months of age and they were always hungry. I simply wasn't giving them enough to eat. Good luck!

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  10. My little guy just started waking at 5:30 every morning, a rude awakening after a consistent 7:30 wake up!

    I really wanted to keep him off solids (lazy me!)but after about 5.5 months there was no stopping him. It's soo much more work and cleanup.

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  11. you are great mom!

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  12. Mine is 18 months old, and I've just had 2 PP cycles ... we started solids right at 6 months and would like to have another soon, so I'm kind of in the opposite boat with really wanting my cycles to come back please!

    As for sleep, I'll second the white noise suggestion, but then again, we were still swaddling and doing the whole Happiest Baby on the Block routine at 9 months. Good luck!

    Inga's 9 month pictures are fantasitc, btw!

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  13. so, i'm not suggesting inga's hungry (um, just LOOK at her!), but as a first-time mom of a chubby 6 month old trying to hold off solids, i am curious. i don't have any problem with her scoring what falls off the table, but how is that not giving solids?

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  14. I agree you are a great mom and Inga is thriving, but I hold off solids as long as possible, but when my baby gives cues that he/she wants food I give it (still frequently nursing)

    I just wonder if holding off is because you know something I don't about benefits to waiting or if this is really just for child spacing birth control purposes.

    Because if it was me personally I'd use condoms and let my baby eat more and then sleep better.

    five babies and I've never had a 9 month old not sleeping through the night except for random occasions

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  15. I'm also curious what the reason is that you're withholding solids. I understand waiting until the baby shows signs of readiness, rather than going by the calendar, but it seems like she's showing signs of readiness.

    (Though, to Janie, I had a 9 month old who still wasn't sleeping through the night despite eating solids during the day. In her case, it was a difficult transition from swaddling to not being swaddled.)

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  16. My 8 month old was a great sleeper until she started to crawl at 5 months. She went for 6 and 7 hour stretches to waking up every 2 to 3 hours. Urgh! We've tried a different room...sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Oh well, this too shall pass.

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  17. Since your baby is more and more mobile, her caloric needs may have increased. If she is wanting solids, this likely means she isn't getting enough calories from your breastmilk and is also physiologically ready to have solids. Delaying them at this point seems cruel and potentially dangerous, and you could risk missing a window of opportunity. If you don't want to get pregnant there are a variety of birth control options you can choose from.

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  18. Hi Rixa,
    regarding the introduction of solids. have you heard about "baby led weaning"? I wrote something about my experience about this here http://matteovoyage.canalblog.com/archives/2010/09/23/19145035.html
    it's in french but i know you are perfectly fluent :o)
    Take care!

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  19. Regarding natural birth control and coming back of your periods, i LOVE the sympto thermic method (based on temperature but also observation of the bodyM cervic mucus and cervix touching). the body changes so much, it is so empowering to observe how we change between our fertile and infertile phases. I love it so much that i recently became a volunteer teacher of this method in Montreal. if you want more info about it (i know some american organisations exist too): see http://matteovoyage.canalblog.com/archives/2010/06/09/18214539.html
    love reading your blog!!!
    take care!

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  20. You are not feeding your baby solids so you don't get your period??!!

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  21. No anon, that's not the reason (although lactational amenorrhea is certainly a nice side benefit of breastfeeding). I just don't see the need to push solids until my babies are really, really ready for them.

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