Austin – Month 8
Here we are! Austin has hit 8 months old and we’ve had a few new developments in the last month. We went back to the hospital so they could run some tests to see if he suffered any kidney damage from his urine infection back when he was about six weeks old. Thankfully, the tests came back clear. So the plan of action is that he now has to stay on antibiotics until he is about 2 years old and then we’ll see if he’s grown out of his renal reflux. There is also less of danger once he is potty trained, but we’ll be seeing our consultant again soon and she’ll tell us more. He was really brave at the hospital and didn’t even cry when they put the cannula in.
Sleeping
The early morning wake up seems to be a complete thing of the past. We rarely hear from him before 6am now which is lovely. We’ve had a few bad nights where he was teething and had a cold, but most nights we put him down at 7pm and we don’t hear a peep out of him until at least 6am. His naps are a bit all over the place at the moment.
He seems to be napping longer for his morning nap and then we have two shorter naps later on in the day, but it’s really intermittent. If I’m honest, the longer lunchtime nap was more useful to me as I could get things done whilst he was down and napping longer in the morning is a pain as we often do classes in the morning. But I think he’s going through a bit of a nap transition so we’ll wait and see how this plays out.
Morning nap – 9am – 10:00am
Lunchtime nap – 12:45pm – 1:15pm
Afternoon nap – 4pm – 4:30pm
Feeding
He’s now up to a full three meals a day, with two courses for each. His milk has really dropped off, only taking 3 bottles a day, approx. 4 – 5 oz per bottle.
He’s really come on with the self-feeding and is really good with small pieces of fruit and vegetables, toast, quiche and croquettes. We are doing a mixture of purees and baby-led weaning. Mainly purees for lunch as he is often quite tired and gets frustrated being the highchair for a long period. But at dinnertime, he’s quite happy to sit and munch away on some finger food.
Annoyingly, he’s developed a dislike to having his face wiped and cries whenever I clean him up after a meal. I’ve seen a few babies do this, so I know it’s pretty common.
Nappies
We’re using size 4 nappies. Again Aldi ones during the day and Pampers overnight.
Mental and Physical Development
As I mentioned he’s really good with his self-feeding and this is translating well with playing with his toys. His hand/eye coordination is great and he can pick up several toys at a time and pass them from one hand to another. When we roll a ball to him, he often picks it up when it reaches his hand, whilst it is still rolling.
When we give him a new toy, you can see him processing how to play with it. When he plays with his older cousins’ toys, he watches them first and then copies what they do. He’s really starting to enjoy the company of other children, mainly slightly older ones as they don’t try and grab him or pull his hair!
He can sit up unaided for several minutes at a time now. Some days he’s better than others and I dare not leave him without some cushions to fall onto. But he’ll happily play sitting up for 10 – 15 minutes at a time. He’s really into musical toys and his favourites at the moment are his drum, a xylophone piano and some handbells. He’s less interested in his jumperoo and gets bored very quickly in it.
He still enjoys laying down and rolls all around the floor. He always looks very pleased with himself when he’s rolled across the whole room to get something from the other side. He’s so good at rolling over, tummy time is a thing of the past. I don’t think he’s worked out tummy time is the key to crawling, so I don’t think we’ll have an early crawler on our hands here.
We’ve had two teeth appear this month. Right at the bottom at the front. He was a bit grizzly with the first and then the second was disguised by the fact he picked up a cold.
Unfortunately for my husband and me, Austin has developed very severe separation anxiety. He hates being left in a room on his own and he doesn’t really like being around unfamiliar people. He will cry if people pick him up that he doesn’t know and even has to ‘warm-up’ to his grandparents, aunties and uncles.
It’s not something that I’d really thought about before and it’s quite hard-going on a daily basis, as it means he often wants to be carried around much of the day or I have to be in the same room. So most forms of housework have to be done in the evening or weekend. I don’t really leave Austin with anyone as I don’t want them or him to be upset. But as I always tell myself, it’s a phase and it’ll pass. It could also be worse, I could have a baby that didn’t like me – and not the other way around!
Hope you enjoyed reading this update!
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