Austin – Month 9

Austin – Month 9

Austin is now a whole 9 months old. As old on the outside as he was on the inside. He seems to have come along leaps and bounds in the last month. He hit a developmental leap, which left him super clingy. He didn’t like me to be more than a metre away from him and he certainly didn’t want to be in the presence of anyone he wasn’t familiar with – more so than usual!

Sleeping

He’s been sleeping really well overnight. Going down with no fuss at 7pm and then sleeping through until around 6:15am. We rarely hear a peep out of him overnight. There have been a few mornings when he has woken up nearer 5am, but only a few times – thankfully!

His morning nap is a bit hit and miss in terms of length. Sometimes he naps for just 30 minutes, sometimes an hour. I think a lot depends on whether he does a poo and if it then wakes him up.

He’s also really hit and miss on whether he wants an afternoon nap now. A few times I’ve put him down at 4:15pm and he’s just rolled around the cot until I’ve got him up again, so I’m guessing he’s starting to phase that out. He does seem to be more regularly having a longer lunchtime nap, sometimes up to an hour and a half, but more often just an hour.

Morning nap – 9am – 9:30/10:00am
Lunchtime nap – 12:30pm – 1:30/2:00pm
Afternoon nap (sometimes) – 4.15pm – 4:45pm

Feeding

We’ve dropped his afternoon bottle and replaced it with some water and a snack and it seems to be working really well. He’s much more interested in his dinner and he drinks more milk at bedtime now.

He just has two bottles, a 6oz in the morning and a 7oz in the evening.

Food-wise, he now has three meals (two courses each) and up to two snacks a day. He’s tried a great variety of foods now and some of his favourites are ready brek, chilli, chicken curry, beef casserole, blueberries, raspberries and pasta. He loves yoghurt, he gets really excited when he sees the yoghurt pot and spoon.

Since he finished his developmental leap, he seems less interested in feeding himself. He starts a meal feeding himself and then gives up halfway through and wants me to feed him. I did do some research on this and apparently, it can be a comfort thing, where the baby feels like they are growing up too quickly and want to be fed by their Mother again. I don’t mind either way as I know he can feed himself if he wants to – albeit a bit messily!

Nappies

We’re using size 4 nappies. Again Aldi ones during the day and Pampers overnight. I’m glad we are using the Pampers overnight – they are often very heavy in the morning due to the increased milk before bed.

Mental and Physical Development

He’s sitting up really confidently now and can balance himself when reaching over for things. He still topples over occasionally, but he now just rolls on his tummy and rolls away.

He’s really into rolling. We spend a lot of time playing together where he just rolls the whole length of the living room. I think he’s working on crawling, but definitely not there yet.

He’s really good at clapping and tapping two toys together. He understands that the action of clapping is called clapping and if I say to him “Austin. Clap, clap, clap”, he will. He also understands arms up, when we need to get him in and out of car seats, the jumperoo etc.

We bought an activity table and although he can’t stand and use it unaided, he loves being held to it and will play with it whilst standing.

He’s got a much better attention span with toys now and some toys will get played with as long as 10 – 15 minutes or so. Some days are better than others. There is definitely a correlation between sleep length and attention span with playing. He’ll quite happily play with me, with the same toy for a good while if he’s well-rested and well-fed!

He still very chatty and we often get Mumma, Dada and Bubba now. He can say a few other words too. We practice saying things together. My Mum taught him ‘bat’ as we have a small bat hanging from a lampshade in our dining room. He now points at it several times during a meal and sometimes he says ‘bat’ which is really funny. Although I’m not sure he doesn’t think the lampshade is a bat as when he went to my parents’ house for lunch he pointed at their lampshade and said ‘bat’. Hope you enjoyed reading this update!

See you again next month for the next one!

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