This past week our Olivia turned nine months old!
Last month Olivia cut her first two teeth. We’re also pretty sure that she and Tommy had RSV right in the middle of when she was teething. This month it was like having a completely different baby.
Once Olivia finished teething and got over RSV, her appetite came back all at once. She went from barely eating four or five ounces to taking down six or seven ounces like it’s nothing. Olivia eats anywhere from every two to four hours during the day with longer stretches at night. She still hasn’t had much interest in eating regular food.
Olivia is officially army crawling. She is so close to crawling on all fours. Olivia gets around very purposely and pretty quickly. She does still do the exer-saucer and Baby Einstein jumper but for shorter periods of time, as she wants to be out exploring more. Thankfully she will still do longer stretches in the pack ‘n play without complaint, which is how I get anything done on the computer these days. It’s a whole different world having her become mobile than it was with Tommy because now we have little toys all over the house. I constantly have to be careful about what’s out when I put her down somewhere.
Olivia’s other new activity this past month is that she started waving intentionally. Of course, people absolutely love waving at her. So she gets lots of reinforcement with her waving, which only furthers the skill.
This past month we saw both sets of grandparents as well as a bunch of Tommy’s birth family. Olivia met a couple of his birth great-aunts for the first time. The kids and I made excursions to the Milwaukee Zoo and Lynden Sculpture Garden and for the first time, the Bookworm Gardens. We enjoyed the gardens so much and will definitely be back again. Tommy started soccer this fall. Olivia has been hanging around for all of his practices and games.
I transitioned Olivia up to size 3 diapers this past month as we ran out of size 2. I also started putting her in a nighttime diaper with a liner because even the size 3 is just not cutting it at night, which isn’t helping with her sleep. The nighttime diaper with a liner has been a huge improvement. Olivia is so long that she can already wear a lot of 12-month clothing. While the weather is still pretty warm here, I went ahead and did a huge clothing switch-over. I needed to move a lot of smaller items out of her dresser, and I got everything ready for the cooler months ahead.
I mentioned last month that we’ve been working hard to get Olivia sleeping better at night. She completely regressed when she was sick and teething. I was determined to get her sleeping better once we got past all of that. I transitioned her into her transition swaddle without the arms and got a Hatch for her bedroom. Olivia gets only one bottle at night now. Except for when she’s eating, she’s in her own room all night. I’ve also been trying to put her in her crib before she’s fully asleep at least some of the time. Finally, as I mentioned previously, I’m putting her in a nighttime diaper with a liner when she goes to bed.
It’s definitely been a process. Olivia has done pretty well with the changes except for the once-a-night feeding. There were a few pretty bad nights where she still woke up one or two additional times, just pretty angry about the whole situation. It’s slowly getting better. The tough part for me is that a number of nights, she’s wanted her bottle pretty early, around midnight or one a.m., which makes for a short first stretch of sleep. But then she will sleep through until at least six or seven a.m., so I get a better second stretch, which helps.
You can find all of my Olivia updates as well as my Tommy baby/toddler updates, general family updates, and other family-related posts in the family section of the blog.
