Month: March 2017

Ellie is ten months and is just becoming more and more fun. She is still a very neutral baby, but she is starting to smile more and be more engaged. On Feb 2, she started clapping! We ask her to clap and she daintily claps away. She waves when we say hi, bye bye, or good night. Any time I ask her a question, she’ll shake her head no. We all think it’s hilarious.

She is full on crawling now. No more army crawling for Ellie. She is a full blown crawler and is super fast. Ellie loves playing with toys when she’s all alone. It’s actually pretty funny to see how different her behavior is when Madeline is at school and Ellie gets to play with the toys all on her own. You can see her body is more relaxed and she’s happy. Don’t get me wrong, she loves her sister and loves to be with her and play with her. But when big sis isn’t around, she’s free to play with whatever she wants, she doesn’t have to worry about her grabbing things out of her hands or yelling no, she doesn’t have to worry about big sis coming over to give her a big love squeeze.

She is eating a little better. She eats a lot of fine, baby food, but still no puffs or pieces of bananas. I try, but she just spits them right out. I’m just gonna keep on trying, cause it would really make my life a bit easier if she could eat some finger foods on her own. When she’s all done eating, she gets so excited when I take her out of the high chair. She squeals and wiggles her arms and legs and lunges her body towards me.

Ellie is still in size 3 diapers and is wearing 6-9 month size clothes.

She can really understand a lot of words now. She responds to her name, when we tell her no, food, nurse, hi, bye bye, night night, sleep, wave, Madeline, Momma, Dada.

Her first tooth popped through on Feb 12. Baby tooth #P came through, and you can see #O right next to it, but still under the tissue.

This last month we started SLEEP TRAINING. It didn’t go as smoothly as we had hoped or as it did with Madeline. But it definitely has helped. Feb 8, I decided, ya know what, I just need to do this now. So I looked over my notes from the sleep specialist I spoke with for Madeline, and try to put it all into action. We moved Madeline’s toddler bed into our bedroom, right next to me. So Ellie has her own room while we try to sleep train. Once she is sleeping well enough on her own, we will have them share a room.

I tried talking it out with her and then that night, I nursed her out in the family room, then sang her songs in the chair in her dark room, and put her down in her crib in her zipadee zip (she can’t sleep without it) and made sure she had enough pacifiers around. She was not happy about. We listened to her cry and scream for 40 minutes :'( It was rough. It wasn’t as traumatizing to me as it was with Madeline, maybe cause I’m more experienced and I’m more over the needing me to sleep thing, so I’m just like, cry, this is good for you… So I went in to reassure her twice in that 40 minutes of crying. She slept from 7:34 until 11, then up at 2:30, 4:30, 6:30.

The next day she was extra clingy. It was sad. It took about 7 days for her to fall asleep in less than 20 minutes. It took about 14 days for me to put her in her down at night in her crib and not cry. It was/is a very long process. After 2 weeks of sleep training, she got a fever and had a bad cold. And then it seemed like everything went out the window.

She now knows the routine at night, and the putting to bed isn’t ever a problem. Which I LOVE. It makes my life a million times easier. I don’t have to make Madeline watch another show while I nurse Ellie to sleep. I can just  nurse her out there, and then it takes about 2 minutes in the room. It’s wonderful. She still wakes up at night, but it’s getting better. Some nights are alright, and some night are bad. Sometimes it’s Ellie that gives me a bad night, and sometimes it’s Madeline, and usually it’s both.

So the sleep training it still a work in progress, but it has helped a lot with bedtime, and her naps are better too. She is starting to take longer naps.

I love Ellie’s sweet, wide smile and prominent chin. She always smells so yummy and is sooooo kissable!

Ellie girl is 9 months. She is still so sweet and petite. She is in size 3 diapers. Weighs 16 lbs 6 oz (20%ile), height 2’2 in (8%ile) (which she shrunk from her last appt, so I just don’t think they do an accurate job of measuring).

She is starting to be a bit more clingy. She wishes she could be held all day. But has moments where she really enjoys playing with toys and getting into things. As long as sister isn’t by her side telling her no and grabbing everything out of her hands. Ellie is fast. She loves grabbing anything in her sight, and when she does, she does it at lightening speed. You don’t even see it coming.

She is still a terrible sleeper and I’m this close to doing something about it. She wakes up every 2 hours and I just need to be a functioning human again. So I think we’ll start some training soon. Her naps are still 30 minutes long and she wakes up crying and is still terribly exhausted.

On Jan 17, she started to slowly do an army crawl. An inch here, an inch there. The next day, Jan 18, she was full on army crawling. She was thrilled with this new found freedom! She could follow mommy and sister down the hallway, she could go into the kitchen, she could sneak off to grab toys, etc. She’s a happy girl. She also does a good job pushing herself back from crawling to sitting position. So she’ll go grab a toy and then push herself back into sitting position to hold and look at her toy. It makes her seem like such a big kid.

Ellie still does not like texture in foods. She gags on thick stuff and anything with any kind of texture or grainy feel. I keep trying to give her puffs or cheerios, but nope. She makes a stink face and spits them right out.

We love our sweet Ellie.

 

Ellie girl is still a very calm, neutral baby. But usually a very happy baby. She rarely complains or makes any mad sounds. Only when she’s really tired and wants to nurse NOW. She still gets so excited to see sister. She kicks her legs and has the biggest smile.

Ellie has started to chat a bit. She doesn’t chat frequently, but when she does it’s the cutest, most dainty sound. She will just make a blahblahblah sound. And sometimes she just opens and closes her mouth without any sound haha.

Ellie sleeps mostly on her tummy, and occasionally on her side. She is still a terrible sleeper. Naps 30 minutes at a time. Waking up every 2 hours at night. We are trying to figure out where to put her crib since she is getting too big to be in her co sleeper. But we just don’t have the space to put her crib. We need to do some major rearranging to get it in our bedroom. And then I can work on some sleep training.

She is now a rolling pro! She just rolls all over the place.

Daddy had a lot of time off over Christmas and got to be home. It was the best. He and Ellie really started to connect and it was so beautiful to see.

I gave Ellie some puffs to try and she was not a fan. I put them in her mouth and she just stuck her tongue out with it stuck on there and would shake her head. Ellie does not like texture. Any food with any type small texture, she gags or spits it out.

We love our cute, dainty, chill girl so much.