8 Months Old

Here is our 8 month report for Grace.

Eating: Grace is a great eater. She is still nursing 4 times a day and I still love that schedule. She is still eating solids for breakfast and dinner. We usually do fruit for breakfast and veggies for dinner with cereal at both meals. Some new foods she has tried this month are avacados, bananas, peaches, yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, and green beans. I will add lunch in a week or two. I'd like to use lunch to practice with finger foods and try lots of new foods. She started doing really well with Cheerios this past month and seems ready to eat finger foods. I'm also going to start her on meat soon too.

Sleeping: No big change since last month. Grace takes 9 am and 1 pm naps with bedtime around 7. She has struggled a little with waking in the middle of her nap and pulling up in her crib and crying. I was having a hard time deciding when to go in a help her down and when to just let her cry. I put her down for a nap a few minutes ago and watched her through the crack in the door pull up and get back down so I know she can do it. I guess my struggles are over and maybe hers are too:)

Crawling/Pulling Up: I have posted a couple of times this month Grace's big accomplishments in this area. She started crawling a few days after she turned 7 months old and hasn't looked back since. She literally took off. She likes getting into things that are not hers but she's been fairly easy to manage. Then she started pulling up a couple weeks ago. She became less content just playing and just pulls up on everything. I know it is a stage and she is practicing her new skill but it has been a little wearing on me. I feel like I can't leave the room for a second because she is still learning to get down and she can find some of the strangest places to pull up. So we have employed the excersaucer a little more often lately. Sometimes days would go by without using it but now she is in it at least once a day.

Other Random Things: Grace has really taken to clapping lately (video below). She started out just banging her fists together and has now progressed to clapping with her hands open. I think it is adorable. She is also getting bigger by the hour. I have noticed several of her 6-9 month clothes are too tight or too short and have started packing some of those away. She is comfortably wearing 12 month clothes and hopefully she won't grow out of those before the weather gets warm this spring.