Eight Months

Lily is now eight months old… sigh. Next she’ll be going off to college! That’s how it feels sometimes because she is growing and changing so much. Here’s the rundown of what Miss Lily has been doing:

Eating: Lily continues to be my good little eater. I try to introduce one or two new foods each week and she likes almost everything. The biggest new things she’s having these days are yogurt and meats (turkey and chicken). She’s not nuts over the yogurt, either because the taste is not her favorite, or maybe because she’s not used to eating cold things.

She’s doing really well with her baby foods, and I think we’ll soon be giving her Stage 3 and chunkier foods. Right now she still wakes up to nurse around 6:30 AM. I feed her her breakfast of oatmeal and fruit at 9:30 AM. Lunchtime is 12:30, and I give her some of a meat dinner with one or two veggies. Then she usually has a mixed fruit or yogurt snack around 3:00. For dinner around 6:00 she has barley or brown rice cereal with another portion of a meat dinner and veggies. She will usually nurse again before bed around 7:30. Lily does nurse about 2 or 3 times during the day between meals as well. She will sometimes have a few sips of water or diluted apple juice after a meal, but so far she doesn’t seem to be a big drinker.

Whew! All of this eating sure does keep me on my toes. I have to pay attention to the schedule, especially because Lily doesn’t really cry when she’s hungry anymore. I pretty much watch the clock and feed her her meals regularly.

Sleeping: This month sleep has been the biggest challenge in our home. I don’t know what happened to my baby who used to sleep 9-10 hours straight at night!

Well, first things first: we made the big move to her crib in her own room around 7.5 months. It was our first night home after being away at my mom’s all week, so we thought it would be a good time for the transition. And she did really well for about a week or two. Lily’s sleep regression (if that’s what it is) started around 6.5 months, so I really don’t think it has much to do with sleeping in her crib. At first I was beside myself because she was waking up 2 or 3 times a night. That was nothing! Over the past two weeks the night wakings have increased to 6 times and sometimes more. Lily goes right back to sleep when we pick her up and she sleeps great… when we hold her. I know that people will suggest letting her cry it out, but I can’t do that. I just don’t have it in me. Instead, we have been trying to reduce the number of times we do go in (recognizing when it’s just her “sleepy cry” when she will go back to sleep on her own) and making sure to put her right back in her bed when we do pick her up rather than holding or rocking for hours. She is getting better about soothing herself when she wakes up, or requiring less intervention from us when she becomes really upset. Now we can usually just pat her or hold her hand for a few minutes until she settles back down and goes to sleep. We have also switched from white noise to some soothing music in her room at night and I think that helps.

We are much better off now than we were a week ago. Hopefully it will keep moving in the right direction. I think she is on her way to learning that her bed is a nice, cozy place to drift off to sleep. (*fingers crossed*) I have read that this is a common issue for babies this age, which makes me feel better I guess, but I’m still reading a couple of books (as quickly as I can) that I hope will help us get through this and, most importantly, help Lily to get a good night’s sleep. Oh yes, and we’re looking forward once again to the day when we’ll wake up well-rested at her normal wake-up time of 6:30 and realize that she slept all the way through!

Her naps seem to be unaffected by all of this night-time stuff. She’s taking two a day, one in mid- to late-morning and one in early afternoon, each about an hour long. And we have finally succeeded in making her bedtime earlier, usually between 7:30 and 8:00.

Milestones: It’s definitely true that lack of sleep has made us all a bit crazy this month, but honestly the good has far outweighed the bad. For example, Lily started giving kisses all on her own about a week ago. It is the sweetest thing EVER. Sometimes one of her precious, slobbery, open-mouthed kisses is all I need to get through a tough day! Those spontaneous kisses are so precious, and now she is learning to recognize what it means when we ask her for a kiss.

Also new this month – Lily now blows raspberries with her mouth and chews on her toes.


She babbles a whole lot more now than she used to, and we sure do enjoy hearing her voice and listening to all of her sweet new sounds. (No intentional words yet; her favorite “word” right now sounds like “abwa.”)

Her other cute new trick is that she can play peekaboo (we call it “peep eye” where I come from). If there is a blanket or burp cloth within reach, she will put it over her head and wait for us to ask “Where’s Lily?” so she can pull it down and get a big reaction out of us. It’s so cute and she loves this game, as I guess most babies do!

Lily’s looks are changing quite a bit as she grows. We used to hear everyone say that she looked so much like me, but now the general opinion is that she looks more like her daddy. What do you think?