Ocho

8 Months. It's a double edge sword.

On one hand, I'm pumped for 8 months! 7 months was so fun. Miles is growing more and more independent as he crawls every which way (sometimes so fast I've lost him in Lucy's toy bin). We are seeing more of his personality coming out. Tickles, raspberries, kisses on his neck, silly noises, spitting - things that make him laugh. And the door stop...lets just say 5 of them have been confiscated so far. Why? 1. Choking hazard 2. Boioioiing....boioioiing....BOIOIOING when I'm working? No.

On the other, I realize how fast time is going. 8 months already?! Really?! Common time, give me a break and slow it down just a little.

To see how much our Miles has grown, go HERE

Month 7 tidbits:

- Clap, clap, swish swish. Miles is crawling!!

- Small-talk in his crib in the mornings

- The crazy squeals which come out for no apparent reason. Just because

- Miles has really enjoyed spitting. A lot of spitting. 

- He's eating more and more finger foods and doing really well

- We all have enjoyed our sleep. 8pm - 8am 

- He met Loki this month. LOVED him. He's also set his eyes on Sydney and whenever we're at the Gates, he makes a b-line for her.

- Let the fishing begin. No, not the kind for fish. Mouth fishing for random objects Miles finds on the ground while crawling around. 

- He's moving from crawling to sitting

- Wearing mostly 12mo clothes. Some 9mo still fits but it's snug

- Miles is pretty resilient. If he gets hurt, it doesn't take long to calm him down. A little snuggles and he's back at it

-  Does NOT koala when you hold him. It's so annoying. He just hangs there or arches his back and expects you to do all the work. Common man

- No babbling quite yet. Lots of noise, lots of lip buzzing, but no consonant sounds

- Planking and trying hard to traverse over things.
- Can pull up to his knees, but hasn't stood up yet.

- Is working on feeding himself his bottle. He can hold it and drink most of it himself, but needs help towards the end. He also flicks the bottle up and down and ends up with formula all over his face 

- He holds/carries his toys like a puppy. He's can't use his hands since he's crawling, so it's pretty smart. Just hilarious

      

- His two teeth are coming in pretty quickly. No new teeth yet.

- His comb over hairs are starting to fall out.

- Still working on baby sign. He responds to "more" by putting his arms up and grunting. He MIGHT be able to sign milk. But, it's not consistent. He move his hand into a fist while drinking his milk, but doesn't ask for it by sign.

- Still all smiles, super happy, go with the flow, curious, easy going kind of guy. I'm thinking this personality is here to stay :)

For this month, we decided to venture into the wildflowers. There are tons all over Austin and the bluebonnets have bloomed. We went on a cloudy day which is the best for photography. These photos were barely edited. The raw images were so clear, it was crazy. Shout out to Becky!

Miles was very interested in the flowers. He was reaching over the basket trying to grab them. When given one, it was like a moth to a flame. They may not have tasted very good, but by the end, he seemed quite proud.

 

 

 

We went right after his morning nap in hopes of some good light + good moods. We were only out there for maybe 20 minutes and got his "official" monthly picture in the first 5 shots. So smiley, so expressive, so adorable :)

 And because we needed some cutie crawling photos, we let him explore. Not for long though - Becky had already been bitten by ants. But the minute he was set down, straight for the flowers. Do you blame him?

Happy 8 months Miles! 

Ferber

Sleep training. It's a controversial topic. There are a lot of methods out there that seem to work based on your kid's personality and your personal parenting style. I've learned through reading and talking with other parents that no ONE method is the right fit for everyone. There's the pick-up, put-down, the cry-it-out, the child led sleep training, Ferber/controlled crying, no-cry/no-tears method (or attachment parenting), gradual retreat and so on. After talking with my sister, she and a lot of her parenting friends chose the Ferber method. Her sister-in-law actually tried all of them and said that Ferber was the only one that worked. SO, with that, I decided to start there.

I know most of you may not care to know ALL of this information. But, I'm posting for my future benefit as well as all of my Mama friends out there. Take this with a grain of salt. Everyone is different :)

Ferber, or controlled crying, is a form of sleep training where you allow your baby to cry for short, specific periods of time before going in to offer comfort. They typically suggest for babies to be 6 months or older for this method to be successful. The founder created a rigid 7-day schedule all based on the psychological theory of extinction of behavior. Basically, it teaches the baby that crying won't get them what they need. They have to figure out a way to soothe themselves if they happen to wake up at night. The difference between Ferber and Cry-it-out is Ferber allows "checks" based on this scheduled wait time. This allows the parents to emotionally connect and comfort their baby without aiding in them going back to sleep. They know you are there, but they don't NEED you to fall back to sleep. That's the goal. The biggest rule? Don't pick him up. Whatever you do, don't pick him up.

The schedule:
Day 1: 1st wait period-3 , 2nd wait period-5, 3rd wait period-10, remaining wait periods-10
Day 2: 1st wait period-5 , 2nd wait period-10, 3rd wait period-12, remaining wait periods-12
Day 3: 1st wait period-10 , 2nd wait period-12, 3rd wait period-15, remaining wait periods-15
Day 4: 1st wait period-12 , 2nd wait period-15, 3rd wait period-17, remaining wait periods-17
Day 5: 1st wait period-15 , 2nd wait period-17, 3rd wait period-20, remaining wait periods-20
Day 6: 1st wait period-17 , 2nd wait period-20, 3rd wait period-25, remaining wait periods-25
Day 7: 1st wait period-20 , 2nd wait period-25, 3rd wait period-30, remaining wait periods-30

So, how'd this work for me? Well, I'll preface this by saying I dropped everything. I didn't want to have to train again, so we dropped the swaddle, binky and nighttime feeds all at once. Brutal, I know. But we felt it was the best way for Miles to learn without getting confused.

The first night? TERRIBLE. We did our typical bedtime routine, put him in the crib, said night night and walked out. He's always been pretty good at falling asleep at first by himself. So, he squirmed for a bit but fell asleep pretty easily. Come 3:30am, that's a different story. He woke up crying so I started my wait/check times. 3 HOURS LATER, he finally fell asleep. It was awful to hear him crying and knowing I couldn't go in and snuggle/rock him to sleep. It was also hard emotionally because after each check, he cried even harder when I left. I'm thinking to myself, "What the heck am I doing? My baby is sad! Is this even working. AH!" All while Googling, "how long does a baby cry when Ferbering." But, if I broke down in the middle, I realized that I would have let him cry all that time for nothing. So I had to stay strong. There has to been an end goal. That end goal for me is making sure he is able to sleep, wake up and go back to sleep again all on his own.

The second night was great! He slept through no problem. He was doing this every once in awhile before we started, so I'm thinking this may have been a fluke. Not related to the sleep training.

The third night he woke up a couple times so I did 2 checks. He only cried for a little bit in between which was good!

The fourth and fifth nights we were down to just one check. He seemed to understand that I was there and took comfort in me coming in. But, as the days went on, he didn't need me as much. So, after the fifth night, we let him go. And guess what? He's been doing great! It's been a month since we started and he rarely cries when he wakes up. He typically talks, moves around and finds a better spot to go  back to sleep. That's not to say we don't have some bad nights. We do. They're just not as often.

Since then, we've put together a schedule which he's thriving on. Now that he has consistent naps and bedtime, it makes things so much easier during the day. Our current schedule:
8ish            Awake
9:00            Breakfast Bottle
9:30ish       Breakfast Snack
10/10:30     Morning Nap (1.5-2 hours)
12/12:30     Lunch Bottle
1/1:30         Lunch Solids
2/2:30        Afternoon Nap (2 hours)
4:30/5        Afternoon Bottle
6ish           Happy hour snack
7/7:15        Evening Bottle & bedtime routine
7:45/8        Bed/Asleep

So, all in all, Feber working amazingly for us. He's doing great and seems to even like bedtime more than ever. When all I want to do is snuggle and read a book at bedtime, he's sliding his legs off my lap and just not having it. I put him in the crib, say night night and he smiles a HUGE smile like he's saying, "Thank you mama. Goodnight". He talks for a bit and is out within 10 minutes. That's the norm these days.

And because a post is not complete without photos of the little nugget, here's a series titled "Miles' Sleeping Acrobatics" for your viewing pleasure. We got a camera in his room before we started Ferber so we could see if he was okay without going in his room. It's proven to be quite entertaining.

Where's Miles? lol

Swing, Swang, Swung

During a walk one day, I decided to amp up the excitement. Let's go to the playground! Miles had never been and they have baby swings. I thought, lets give it a whirl.

He was adorable, but the huge smiles I thought I'd get were more-so half-smiles. He was much more interested in all of the other kids roaming, running, screaming, climbing, jumping, skipping, laughing, etc. I wonder why, right?!

Our take aways?
1. He seems to like the swing/is content in it. Much MORE interested in the surroundings
2. Boogers. He was fine before the park. After the park....snot...lots of it. Sorry bud...

A little Motivation is all it Takes!

Since Miles was little, we came to realize he needed a little motivation to get things done. He HATED tummy time, but if Stephen or I got on the floor with him and imitated him, he seemed to think it was alright. Holding him like superman? Yea, that was a blast. Sorry to burst your bubble bud, but that's tummy time. Just in the air.

He was late to roll, but once I enticed him with potential snuggle time with Lucy, there he went! Right over like he'd been doing it for years. (Don't worry friends. I didn't let him get THAT close to Lucy. We all know she's not the best with kids, men, other dogs, cats, new people in general and well, costumes...)

His newest struggle? Crawling. He's been rocking on all fours for almost a month now. He can turn 360 degrees on his belly and he's a champ at scooting backwards. Forward movement was just not something he was able to get the hang of. We've been practicing daily.

This is what we've got working:  Planking, rocking and then sliding backwards.

Then the other day, I saw a little glimpse of something! Some type of forward movement! While it's only a few steps, it's huge progress.

This morning he did the same thing but seemed more confident. I grabbed my camera as fast as I could but only caught a portion of it.

I've been thinking, "Man, it's going to be any day now. He's SO close." But it seems like I've been saying this for awhile and he's been stuck in a rut. He finds my phone to be super interesting, but Stephen and I make it a point not to allow a lot of screen time. But, a brilliant light bulb went off in my head as his mouth full of drool inched closer and closer to my phone. If he saw himself, would he crawl towards it? Would it be enough to interest him?

ABSOLUTELY! This kid ... he's totally content and it's amazing. But when you need him to do things. Motivation motivation motivation.

And just to make sure my first take wasn't a fluke, we went further:

Way to go Miles! You did it! :)

Omi in the Home-y

Special visitor! Omi came to visit Miles and help Stephen and I during the start of our busy season. It was great to see her and I think Miles had a blast. Correction - I KNOW Miles had a blast.  :)

When Omi arrived, Miles was sleeping. Once awake, it took him just a second to remember who she was and all of a sudden, he lit up! So cute. We played a little, unpacked the car and decided to have happy hour over at the Gates. Omi has secured a special place in her heart for her "adopted" grand children (Lia, Erin and Halle) and tends to bring them a little somethin somethin. This time was no different. She bought each of them a super cute outfit consisting of a jean jacket (all the rage in Kindergarten apparently so A+ Omi!) and a patterned sun dress. Perfect for these dress loving girls. I didn't grab a photo because they were all over the place excited about their new ensemble. I think everyone can imagine, yea?

Not being left out, Miles also got his Omi snuggles, tickles and kisses!

While Omi was here, Stephen and I were able to grab some time at the shop getting organized and prepared for our upcoming jobs. Throughout the day, we were updated by cutie photos and videos of the happenings at the household.

Feeding Lucy at lunchtime 

Cruising in his new wheels! Thanks Omi!

A visit is not complete without learning new things. Miles' new talents? SPLASHING

After Bath #1, Omi was soaked. For Bath #2, a towel shield was necessary

And while no one will admit to this one, Miles' new love? Spitting and mouth raspberries. I have to say though, developmentally, this one was bound to come around. Omi and Gramma, I guess you both are off the hook.

We found out that a couple friends were in town from OKC who we hadn't seen in SO long. They'd never met Miles or seen our new house, so we invited them over for a big dinner. And what dinner is complete without Omi's famous salad? Delicious ..... even if we did have it for dessert. Oops!

Jen and Alex (and Ollie!), it was amazing seeing you! Miles loved yall and even Lucy had a good time! I guess it does take two socially awkward dogs finding each other to create a doggie friendship. :)

Thanks Omi!! Lets plan another Miles+Omi date soon.