Ellie the 9 month old

July 23, 2015

What a big month for our little girl!!! She had so many milestones this month- it was so fun to watch!

Updates on Ellie:

Sleep:

Ellie has started sleeping through the night almost all nights! She usually sleeps from around 7:30 pm to 7 am., and she take two naps a day- usually totally 3/3.5 hours of napping total. She is a great sleeper overall! She barely ever fusses when you put her down or when she wakes up! She just plays in her crib happily - and chats a LOT!

She loves her pacis (2 are kept in her bed only), and she has already learned to throw them down into her crib when I pick her up (pacis don't leave beds!). She also loves snuggles with her blankie and turing on her soothing-music toys (like the giraffe). When she wakes up now, she plays with all her stuffed animals and moves everything around her! We just lowered the mattress all the way down too in case she starts pulling up.

Eating:

Ellie has 4-6 bottles of formula a day (usually around 24 ounces in a day) and also eats 3 meals a day. She LOVES finger foods and feeding herself, so I have been trying to give her many options on her tray! She eats most anything we are eating, provided I can make the bites easy enough to eat with no teeth!

Other Milestones:

- Crawling!!! Around her 8 month mark, she started rocking on her knees, and doing little army crawls/ knees/ army crawl to get places. Then about a week later, we saw her first crawls. Within a week after those first crawls, she was all over the place!!! She will come find me in the kitchen if I leave her sitting in the living room and will venture all over the house! She's not super fast, but she's pretty good! And so proud of herself!
-She learned how to drink out of a straw! This is actually a very exciting one for moms on the run!
-She started doing her first signs (well we are 90% sure!). The first one I saw her attempting was 'dog', and quickly after I started noticing 'Dada'! Dog was hard to be sure because when someone comes into the room, she gets so excited she starts flapping her arms. But she distinctly does only one arm and hits her leg when she sees Bella or a picture of a dog (or cow!). I am counting it!
- She started sleeping through the night much more consistently! I think she only got up in the middle of the night 1-2 times this whole month! Thank you Ellie!!!
- She says Dada a lot (and to Barrett!) and makes lots of other babbling sounds. No other true words yet though... well, that we can tell!

Comparison of boys at 9 months:

Evan....