Sadie’s Nine-Month Update

As crazy as it is to wrap my brain around, my Sadie girl is nine months old! I was making her laugh her most infectious baby laugh the other day and then expressed how I was all of a sudden feeling a little melancholy thinking about how I wish I could bottle her up and keep her in the stage she’s in. My mom then asked me if I wished Hadley was still nine months old. I said “No” and she said “Exactly. You know firsthand that it just gets better and better.” She’s totally right!

Just like I did at the three month and six month mark, I want to check in with a nine month update on my big girl.

Eating

I had no idea how glorious it would be to have a kid who literally eats everything I serve her (you guys know how much we’ve continued to struggle with Hadley). She’s eating three meals a day and roughly two snacks a day. She’s also still breastfeeding roughly every three hours. She’s our hearty little eater, and we’re all loving it. Her pediatrician (who I trust and adore so much) advised that at this point Sadie can be served anything except for honey and big fish (like swordfish – NO problem, ha!). He also said to keep dairy limited to one serving a day until she’s 12 months. PS: I wrote this post all about how we started food with her.

Sleeping

Sadie was a decent sleeper until she hit six months old, and then we had a steady decline in her sleep habits until hitting rock bottom mid-December (right at the eight month mark). Not only was she not sleeping well at night, but she refused to sleep anywhere but in my arms after nursing to sleep. This was making me a slight crazy person, so we resorted to CIO (cry it out) with getting her to fall asleep in her crib for naps and at bed time. CIO only took three days, and now she falls asleep like a total champ in her crib and is back to taking great naps (all the praise-hands emojis). She is still waking up constantly at night, and CIO isn’t working during these hours. Sadie has a healthy pair of lungs, that’s for sure. My friend Sarah is a sleep specialist and we’re beginning to work together on getting this girl to sleep more at night. Stay tuned!

Side note: I decided a long time ago that I was not going to let the sleep thing steal my joy during Sadie’s infancy like it partially did with Hadley. I was so focused and constantly stressed on her poor sleeping habits and my lack of sleep, and now Hadley sleeps 12 straight hours every. single. night, and she has since she was 15 months old. I know that this is just a season, and I’ll sleep again one day. 🙂

Milestones & Developments (since I’m totally slacking on the baby book thing!)

1. She has five teeth (three on the top and two on the bottom).
2. She started crawling right at eight months.
3. She first pulled up on her own just last Saturday, so five days shy of nine months.
4. She started clapping two days shy of nine months.
5. She’s beginning to wave (though I’m not sure if that’s what she’s intending to do).
6. She says “da da” clearly, but it sounds more like babbling right now than saying Jamie’s name purposely. She does a little bit of other babbling, but I haven’t been able to identify a ton of sounds just yet.
7. We’re giving up on bottles. She hates them, so we’re not messing with them anymore. We’re moving on to working on sippy cups, but she hasn’t quite figured it out yet.
8. On the day she hit nine months, she weighed 21 lbs (88%), was 28.25″ tall (75%), and has a big ole noggin in the 75%. What happened to my six pound peanut at birth?!
9. She’s wearing almost all 18 months clothes. This has been fabulous (!) for making Hadley’s hand-me-downs work, but Good Heavens.

Other Facts about Sadie at Nine Months

• She has a pretty legit temper and throws a fit when Hadley takes her toys (which is often). She also throws a total fit when I have her on her back to get her dressed. Going out to eat is something we rarely do because she wants to grab every single thing on the table and screams when we don’t let her; snacks and toys don’t work. Just give her the knives and drinks and our food and she’d be happy…

• Despite Hadley taking her toys, she still takes the top spot for Sadie’s favorite person. Sadie smiles so big every single morning when she sees Hadley. They love each other so much and really miss each other when they’re not together. It’s so awesome.
• This girl is a HAM! She’s started doing this scrunched-nose smile about three weeks ago, and it makes me squeal with delight every single time. It’s seriously just the cutest thing, and my laughter just eggs her on to keep flashing it. So obsessed!

• Bath time with Hadley is hands-down her favorite time of the day. They play and play and play.

• She does great with going into the nursery at MOPS and at church. She’s very social and interested in everybody and everything.
• She’s quickly becoming famous for her mean-mug face. It’s funny to watch friends we run into around town try to break her scowl and make her smile. It works most the time, but only after she studies you first. It makes Jamie and I laugh so much because she really is such a happy, constantly smiling baby at home. Going out in public just seems to be a different story. So funny.

• Her favorite Christmas present this year was She plays with it constantly. My niece got it too, and my sister said that she loves it as well.
• She puts everything in her mouth, and I don’t just mean the normal “taste testing” of toys. Every single thing that she sees on the ground goes in her mouth. I actually have to vacuum our entire main level every other day and still dig things out of her mouth 15 times a day. I never went through this with Hadley, and it’s driving me crazy! My parents call her a human vacuum cleaner. A piece of mud from Jamie’s boots, salt on our entry rug that was used on the snow, every little dust bunny, every piece of paper… she even ripped the button off of my slipper and put it in her mouth. I have to watch her every second, and it’s giving me a heart attack. We couldn’t even have paper on the table at her check-up the other day because she wanted to ball it up and  eat it. Oh, and we had to quickly pull over and dig a piece of a leaf out of the back of her throat the other day after seeing her gag/try to cough it up after an afternoon at the park. HEART. ATTACK. Oh my word.

We love this girl with our whole hearts. I can’t believe my next update will be for my one year old!

Previous Updates

Her Birth Story

The First Two Weeks

Three Months

Six Months