Happy eleven months old, little man!
Sleeping: Well.... sleep has been kinda rough around here lately. He has spent this entire month dealing with the arrival with his first set of molars, and they have not been easy. They seem to bother him mostly at night, and he wakes up at least once, sometimes twice, nearly every night. The past few weeks have been a flashback to the newborn days when getting up several times per night was the norm. Standing in his room at 3am, trying to soothe him back to sleep with the ergo/singing/humming/swaying I have recently been wondering how I functioned on so little sleep when Arlo was brand new. The human body is an amazing thing!
Fortunately, both teeth have surfaced, and while they still have a long ways to go, he seems to be doing better both during the day and at night. Last night he actually slept straight though until 6:30am, and we all got a good nights sleep. He is still going to bed around 8pm and waking up around 6am, later if we are up for any length of time during the night. Naps are still morning and afternoon, and about 1 1/2 hours in length each.
Eating: Big changes in the eating department! Somewhere around the beginning of the month, I had a day where I had forgotten to defrost some frozen food cubes for Arlo's lunch. I decided to try and make a meal out of finger foods, and he did so well with it I did the same thing again at dinner. Within just a few days, Arlo was eating all finger foods and started to completely reject all "baby foods." I love that he can now feed himself so well, and seems to eat a lot of food this way, but it also makes going out to eat a bit of a challenge. He isn't quite ready to share the meals we would order at a restaurant, and I haven't really found a good well-rounded meal to pack for Arlo that transports easily for on the go. Occasionally I can get him to eat a baby food pouch while we are out, but sometimes his meals end up being (the health food version of) cheerios and some thawed frozen veggies. Also, I used to sneak in things like flax oil, tahini, and quinoa into his baby food blends, and now I am unsure of how to get him to eat things that he can't pick up himself!
We have made some good progress in the sippy cup department, and while he is not 100% with it, he now knows that it needs to be tilted up for the water to flow. He does okay with straws but is more likely to spit out whatever he is drinking so we have mostly been using regular sippys.
Since we are suddenly unable to order anymore of the beloved Hipp formula that Arlo has done so well on for the past six months or so, we have decided to transition him to goats milk for the next month. I have been doing a
lot of research on infant nutrition and the necessity of a dairy-based milk as he enters into his second year. I plan to write a more detailed post on it later on, but for now it's going to be goats milk and then a slow transition to plant-based milks after his first birthday. He is still taking 4 bottles and eating three meals per day.
New foods this month: papaya, blackberries, clementines,
Brussels sprouts, sunflower butter (the one thing he will still eat from
a spoon!) and Field Roast on Thanksgiving - and he loved it!
Weight and Length: No official measurements, but if I had to guess I would say 20+ lbs for his weight, and not a clue for his length. Tall and thin, but he feels heavier than he looks. We will have the true numbers next month at his one year check-up.
Wearing: Not much change from last month. Onesies and pants are 12 month, pajamas are 12-18 months. We are still cloth diapering, but around nine months old went back to one disposable diaper at night. Arlo was dealing with an on and off rash and after we went to disposables at night it has been almost nonexistent. I think his sensitive skin needs a break from the cloth at night, and the disposables seem to keep him a lot drier. Still
loving the cloth diapers, and haven't quite given up on that post I started writing months and months ago about the details of our CDing. Someday, I will take it from draft to published. It might be after Arlo is potty-trained, but it will happen eventually.
Likes and dislikes:
Likes: same as last month, and two of his favorite things continue to be the washer and dryer. This works out to my advantage when it comes time to do laundry. Both of our units are front-loaders, which means I can leave the doors open and Arlo is easily entertained by looking into them and banging on the doors and inside the drums, while I fold and put away the clothes. If I have a load that needs to go from washer to dryer, I leave the washer open and Arlo will pull out nearly everything inside and throw it on the floor, and then I will put it in the dryer. This only becomes a problem when I am trying to load stuff in the washer and he is trying to pull it out as fast as I am trying to put it in!
Dislikes: Still the vacuum cleaners, having his face washed, and sitting down in the bathtub. A few weeks ago we stopped using the baby bath and started putting him in the big bathtub. I thought it would be easier but he is obsessed with trying to stand up, turn on the faucets, pull the plug from the drain, and do anything but sit still and play with his bath toys. I should add under his "likes" that he is fascinated with the bathtub drain and his favorite thing is watching the water leave the tub and trying to stick his hand down to play with it.
New milestones and developments:
Lots to mention here! Believe it or not, up until about a month ago Arlo was still primarily moving around via his "army crawl," only getting up onto hands and knees for short periods. I was quite sure he was going to stick with that technique until he progressed to walking. Almost overnight though, he started to crawl almost entirely on hands and knees, and instantly became a super-speedy crawler. He hasn't army crawled since, and is now getting close to being able to stand up on his own. He pulls up on everything and will hold on one-handed for balance. He can cruise in a standing position from one piece of furniture to another, as long as he can always hold onto something. I think that standing independently is in his near future, and walking probably won't be far behind!
Last month he had started to wave and clap, and now he knows to wave when someone is leaving and will often do it without being prompted. He knows what "hi" and "bye" mean, and when I get home from work he excitedly crawls towards me, stopping to kneel and furiously wave at me when he sees me, ha! If we clap he will clap along with us. He is also finding ways to ask for "more" if he wants something. Erik started playing a game with Arlo where they both spin around and around until they are dizzy. When Erik stops, Arlo will laugh and then shake his head back and forth until Erik starts spinning again. Arlo also loves to be upside down, and will throw his head backwards to get you to hold him that way. Silly boy!
Arlo will also give kisses when asked, and watch out, they are big, wet, open-mouthed, drooly baby kisses! I always thank him though as he is just trying to be sweet. Recently we have been working on pointing to objects in books, and there is one in particular we have been quite successful with. It is a book with Sophie the Giraffe, and even though she is on the same spot on every page, when you ask him "Where is Sophie?" he knows to point to her, and will do it most of the time. I am so excited we are entering into this fun and interactive phase.
Perhaps the most exciting thing of the last month is we have an "official" first word. Ok, we have two. But I am not counting the first one. We were in D.C. for Thanksgiving, and headed out the door for a play while Arlo stayed with Papa. We were all waving and saying "bye" to Arlo, and he waved back and said "baa!" Now, this might not sound like an official "bye" but to all of us it was pretty obvious he was trying to mimic what we were saying. However, a couple of days later, he looked straight at Erik and said "Da Da!" I thought it was just a random event, but then he did it several more times. So we will be counting "Da Da" as his first word (sorry Arlo, I just don't want your first word to be "bye!") Since then I have been questioning all these times he has said "ma ma ma ma ma ma" because now he seems to do it when he gets upset and I am not with him, almost like he is calling for me. Meanwhile, Erik is still smiling about the fact that his sons first word was Da da. Ha!
Our last new development is something I already briefly mentioned - all those teeth! His two new molars bring us to a total of 10 teeth, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has 12 shortly after his first birthday. Whenever we are out and Arlo smiles at someone, their first comment is "look at all those teeth!!" Someone recently told me that she didn't expect a baby his size to have so many. Somewhere around nine months I bought a baby sized toothbrush, and started to brush all those pearly whites. In the beginning he was confused and was more interested in trying to hold and chew on it, but now he opens right up when he sees me coming with the toothbrush (this works best if I am holding him and facing the mirror so he can watch) and will let me brush his teeth for a good 30 seconds or so. We are trying to brush twice daily, with just plain water for now. I am still hunting for a natural toothpaste with ingredients that I approve of.
This is my last update of Arlo as an infant. He will soon be considered a toddler, but I am pretty sure I will always think of him as my baby. After his 12 month update, I think I will probably start posting these every three months instead of every month. I would like to have more time to write about other things, mostly still kid-related. I do plan to keep taking monthly pictures (although not of him laying next to a calender - those are becoming nearly impossible!!)
We love you so much, baby Arlo. Keep growing, changing, and becoming the sweet little boy you are already showing us that you are. Next update - the big
ONE year!! Stay tuned!
P.S. Special thanks to my Mom (Grandma Josie) who provided us with the calender I have used for every single monthly photo, and to Erik's Mom (Memere Jill) who gave Arlo this adorable fox shirt. Arlo is one lucky kid!!
