Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Baby K is 10 months old!

Baby Kristian you are 10 MONTHS!!!! I can hardly believe it! The days are flying by!

What are you up to?

You LOVE LOVE LOVE to feed yourself! You are unstoppable! I need to give you a little bit at a time because you keep filling up your little mouth full of food!

You are eating pretty much everything these days. I am giving you less and less puree's. I just cut up little pieces of foods either fresh, cooked or steamed. You are also eating our dinners along with us!


This week you are loving peas, black beans, broccoli, cheddar cheese and watermelon! 
 
Last month I was worried you were on the thin side... but that is changing this month with you gobbling up all your meals yourself!. You gained a full pound! Yay!

You weigh 17lbs

Still in size 3-4 diapers, 9 month clothes and still some 6 month clothes.

We are in the process of weaning you... you breastfeed about 6 times a day. Our goal is to daytime wean you as you start daycare full time in 4 weeks and 4 days!!!!!! I'm CRYING! You love to nurse and ask for it now too! You will throw your pacifier and tug at my shirt and say mommaa!

You are learning new things every day! You observe things closely and I can see you thinking haha! You are a happy baby smiling all the time and love when Daddy and I make you laugh! You love to copy us, it is soo cute! You love Zoe and wish she would let you pull her fur right out ha!

You have 2 bottom teeth with 4 up top coming soon!!!


I added more videos of you playing, on my youtube channel  :) http://www.youtube.com/user/DreamTNM

I want to remember all these fun times! We love you soooo much my little snuggle bug!



Monday, August 27, 2012

Our Morning Routine

Here is a little glimpse of our morning routine these days.

Kris wakes up around 8am calling for me while I try and take in any extra minutes I can as he continues to play haha.

 I nurse his for a couple minutes then we get out of bed, I change him into his outfit for the day and I sit him in the bouncy as I get ready.

Since the day he was born this was our routine. I hate leaving the bedroom without being dressed even more now with a baby since our schedule is unpredictable.

He sits nicely or not so nicely as I put my makeup on and get dressed. (I do my eye makeup but my hair is usually up in a pony tail, that I don't have time for, blowdrying and straightening... Haven't done that in a while!)

We then go downstairs for breakfast.

DH makes coffee before he leaves to work, so hot coffee is always waiting for me ;)

These days I need to give Kris a cereal cookie to feed himself to get him in his highchair.

I put some cartoons on and get babies oatmeal ready to feed him in between the breathes of eating his cookie aha


And I sit and drink my coffee while playing online and feeding him all while talking out loud to him about what we will do today ha!


Today is Monday so we have grocery shopping on our to do's. If we were to stay home we would have floor playtime at this time.

We finish breakfast around 945 and make our way to the grocery store.

I carry him in the baby bjorn carrier (exercise for me) and we shop. He gets to hold some packages in his hands as if he is helping and we name the different foods as we go along. He gets the attention of a lot of people and we always get stopped so people can talk to him, Kris loves it! Smiling and talking back.

We are back home around 1045 and Kris is ready for his nap.

We go to his room sit in the rocking chair, play his sleep sheep, pacifier in his mouth and he is out in 5 minutes.

Down he goes and I get a couple hours to clean up, put groceries away, go online for a bit and make his lunch.

We only have 5 weeks left till he starts daycare full time.I'm counting down so be prepared to hear about it in all my blog posts haha!

I think I need to change our wakeup time to 7am soon. Not so much for the baby but for me. I'll work on this soon. It's a lot of adjusting for me too! I'm not looking forward to being a Zombie Mom at work!

So far napping without nursing is going great. I'm still working on weaning him fully during the day.Taking it day by day!

The next 5 weeks we will be busy changing up our daily routine and breastfeeding schedule. Big changes are coming and it's hard work with a little one!

I'll also be taking Kris to an indoor playground weekly.  We went to one on the weekend for my nieces birthday and Kris loved it! I'm considering doing his 1st birthday party at a playground as well, although I always thought I wouldn't for the first birthday, but the kids love it and I think it will be a great first birthday party with his little friends.



Thursday, August 23, 2012

Fun times playing

Yesterday I went over a friend's house for a play date! Check out her blog here. She posted lots of pics!


We had a sushi lunch and the kids got to play together. Isaac is so quick crawling and standing and soo adorable! Kristian doesn't crawl yet but loves to stand up, we were hoping Isaac could teach him to crawl hahaha!

Yummy!


 

 My friend bought Kristian a 1 year old birthday shirt!! I can't believe how fast time went by! Isaac turns 1 in a month and Kris in 2. ugh!


 She also bought me this beautiful friendship Angel for my birthday :)

Last night Kristian was up every half hour from 4:30am to 8:30am. I see the white of the 4 top teeth, two more than the others. I'm exhausted today! and Kristian has been a little cranky.

I took out some new toys for him to play with and he is having some fun and driving Zoe our cat crazy haha!

Zoe wants to play too
Got Mail? haha!

This weekend is packed with fun. My niece is having her birthday party at a fun room and it's my sisters birthday too! Along with the keys to her new house! My sister will be living close by! Yay!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Thinking about fall clothes and shoes

I spent my day at my grandparents house with my niece and little Kristian. I was soo tired today so we just stayed in playing on the ipad and watching TV.

I talked to my niece about starting school and she was showing me her new shoes and her new backpack, very cute pink stuff :) haha

I then started thinking of allll the things I need for this coming fall and especially for back to work, it's creeping up.

DH had got me a gift card to the mall as part of my birthday gift, for those things specifically. But when I went to the mall I was overwhelmed. Ya there were a lot of things I liked and wanted, But I had no vision of what I really wanted to wear. What style do I want? I was confused! I haven't really thought about it in a while!

So I decided to follow what the, What Not To Wear show does. Buy a complete outfit from top to bottom. So my goal the next couple weeks is to buy 3 outfits to get me started. Top to bottom! A casual outfit, a work outfit and a going out to dinner outfit.

Buying shoes are the easiest for me so I'll start with the bottom up haha

Some shoes from the Aldoshoes.com site that I have my eye on ;)

Monday, August 20, 2012

New foods and favorites! Baby food

My little guy loves to feed himself now! He was great with holding bigger pieces but not the tiny pieces until yesterday!

So now I have been cutting up little pieces of all kinds of foods for him to chow down on!

Pieces of cooked carrots, parsnips, pears, squash, sweet potato! The list goes on!

Today I made a mix of red lentils, sweet potato and garlic. I made enough for the week along with steamed squash and broccoli. I also made his favorite purée of squash and pears.

Tomorrow we will try some ground turkey!

I'm excited that we have been moving away from mostly purée foods and on to chunkier foods.

This little one is growing up fast!!

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Baby is awake when...

Even tho I have a video monitor so I can check up on Kristian when he sleeps, I don't even have to look at it to know when Kristian is awake. I just hear the music. Ha! When he wakes up he turns on the baby einstein aquarium music and plays. Adorable!

Friday, August 17, 2012

Birthday fun!

Yesterday was my little niece's 2nd birthday!!!! Her official party is next week at a playground but last night they had a babkyard BBQ party for her.

Kristian loved playing with his cousin.

She is sooo in love with Minnie Mouse it's the cutest thing!

Quality of the pics aren't the greatest. I forgot my camera!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Some new things!

Kristian is learning so much everyday. I get so excited when he does something new and make him do it over and over haha. I love when I say "clap your hands" he claps, when I say "splash" when he is taking a bath he splashes like crazy. When I say "kiss kiss kiss" he gives me kisses.

I love watching him play with his toys and copy what I show him to do.

He is growing up sooo fast! Love my little boy soo much!

Less than 2 months and I'm going back to work ;( I have so much to do before then, it's totally stressing me out. That's another post on it's own.

My birthday was on Sunday, we had a small bbq and Kristian helped me blow out my candle ;) when midnight hit I was nursing Kristian, perfect start to my new year.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

My take on breastfeeding

There has been so much talk these days on Breastfeeding. Positive talk and negative. When I hear the negative I just think that people just aren't educated on the topic.

Breastfeeding is natural! Nutritious! The healthy choice! Easily digested for babies, full of antibodies to help protect against illnesses, builds a strong bond with your baby, moms burn calories too!  Just look up all the benefits!

I admit that I was I was not educated on breastfeeding. When I was younger I thought no way would I breastfeed... I just didn't understand it really. No one ever talked about the health benefits of it, and the amazing bonding experience with your child. They never taught us about it in school, our parents never educated us on it either. I'm glad I changed when I became pregnant and educated on the health of my baby and myself.

I'm also so glad to see Breastfeeding talk all over the media and social media sites. Positive and the negative. Getting everyone to understand and learn about it! It's a good thing! always was, always will be!

Breastfeeding isn't as easy as one might think, it is hard for some of us.

Put the baby to the breast and he will suck and milk will flow right!? Nope not that easy. So when mom's try and don't have a successful outcome it's stressful and some moms just can't get enough milk and have to resort to formula. Ok too! The most important thing is that our babies are eating, healthy and happy. Formula feeding isn't that easy either, it's expensive, lots of bottle washing, may make the baby gassy having to try many different brands.

My first couple weeks of Breastfeeding was tough. My baby wasn't latching that well, I wasn't sure if he was eating enough. He cried a lot, I topped up feedings with formula too. I was exhausted and felt like giving up. The great thing about where we live is that we have a free service, a hotline you can call for information about Breastfeeding and a trained nurse helps you. You can even go in and they will show you what to do. I did both. It really really helped. I also had so much support from blogger/twitter moms and RL friends. A support group is a must! (and you will, I repeat will have negative people telling you your baby is starving because you are breastfeeding haha, no he is not. He feeds more often because breastmilk is easily digested which is soo healthy for his little body, also teaching him healthy eating habbits)

Even though I read up on Breastfeeding before baby K came along there were sooo many things I didn't know!!

I didn't know what growth spurts were until I had a baby feeding every hour for 24 hours! ha!

I didn't know what a clogged duct was until I was in sooo much pain from it. Ouch!

I didn't know what over supply was until my breasts were in pain and my little guy wasn't eating that much haha. I had to pump and freeze supply which wasn't a bad thing.

I remember the best advice I had from a friend was to try it for 6 weeks and if by then it wasn't working out then decide what to do. By the 6th week it was all good! I had the hang of it. The toughest was the first 2 weeks. And of course still had little issues here and there but nothing to do with latching or supply.

I remember thinking I would only breastfeed for 3 months... Then it came and went, and thought 6 months I would wean, well we are at 9 months and still at it ;)

So if you feel down and think you may not be able to breastfeed for long, just take it day by day!

Dressing for Breastfeeding wasn't a big deal for me. I bought 5 Breastfeeding tops and tanks and button down shirts or easy to lift or pull down tops or dresses. It's easy really!
A must for me is a nursing bra, I love them.

If you are a little uncomfortable with breastfeeding in public, just get a cool looking nursing cover. Also great to hide distractions from the baby so he can eat in peace. I have a nursing cover so I breastfeed everywhere and anywhere. Depending on where I am, like home or family or friends house I don't use the cover of course.

I was shy at first but that quickly went away.


I just needed my baby and a bag of diapers and wipes and me and we are ready to go out. No bottles no warmers no nothing. If you know me, I hate too many moving parts haha so Breastfeeding was great for me. We just came back from a trip, and Breastfeeding was soo convenient. I breastfed in the plane, the bus. Kept baby calm and happy.



We are now on month 9 and I'm soo happy I made it this far.

I have 2 months to wean as I'll be going back to work in October. Weaning is not easy! Especially when I love Breastfeeding my baby too!

Kristian is eating 3 meals a day and nursing in between. So I've been trying to cut back. I'll start with day time weaning. I do not want to go cold turkey. And I love the benefits my baby gets from my breast milk too. So I want to first start with the hours I will be at work. So weaning from 8am -6pm is my first goal I'll start with. And go from there! Again, getting support from other moms is a good thing... I go to twitter for this and I have an amazing group of moms that give me advice.

Many moms breastfeed well over 12 months. Like I said before, I thought I would breastfeed for only 3 months. So I can't say when we will officially be weaned and I'm totally happy with my decisions so far. Both baby and I love our time together when he nurses.

So that's my little take on Breastfeeding,  what's yours!?

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

9 month checkup

Today was baby Kristian's 9 month checkup!

He weighs 16lbs

His doctor said he is a little on the lighter side but perfectly healthy and he is not concerned at all as is weight has been increasing perfectly for him. Kris is exactly at the developmental stage that he needs to be too, which is always great to hear.

He told me to continue feeding him all sorts of different foods and said not to worry at all and try everything!! He even said peanuts! But I'm not ready for that yet!

I asked about weaning from breastmilk within the next 2 months to homomilk he said to go ahead and do it. He said sippy cup only, no bottle. Which is fine Kris never took a bottle. He also told me not to be concerned about the reduction of milk. He wants to see his patients with less milk more foods. He has too many mothers drowning their kids appetites with milk. So he does not want me calling with concern if in 2 months Kris isn't drinking any milk Ahaha he actually said that once he weans off breastmilk he probably won't drink any other milk and I would just need to feed other things like cheese and yogurt daily. Our doctor is a little different on this topic than most books I read. But I trust him and feel good following what he suggests.

I feel much better now knowing that when I wean in 2 months Kris would have gotten all that he needed.

I got some great ideas from twitter friends on different foods to try.

So I have been changing up his meals. Mashing up foods we eat and giving him a variety.

Our next doctors appt will be at 12 months!