Ryan: 8 Months

 

Sleep

This little guy is a great sleeper -- at night.  He goes down for the night at around 7:45 or 8:00 and will sleep about 12 hours.  Sometimes he wakes up at 6:30 -- but he has slept as late as 9:00!  During the week, I also have to work around the schedules of the other crazies and the bus stop and dropping of at mother's day out and all that.  And then when it is just Ryan and myself, I have to run errands and get things done!  Which often means being out and about.  Which means no crib naps.  And that is wearing me out!  But I am happy to report that on the day he turned 8 months old, sweet little Ryan took a THREE HOUR nap in there.  I put him in the sleepsack (that he sleeps in at night) and was sure to do an orajel swab on his gums where teeth are moving around.  And it worked that it was when he needed a bottle.  Whatever it was, it was successful!  So that is my goal this month - get at least one good crib nap each day (and preferably at the time that Jack naps when he is home for naptime)!  What it boils down to is that I am content with him sleeping at night.  It would be spectacular for him to start napping during the day - more than just in his carseat!

Eating

Ryan is doing great with formula!  He has 4 bottles a day - when he wakes up, around 11:30 or 12, around 4 or 4:30, and then at bedtime (around 7:45ish).  The first three bottles are 7 ounces each and then the last one is 8 ounces!  And then in the morning, he has 2 scoops of cereal, and at night, he has a container of baby food with a scoop of cereal.  He loves baby food!  And boy, oh boy, I had forgotten the quick effect of prunes! YUCK!  But I am so glad that he has done well with everything so far.  He is also doing really well with the sippy cup, which is great!  We have started with puffs just a little bit - I think he needs a couple more weeks until he is proficient with those! 

Weight

Nothing official here!  According to our scale at home, he is 20 pounds!

Length

No official measurement here, and I didn't have the patience to try to measure :) Will have a new measurement next month...he has definitely grown though!

Size Clothes

Ryan is wearing 9 month things right now...and I've noticed some of the jammies and outfits are starting to get a little short or snug! So we may be leaning more towards the 6-12 month size before too long!

Size Diapers

Size 3 is working perfectly right now!  I have discovered that neither the Honest Co nor the Target brand diapers work for him at night.  He pees through in a major way!  I guess we better stick to the Pampers!

Hair color

He has enough hair to where he can actually get "bed head" now! And it seems like it may be a bit darker than the other two kiddos' hair!

Eye color

Those baby blues!

Looking Like

It is unreal how much Ryan is looking like Jack!  I think he has Katie's eyes and the rest is so much like his big bro!

Nicknames

We need to do better about actually calling him by his name - both so that the big kids will, and so he will learn his name :)  Most of the time it is just Baby.

Favorite toy

He is still loving the exersaucer these days!  He really likes squeaky toys - he laughs so hard.  And we discovered at the get together for my brother's birthday that he cackles (like extreme belly laugh) when someone blows a ----.  He also loves the toy Katie gave him for Christmas still.  And the car key toy that Tanja and Nick gave him for Christmas.  And I recently got out all the plastic-y book and he absolutely loves those!

Firsts

Whew!  This has been a busy month full of new experiences!  Ryan experienced his first snow!  It was just for a quick minute because we had a birthday party to go to, and it had melted by the time we got home!  I love this one of him looking around at it all!

 

And he sat in the cart at a store like a big boy!  He loved being able to look around and play with toys - and he did such a great job!  I love that it leaves more room in the cart for the things we need!

 

And he sat in a high chair out at a restaurant for the first time!  He loved being able to look around and check everything out!  This was the first experience - just while Brad had taken Jack for a potty attempt!  He would not stop messing with the highchair to look at me!

 

 And then he did sit in a highchair for an entire meal when we went to lunch with Cat and Carter!

He has his first tooth!  On February 3, his first tooth cut through! 

 

Milestones

Ryan is ready to mooooove.  When he gets down on the ground you can just tell he wants to take off!  He rolls around some, but he really gets up and planks and scoots a ton!  He has taken a couple "crawls" forward, but a lot of his scooting is backwards.  He also hasn't quite coordinated his hands to move with his legs to take off and crawl.  This month he did go from the up-on-all-fours position to sitting - and then sitting to up-on-all-fours!  He is pretty proud of that - in fact, the first time he did it, he was with Brad and just looked up at him and smiled great big.  Here he is doing the sit-to-crawl later the same day he did it for the first time :)

When I put a few puffs on his tray today, he picked one up!  It was more palming it than actually using the pincer grasp, but it is a start!

Talking/Words/Sounds

He says "mamama" and "dadada" and "bababa" - I will start paying attention for more sounds!  He still makes sweet baby noises when he first gets up in the morning - I love that!

Anything else?

I love that when I pick Ryan up, he snuggles into me as if he is giving me a giant hug!  I am so glad he is a fairly relaxed baby - except when Katie and Jack are gone.  Then he has to be right there with me.  I think he is used to all the activity and chaos when they are around and just doesn't know what to do when they aren't around!  He is certainly more vocal and is quick to make noise when he wants to remind people to pay attention to him!  We sure do love him to pieces!