Peyton turns 7 months old!

So much has happened in little P's life this past month! She's has lots of excitement. One of the biggest (which I feel I must mention right off the bat) is that she has been sleeping through the night!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that's right. After 7 months of never getting a full night's rest, John and I are proud to have reached this milestone. I'd like to give Peyton some credit by saying that she has always been somewhat of a good sleeper (sleeping in 4-5 hour chunks since the day we brought her home from the hospital), but there is still nothing like getting a full night's rest. I am fully aware that she may regress at some point and go back to waking up once or twice a night, but for now I am very accepting of what we are getting.

Sleep:

As I mentioned above, Peyton is sleeping through the night most nights, and others waking up just once. Another milestone that she reached with her sleeping is waking in the middle of the night with a bit of a fuss, and being able to put herself back to sleep without eating. This is huge, as she has never been able to do this before. Here's to continuing progress! Peyton is still taking 2 naps daily, one about 3 hours after she wakes up for the day, and the other in the afternoon. They are lasting anywhere from 1 1/2 hours-2 1/2 hours each. This month, we moved from putting her in the Carters sleep sac to the Halo sleep sacs, which are much bigger, a little heavier, and have no arms to them.

Clothes:

Currently, Peyton is wearing 9-12 month clothing. At times, she can still squeeze into a 6 month piece of clothing, but those are getting small quickly!

Doctor:

While Peyton did not have a docs visit this month (and won't again until she is 9 months unless she is sick sometime in between), we did have to call the doctor in regards to her first fever and cold. While we were away for the weekend in Cle Elum with John's family for a weekend get-a-way, Peyton woke up with a mild fever (100.3), runny nose, and cough. The poor little baby was miserable, and VERY snuggly. We gave her infant tylenol for the fever, which subsided by the next day. Her cold seemed to last a bit longer (about 5 days), with lots of snot!! We called the Pediatrician who told us that we didn't need to bring her in unless it didn't get better within a week, and that there was nothing for us to give her for just a cold. We had lots of good snuggles that week under big warm blankies. This happened to be the same week that P slept through the night, which may be a coincidence, or may be because she was sick (although we have heard getting sick tends to do the opposite). Thankfully the cold has passed, and she is back to her giggly, happy self.

Events:

As I mentioned above, Peyton had a big month full of events. She had her first Thanksgiving in which we spent in Morton with my cousin Eric and that side of the family. It was great for Peyton to be around Geneva's daughter Makenna. They are 7 weeks apart, and seemed to really enjoy each other's company. Peyton did try pureed turkey that day and did NOT like it at all. We had a family Thanksgiving the next evening at Nana and Papa's house, and we gave her very small pieces of turkey that night (not pureed), which she seemed to really like.

Peyton also experienced her first ever snowfall! We got snow the weekend before Thanksgiving this year (about 4-6 inches). We took her out in it one evening for a few minutes, and it was extremely windy, so we didn't get to play much in it. She pretty much just looked around the whole time.

This month we took Peyton for her first visit with Santa Claus. We decided to support a fundraiser in downtown Edmonds, and took her to the Caldwell Banker Santa Claus. She did great! She fussed right when we handed her over, but once she was in his lap and we held a toy in the air for her to look at, she did ok. The pictures were priceless!!

This year instead of gifts with the adults in John's family, we decided to rent a cabin up in the snow in Cle Elum for a weekend. The boys surprised us with a gorgeous house! Peyton had her very own room for the weekend, and slept wonderfully. She slept in the pac n play while we were there. She got to spend lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa and her cousin's Hank and Lily.

Eating:

Peyton is still taking 6oz bottles (still breast milk) approximately every 3 hours during the day. We have also moved into feeding her solids on top of her bottles 3 times per day (breakfast, lunch and dinner). She still loves her Avocados, and also enjoys Butternut Squash, carrots, apples, and pears.

Milestones:

-Sitting up has been mastered

-Saying Dada on a regular basis

-Getting up on hands and knee's and rocking

-Transferring objects in between her two hands

-Mimics John and I (shaking her head from side to side, attempting to wave, etc)

In our next post, we will have Peyton's 1st Christmas photo's!!!!

Peyton turns 1/2 a year old!!!

6 wonderful months have gone by since our dearest daughter joined our family. Happy 1/2 birthday to our sweet Peyton!

Peyton is FULL of personality these days. She is very aware of her surroundings these days (including when mommy and daddy walk out of the room), she is full of new facial expressions, laughs, and other noises which clearly demonstrate that she has discovered her voice. Its great being parents to such a joyful and happy 6 month old.

Events this month:

• Halloween. Our little "P" dressed up as a pea in a pod. It was the perfect little costume for her, and of course Nana and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa loved seeing her dressed up. Those were the 2 houses that we took Peyton "trick or treating" at. Nana and Papa gave her a couple of new toys, and a pack of new bibs. Grandma and Grandpa gave her a trick or treating basket, and some new books. She had a great time!
• Seeing Great Grandma DeMaris. Great Grandma was in town at the Snoqualmie Casino, so we took Peyton out there to visit. It was nice that she got to see her Great Grandma once again!
• Starting solids! Read on below to hear about this experience including Peyton's 1st high chair.

Sleeping:

These days Peyton wakes up once or twice a night to eat. She is still very good about eating and then going right back to sleep. She continues with an 8:00 bedtime every night, and goes down wonderfully. She still sleeps on her tummy at all times, and insists on that vs. her back. Sorry Dr. Walsh! Peyton naps 2 times per day, and usually has one longer nap (1 1/2 hours- 2 1/2 hours), and one shorter nap around an hour. She continues to sleep in a sleep sac for both naps and night sleeping.

Eating:

Peyton eats 6oz bottles every 3 hours or so during the day. At her 6 month doctor's visit, Dr. Walsh advised us that Peyton no longer needs to be eating in the middle of the night, and that we should start to wean her down by cutting out an ounce every 4 days. We are currently working on that, and its going well. She still receives 100% breast milk (yay to mommy who made it this long!!!!).

We began with solids a week before Peyton turned 6 months old. Her first food was avocado, and is now her favorite food. It went great, and she really enjoys eating new things. We started off feeding her in her bumbo, but quickly realized that the bumbo was no longer safe since Peyton would arch her back and we were nervous she would slide out of it. We purchased a high chair, and that has made it so much easier to feed her! So far, she has had avocado, white sweet potato, pears, carrots, and butternut squash. We only introduce a new food every 4-5 days or so so that she has a chance to get used to it, we have a chance to look for allergic reactions, and so that we don't make her a picky eater. It seems to be working well for us that way. We started off giving her solids once a day, but are now up to 2-3 times per day.

Clothing:

Peyton now wears 6-9 month clothes.

Doctor Visits:

Peyton had her 6 month check up with Dr. Walsh on her 6 month birthday. She weighed in at 17lbs, 13oz (75th percentile), and her height was 26 inches. She also received vaccinations at that visit, and as usual did great with those. She only cried for a moment, and then I fed her right away and held her in my arms and she calmed right down. We have been very happy with Richmond Beach Pediatrics and her new doctor, Dr. Walsh. We will continue to see her.

Milestones:

• Peyton got her first tooth about 2 weeks before her 6 month birthday, and the 2nd bottom tooth followed shortly.
• Peyton is working on sitting up on her own, and can do it for a little bit of time before she topples over. We continue to work on this with her.
• Peyton has started being able to hold her own bottle, which is great! She however has not mastered the skill of tipping it upwards to get the milk, so we continue to work on that.
• Peyton spent her first night over at Grandma and Grandpa Kirkpatricks, and did great!! We are so blessed that we have them so close and that Peyton is able to spend time with them.
• At one point during this past month, Peyton discovered screaming. THANKFULLY that phase literally only lasted a few days, but for those few days she would sit there and scream and scream and scream. She wasn't upset at all, just had discovered that part of her voice and was exploring it.
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We have teeth!!!

Just a quick post to note that Peyton got her first tooth (her lower middle left) on Tuesday October 26th, and her 2nd one (her lower middle right) just popped through this morning (at 5 1/2 months old). Yay for toofers!!

Peyton turns 5 months old!

Yay for 5 months!!! We have definitely hit the really fun stage with Peyton. She is so joyous these days, full of smiles, laughs, babbling, rolling all over, etc. It is so great to be going through these fun times with Peyton, especially after the first couple of months, which were hard in comparison.

Sleeping:
Well, we have hit some good milestones this month with sleep. She has officially slept through the night a handful of times now (i.e. sleeping from 8:00pm-6:30am without waking up once!). Though she is not doing it every night, we take what we get and find comfort knowing that she can do it. The nights that she doesn't sleep all the way through, she wakes up between 1-2 times, usually around 11:30-midnight, and then again around 4:00am-5:00am, and then is up for the day around 7:30 or so. She still goes to bed every night at 8:00pm. The unswaddling was a huge success, and we had no issues with it at all! Its funny some of those things you really stress about, and then they turn out to be no big deal. She sleeps on her tummy 100% of the time now, so thank goodness for the Angelcare monitor. Peyton naps twice a day on most days, and sometimes she takes a 3rd nap. They are lasting between 60min-almost 3 hours on some days. She is still sleeping in a sleep sac for both naps and nighttime sleeping.

Eating:
Peyton is taking 6oz bottles about every 3 hours during the day. We have also introduced baby oatmeal, which of course she loves. We are feeding the oatmeal every couple of days about an hour before bedtime. She is still receiving only breast milk (and mom is excited that we have almost made our initial goal of 6 months with this!!). We hope to continue the breast milk until she is 1 year old, at which point she will have whole cow's milk. We have experimented with letting Peyton take "licks" of some foods to see her reaction. She has licked dill pickle (with a very funny face to follow!), pumpkin, and apple. In just a few short weeks, we will get to introduce solids, which we are thoroughly looking forward to. When she awakes in the middle of the night, she is still taking a full bottle, and once she is done with her bottle, she goes immediately back to sleep.

Family Adventures:
We took Peyton on a day trip down to wine country in Oregon a couple of weeks ago. We were a bit hesitant on how she would do being in the car for that long, but to our surprise she did wonderful!! She slept some, played with her toys quite a bit, and really liked when mommy rode in the backseat with her. The trip was about 4 hours each way, which meant we were in the car almost 8 hours that day. On the way home, she started falling asleep about 30 min before we got home, and we put her to bed right when we got home, and that was the first time she slept through the night! All that time in the car must have been exhausting.

Clothing:
Peyton is currently wearing 6-9 month clothing.

Milestones:

• Rolling over both ways (lots!!)
• Babbling a ton, saying both "ma-ma," and "da-da."
• we are working on her sitting up on her own, which she doesn't quite have down yet, but its getting close
• Peyton got her first tooth on Tuesday, October 26th!! Bring on the drooling! It is the lower middle left tooth that popped through.
• Grabbing toys, and other items easily

Other items to note:

Peyton LOVES our kitty Domino right now. She thinks he is so funny, and makes high pitched squeaks, and laughs hysterically when she sees him. She also pets his fur (and sometimes grabs a fist full of it)!

We bought Peyton a Johnny jump up (though it is called a Jenny jump up since its the girl version), and she really enjoy's it. She is not strong enough yet to actually jump in it, however she spins and walks around on the hardwood floors in it. So much fun!

At this stage, we are using all of her toys to help keep her entertained. She enjoys her playmat, her swing, her walker, her Jenny Jump up, her bumbo, and simply rolling around on the floor on a blanket. Thank goodness for all of these things!!

Peyton spent another night with Nana and Papa so we could go to my high school reunion. She did great! She will spend her 1st night with Grandma and Grandpa this weekend, and we are very excited for her to spend time with them!!