Sweet baby P is 10 months old!!

Well, its been 10 wonderful months with our beautiful and intelligent daughter. She has grown a tremendous amount physically and mentally over the past 10 months. This month, Peyton has been an absolute joy. Her little personality shines through, and she is still very active and such a happy girl.

• Milestones:
  -Pulling herself to standing
• -Eating ice cream for the first time (she loved it!)
• -Says "Uh Oh," when she drops something
• -Drinking her milk mostly through a sippy cup during the day
• -Starting to stand independently (just for a couple of seconds)
• -Wears pig tails in her hair (so cute!)
• Eating:
• This month, Peyton has made the transition to eating more solids than she is bottles. She is a pretty good eater most of the time, and is willing to try new things. She still takes a bottle/sippy cup about 4 times a day (this includes her bed time bottle), and has about 5-6 oz each of those times. This month, she also drank the last of my breast milk that we had stored up, so we made the switch to formula about a week after she turned 10 months. She doesn't seem to like it as much as the breast milk, but she still does ok with it. Some of her favorite solids include tofu (still!), banana's, and applesauce. We are working on getting her to like more meat's.

Sleeping:
Is great!! What can I say, we are in sleeping bliss! Peyton still has a bedtime of 8:00pm and she sleeps all night, waking up at about 6:30-7:30am. She is still taking 2 naps daily, but we are thinking she is almost ready to transition to 1 nap, so we may be trying that out soon.

Doctor:

We took Peyton back to the doctor to recheck her low iron (diagnosed last month). She has been on iron drops for a month, and we have also been working on getting her more iron rich foods (I put spinach puree in a lot of her foods). They rechecked her iron, and it looked perfect! Dr. Walsh still would like her to be on iron drops until she turns 1, and then they will recheck her levels at that point. Next appointment with Dr. Walsh will be at her 12 month visit in May.

Events:

This month, Peyton was invited to Henry Medina's 1st birthday where she saw a concert put on by Reces Monkey's. She had a blast and danced the entire hour they played. Peyton has also really taken to liking the show Wheel of Fortune. When its on, she is glue to the TV the entire half hour. We took Peyton swimming at the Mountlake Terrace Pavillion pool twice this month, and she loved that as well.

9 Months old!

Well the time has come where Peyton has been out of my belly as long as she was growing inside my belly. Our baby girl has turned 9 months old! If we had one word for this month in regards to Peyton, I think it would be ACTIVE!!! This girl can move!

Sleep:
Thankfully, John, Peyton, and I are all enjoying full nights of sleep for the majority of the time. Peyton still goes to bed at 8:00pm every night, and wakes up for the day sometime between 6:00am and 7:30am. We did have about a week this month where she was waking up in the middle of the night pretty upset, and we attributed that to some teething (thank you baby Tylenol for saving us!). Naps are still occurring twice a day (about 10:00am and then again at about 3:00pm), and last from 1-2 hours each. Peyton still sleeps on her tummy in a sleep sac.

Food:
This has been a big month for solid foods. Peyton is such a great eater, and we feel very blessed for that. Some of here favorites right now include banana's, tofu, and green beans. This month, we also introduced scrambled eggs, salmon, ground beef, spinach and yogurt. We are feeding her 3 solid meals per day. She also is still receiving 100% breast milk in her bottles, drinking about 6-7oz per bottle, every 4 hours or so.

Doctor Visits:
At Peyton's check-up this month, she ranked in the 75th percentile for head circumference, height, and weight. Her weight was 20.6 lbs, and height 26 inches. She received some additional vaccines, and they also poked her toe to check for iron. Turns out, her hematacrit was a little low, and that means she has been put on an iron supplement. We have also been attempting to get her more iron in her diet by adding things such as red meat and spinach. We will go back in 1 month to check her iron levels again. Dr. Walsh indicated that Peyton is very healthy!

Clothes:
Peyton is currently wearing 12-18 month clothing.

Milestones: Most of her milestones this month seem to be improvements on skills that she started last month. Some of those include:

• waving bye-bye
• Clapping
• wiggles to music
• Saying mama, dada
• Crawling very quickly!

Some new things Peyton is doing this month include:

• trying to say "kitty," but not quite there yet
• Standing up while holding onto the couch, or side of her crib, etc.
• 2 front teeth coming in, as well as the tooth just to the right of her middle top teeth

We enjoy lots and lots of laughing from Peyton these days. She continues to mimic sounds we make. She gets around the house very quickly and efficiently in her walker.

8 Months old!

Happy 8 month birthday to Peyton!! This month again was a big one for our little girl. Her first Christmas, New Years, mastering sitting up, and even crawling!!!

Sleep:
As you might recall from her last month's blog post, Peyton started sleeping through the night on her own. However, that only lasted a few nights and then it was back to her normal waking up 1-2 times per night. After some discussion (and even upon the advice from her doctor), John and I decided to try a bit of crying it out. The first night was tough!!!! It was so hard for us both to lay in bed and listen to her cry in the next room without going in to rock her back to sleep or feed her. After about an hour and 20 minutes, she was asleep and slept the rest of the night. The 2nd night was even harder, just because we were beginning to wonder if we were making progress at all. Again, after about an hour and 20 minutes, she fell asleep for the rest of the night. We agreed that we would give it a try for one more night, and if we weren't seeing improvement, then we would decide it wasn't for us. To our surprise, on the 3rd night she slept all the way through, not waking at all!!! We were both happy we stuck with it, and she is now sleeping through the night pretty much every night (with the exception of one night here and there). It is pure bliss!!!! She still goes down to bed at 8:00pm every night, and wakes at about 7am. She continues to take 2 naps per day, each lasting about 1 hour-1 hour and a half. We switched her over to the Halo sleep sacs a couple of months ago, and they are working well.

Food:
Peyton is a great eater!! So far with solids, she has liked everything we have given her. Some of the new things she is eating now are tofu (diced up and rolled in cracker crumbs so its easier for her to pick up), banana, papaya and green beans. She loves her "puffs," which are tiny crackers that help her learn to chew, but that melt in her mouth quickly so there is less chance of choking. She continues to receive breast milk through a bottle, about 6-7oz every 3-4 hours during the day.

Clothing:
Peyton is currently wearing 9-18 month clothing.

Christmas:
Peyton has a great first Christmas!! On Christmas eve, we went over to Jan and Tom's house where we had dinner and gifts. Peyton was very spoiled! Christmas morning started off at home with just the three of us. We opened gifts and played with some toys at home. From there we went over to Nana and Papa's house to celebrate with them. We even found out that Peyton will be getting a new cousin this July!! We were so happy to hear the news from Colin and Anna, and can't wait to meet the new little Minzel. She also got to open gifts with her Sumi cousins, Kalei, Mason and Alex. After Nana and Papa's, we headed over to Kirkpatrick's and celebrated there. Peyton sure received lots of love and gifts from the family, and I think she had a great time.

Milestones:

• Crawling: Peyton started crawling at about 7 1/2 months
• Grabbing food: She has mastered being able to pick up a piece of food and feed herself
• Sippy Cup use: We started her on a sippy cup the week of her 8 month birthday. She is continuing to work on the use of it.
• Sitting up: She definitely has sitting up down, and can even go from a laying down position to sitting up on her own, and therefore we had to lower the crib to its lowest level for safety purposes.
• Clapping: She loves to mimic us and clap her hands together.
• Waving: This one she is still working on, but will sometimes mimic us and wave bye-bye.
• Words: Continues to say Da-da, and now also is saying Ma-ma more often. On occasion, she will also say Ba-ba as well. I don't think she is yet saying these words to the person or item. She also plays copycat with sounds, if we make a sound then she can make a sound back.
• Big girl bath: We bought Peyton a new bathtub to go inside the big bathtub now that she is sitting up. She has lots more room to play and loves her bath toys that she got for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa Kirkpatrick.

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!!!!