The last several nights have been doozies thanks to a combination of teething, growth spurt, and a cold. My 9-month-old has woken multiple times in the night, and sometimes required settling twice before I have even gotten back to sleep once! So, I thought it would help me keep my sanity perspective to take a moment to celebrate one teeny tiny sleep milestone.

You see, my firstborn did not fall asleep without nursing until she was over two years old. My second mastered that glorious skill a little sooner. My third, ever-proving that each child is different, often refused to fall asleep by nursing at all, and would instead require me to pace the floor, holding her just so, facing outward, never in. But last night, even as I knew I was facing an endless night of wakings, I celebrated one wonderful moment. My daughter nursed as usual, then popped herself off and rolled around on the bed. When it was clear she wasn’t going to settle on her own, I picked her up and gave a brief thought to pacing the floor, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I tried to get her to rest on my chest. She thrashed a little but I rubbed her back and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” That’s all it took. She rolled off my chest into the crook of my arm, her head resting on my shoulder, and drifted off to sleep. Thank goodness for small victories!

Today I feature a gorgeous photo of a four-month-old baby nursing. I think the tags for this breastfeeding photo say it all: baby, infant, newborn, davey, nursing, breastfed, breastfeeding, eat, milk, love

My little Nicole isn’t so little anymore as she topped the scales today at 20 pounds 6 ounces at her nine-month well baby visit! She is 28.5 inches long, which puts her pretty much in the 75th percentile for both weight and height.

She’s healthy and happy and has four teeth, as you can see in this blurry photo from my camera phone. I could hardly get her to sit still for the second it takes to snap a picture!

Over the weekend she climbed the entire flight of stairs as I followed her right behind. It’s a new world and I definitely need to be extra vigilant now! She can stand unsupported for short periods of time, and seems poised to take her first steps. I am in no particular rush for that to happen, although both my older girls were actually easier to care for once they could walk and did not need to rely on me so much to get at the things that caught their fancy!

Breastfeeding continues to go well. She nurses as desired throughout the day and night. She naps 3-4 times per day — a catnapper as I said before — and wakes 3-4 times at night. I readily admit that I don’t enjoy getting up with her for even the minute it takes me to nurse her back to sleep, but we co-sleep and I fall back asleep quickly.

She enjoys solid food and eats a modified version of whatever the rest of us eat for each meal. Vegetables, fruit, beans, little bits of meat. She sits at the table with us, feeds herself, and makes a grand mess!

We follow a delayed and selective vaccination schedule based on The Vaccine Book. Nicole got two vaccinations today, and that went surprisingly well. The first was the oral rotavirus vaccine. After an unavoidable round of antibiotics for an ear infection a couple of months ago, she knows the drill about taking “medicine” and she swallowed this stuff just fine. Then came the dreaded shot. I got ready to nurse her, as breastfeeding helps with pain management, but she knew what was going to happen and decided she wanted to watch. I always warn her that she will get a shot, that it will be an “ouch,” and then it will be over. I fully believe she understands me and deserves to be told what to expect. Today she cried for a second after the shot, but stopped when I said it was “all done.” She then gave the nurse quite the evil eye!

Anyone else with a baby around this age? How is everything going for you?

Without getting into a debate about how much breast or nipple it is appropriate to show in public, I simply want to share this breastfeeding picture as an example how nursing in public often appears. Absolutely no skin (aside from that precious baby’s) shows and many people might assume the baby is sleeping and not nursing.

Do I think all mothers need to be this discreet in order to nurse in public? Absolutely not. I believe a mother should do what is necessary and what she is comfortable doing to nurse her baby in public.

Nicole, also known as Baby on the Go, turned eight months old this week. To celebrate, she learned to climb up the bottom step of the stairs. She was not quite sure what to do once she got there, but she was thoroughly proud of herself nonetheless. Today she moved on to pulling herself up to standing by holding on to the toilet seat (lovely — we practiced hand-washing after that) and pulling toilet paper off the roll. I had finally cured my now 4-year-old of enjoying the thrill of unraveling all the toilet paper, apparently just in time for Nicole to take over the responsibility!

As far as nursing goes, we are still going strong, day and night. Nursing has helped us get through a recent ear infection, and what seems like weeks of teething. I will be SO happy to see those top two teeth come in!

Nicole enjoys many solid foods now, but she definitely gets the vast majority of her nutrition through nursing. She also nurses for comfort. Baby on the Go gets her fair share of bumps, but she is easily soothed by nursing. Some women I talk to are surprised that breastfeeding becomes an invaluable part of the parenting arsenal, but there are many times I am so grateful to be able to comfort my child in that way. What about you? Are you nursing for the nutritional benefits only, or have you become a convert to the non-nutritional benefits of nursing as well?

A while ago when two of my daughters were in school and I “just” had my six-month-old at home, I tried to take advantage of the time to get out this post on the Denny’s nurse-ins. At some point my baby started to fuss and I attempted to nurse her to sleep. No dice. She wouldn’t settle by nursing. Now how exactly did I go from a first-born who would only go to sleep by nursing, to a third-born who often won’t go to sleep by nursing?! Anyway, it became apparent that I would need to take my baby for a walk. I found socks and shoes and put them on (I mention that only because a few of you will recognize how hard it is to put on socks and tie tennis shoes when you are carrying a 17-pound fussy baby), popped my baby in the sling, and headed out the door. It was a little awkward because I had wrapped my left arm around the baby so she could rest her head on me, and with my right I was carrying my keys (no pockets) and an umbrella to shade us a little from the sun.

As I walked around the neighborhood I came upon an older woman who was walking her chihuahua (that 4-H report my daughter did on “How to Choose a Chihuahua” came in handy for that little detail, see?) The woman looked at me and exclaimed, “You have your hands full!” It’s a comment I hear a lot lately, whether I have one child or three in tow. I gave my standard reply, “Yes, she’s great!” even as I was juggling the baby, the keys, and the umbrella. The woman nodded and said wistfully, “You’re lucky. I wish I was younger.”

Intellectually I know that when the house is quiet someday, and my hands are free, I will miss these intense baby days. But in the thick of it, it didn’t hurt to have that little reminder to appreciate this time.

I thought I would update how Nicole is doing at six months of age.

Solid Foods

Nicole continues to enjoy trying new solid foods. As you can see, mashed ripe avocado is one of her favorites! Just as with breastfeeding, I believe in baby-led solid food feeding. She feeds herself with her fingers or with a spoon that I have pre-loaded for her with food. She controls how much she gets, and I make sure to take her out of the high chair before she ever gets upset. I want that feeding chair to be a happy place! It must be working because she certainly is an enthusiastic eater so far!

Measurements

At six and a half months I took her in for her six-month well baby visit with the pediatrician. I would have taken her in earlier, but we both had rotavirus and I completely forgot about the appointment! So, at 6.5 months she weighed 17 pounds, 11.5 ounces, and was 27 inches in length. That puts her in the 75th and 90th percentiles on the CDC growth charts. I have yet to translate it to the WHO charts because that requires me to convert from pounds to kilograms and inches to centimeters, and that’s just too much math at the moment, even with on-line conversion calculators. I just look at Nicole and know that she’s doing fine — that’s all I need to know!

Sleep

When Nicole was getting her two bottom teeth in she woke up more often at night, every hour or two. Now that they are in and she’s not yet working on her top teeth, she is thankfully back to sleeping in four hour stretches or more.

She’s started crawling, and that could have contributed to the extra night-waking too. She wants to practice her abilities to roll around, push up on all fours, and crawl right off the mattress (which is on the floor for that very reason).

Reflux

For the record, and for all those mothers out there wondering when the spit-up will stop, please oh please make it stop, at six months Nicole only spits up occasionally rather than after every feeding. There was significant improvement some time after she turned five months old, both in the frequency and volume of spit up. She never had a problem to the point that I was concerned, especially in light of the fact that she was certainly growing well, not projectile vomiting, and not showing any worrying signs of food allergies. Still, I am not sorry to see the spit-up lessen!

And you?

Anyone else out there just starting to introduce solid foods? How is it going?

For this latest installment in the Mom-to-Mom question and answer series, I hope you will leave a comment to help a mom struggling with something familiar to many us — getting a good night’s sleep! Even if you don’t have some suggestions, I imagine you have some experience and empathy! Read on for my summary of top tips and past articles on the subject. Read more