Life, Really Blog

Corbin was 9 months old on December 22. He’s getting to be such a little man!Size

Corbin doesn’t have his 9-month appointment for another couple weeks so I’ll have to come back and update this with his height and weight stats. He’s still wearing 12-18 month clothing and size 5 diapers. I don’t know what size shoe he wears because we haven’t had him wear shoes yet 🤦‍♀️. We put a pair on his Christmas list.

Sleeping

In the last couple of weeks, Little Bud has settled into more of a “schedule” — he now wakes up at the more reasonable hour of 7 AM, stays up 3 hours between naps, and usually takes two naps a day lasting between 1.5-2 hours. His bedtime is around 6:30/7:00 PM. He still wakes up once a night between 3 and 4 AM, and almost always goes right back to sleep after I nurse him. Sometimes he needs me to rock him, which I am more than happy to do because #babiesdontkeep.

Corbin still sucks his thumb, but only when he’s hungry or tired. Most of the time, we put him down in his crib awake and he falls asleep on his own. He loves his crib projector, which plays music and projects images onto the ceiling.

Corbin got another tooth on the top (4th on top, 6th overall), and is getting another one on bottom (3rd on bottom). Teething makes him a little crabby, and hard to get to sleep, but otherwise, he is a very easygoing, happy baby!

Eating

Corbin usually nurses right when he wakes up, before each nap, and before bed (so roughly 4 times a day). I’ve also started giving him a 4 oz bottle of formula before nursing him, since I don’t produce much milk anymore (though Corbin does still like nursing).

Corbin also eats solid foods about halfway through his awake time, so breakfast around 8:30 AM, lunch around 12 noon, and dinner around 4 PM. I say “around” because I just feed him whenever he seems hungry, and when it works for whatever else we’re doing at the time. I definitely don’t have the brain power to keep track of things like I did for either one of the girls!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but I’m pretty sure Corbin is lactose intolerant like Annabelle, so I’ve started buying him lactose sensitive formula and feeding him soy yogurt, and stopped feeding him cheese (which is unfortunate, because he loves cheese).

Corbin’s favorite foods are baby cereal/oatmeal, avocado, puffs, peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, and yogurt. Other new foods he tried this month were blackberries, PB&J sandwich, and fish.

Development

Just in the past week, Corbin has started army crawling in addition to steamrolling, so he’s now into everything–and he’s fast! He also puts everything in his mouth (like most other babies) so we have to be extra vigilant about keeping small things out of his reach–challenging with two other kids who make messes, and have small toys like Barbie accessories and Shopkins. It’s nice, though, that the girls are both old enough to at least understand that he can’t have small things.

Corbin can clap his hands, hold toys in both hands, and roll onto his belly from sitting. He still can’t really support himself standing (even when we stand him up leaning against something), but he has improved from a month ago, so we just have to keep working with him on it.

Corbin still likes to squawk and squeal but hasn’t made any consonant noises like mama or dada.

His favorite toys are anything that fits in his mouth, but he’s also fascinated by wheels (our toy stroller, toy shopping cart, and Barbie car are favorites). He also likes to dump out our bin of Duplos and find the cars.Corbin loves to hit/throw things against the floor to make noise. One evening, he was sitting in his high chair hitting the end of a plastic baby spoon against the tray. Every once in a while, he’d accidentally hit his other hand with the spoon, and start crying. It was hilarious.

The girls love to carry Corbin around, and don’t hesitate to pull him across the floor if/when he’s getting into something he shouldn’t (like Christmas presents or dirty shoes). Corbin takes it like a champ, though sometimes he does get mad if you take away a toy he was really enjoying.Corbin still loves going outside, and our usual routine in the winter now is to walk down the driveway to get the mail (we have a long driveway), and then swing for 5-10 minutes on our swing set. If we ever get some snow (!), I’ll be able to take him sledding a bit too. He liked it before our snow melted!

And that’s Corbin at 9 months!

Tags: 9 months, baby, Corbin

Mr. Bud (as he is often called these days) turned 8 months old on November 22,  Thanksgiving Day. He didn’t eat any Thanksgiving food, as he was taking a nap when we ate.

Size

Corbin is wearing all 12-month clothing now (and starting to dabble in 12-18 month size), and still in size 5 diapers. I compared his height to the girls at this age, and he’s on par with where they were, so not sure why the percentiles say he’s a shorty (maybe the percentiles are different for boys?).Eating

Corbin is doing well with table food. He has tried quite a few more foods, including peanut butter, toast, shrimp, saltine crackers, goldfish, pears, mandarin oranges, taco meat, and random bites of things we’re having that are soft enough for him to eat. (With the girls, I really tried to stick to the “only one new food per day” policy to make it easy to determine allergies, but we haven’t been really doing that with him…)

Corbin has been doing really well feeding himself little pieces of cheese, puffs, fig bar, and crackers, and would rather feed himself than have us spoon-feed him. When he’s done eating, he waves his hands in front of his face while you’re trying to give him a bite, sending the food everywhere. Or if he’s done with what’s on his tray, he hits the tray and the food goes flying.I’m still nursing, though taking a much more lax approach to it these days. I only pump once a day at work, meaning Corbin frequently drinks formula on the days I work, at bedtime if Travis puts him down, and when we check him into the church nursery. I never pump at home anymore either. I’m just over it.

Another thing about nursing that I don’t think I’ve mentioned on the blog is that since he was about 5 months old, Corbin has refused to nurse anywhere noisy. Even at home, he has to be in his room, with the door closed, fan on. If either girl comes in and interrupts, it’s over. Then he just keeps pulling off to look around. Same with in public — even if he’s under a cover, he’ll nurse just long enough for my milk to let down, then he pulls off to look around. So I just don’t nurse him in public, ever. And now that he can eat food, it’s not really necessary anyway. But sometimes it would be nice!Sleeping

Corbin got his two top middle teeth this month. He is kind of a bear when he’s teething. Several nights, he’s been tired and ready to go to bed, but refuses to go to sleep, even after we’ve given him meds. There have been a few nights that we’ve resorted to taking him on a drive to get him to sleep, and then letting him sleep in his carseat (in his room) as long as he will. Then he’ll nurse and go to sleep in his crib.

There was a period of time this month, too, where he was routinely waking up around 10:30 after going to bed around 5:30. But things are already a blur so I can’t remember much else about that.

In general, Corbin goes to sleep around 5:30, wakes up once around 3 AM, and then is up for the day around 5 AM. He’s also extended his awake time to 2 to 2.5 hours between naps (most of the time).Development

Corbin has started reaching for people to hold him–usually it’s me, but he gets excited to see Daddy, Nana, and his Nanny too.

He’s still steamrolling and pivoting to get to what he wants–no crawling yet. I’ve tried showing him how to get up on his knees, but he doesn’t seem to want to put any weight on his arms. He puts a little weight on them when he’s on his belly, but not like he would if he were crawling. He also doesn’t seem to like to put weight on his legs–I’ve been trying to get him to stand up at a small activity table we have, and he’s now to the point where he’ll stand for 10-15 seconds, then he bends his legs.

But he’s doing really well sitting up on his own now without falling over.Corbin is a smiley little boy.He loves to shriek and talk, but it is really hard to get him to laugh. He only laughs if he finds something absolutely hilarious. Emma is usually the one to get him to laugh, and usually it’s when she’s doing something that I wouldn’t think he’d even like, like hold him still in his outdoor infant swing up in the air facing down toward the ground. He thought that was hilarious. She also put these cone-shaped Christmas trees on her hands and Corbin laughed for almost 10 minutes.

Emma and Annabelle love Corbin so much, and frequently play with him, and ask to hold him.Corbin’s favorite thing to do these days is be outside. He can be crabby and whiny, even while we get his snowsuit on, but the minute he’s outside, he doesn’t make a peep. Since he loves it so much, my goal is to get outside with him every day for at least 10 minutes. (Doesn’t sound like much, but it will be a challenge when it’s -20 outside!) He also still loves swinging, but doesn’t really like jumping in his jumperoo anymore. When he’s inside, he’s happiest lying on the floor, rolling around, chewing on toys.

And that’s Corbin at 8 months!

Tags: 8 months, baby, Corbin