9 Months, 1 week

Sorry not updated for a while. Been quite busy.

The BLW with Callum, nearly came to a head! Callum had reached the 9 month mile stone and still wasn't consuming that much solid food. He would pick and play with his food but didn't actually consume much at all. At 9 months, babies tend to have used up their store of iron and other nutrients that they have at birth so they really need to be replenishing it with food (rather than milk). Stuart thought we should buy some jars of purées and give him one every day. I really didn't want to do this as I really believed in the BLW concept and I felt like this was admitting defeat or giving in too early. It was probably pigheadedness on my part too and a fear of "I told you so" from the doubters, which I know isn't a real reason to dig my heals in and continue with it.

I knew that other people, when their child is around 9 months, only give their child 3 milks a day. The BLW book says to let your baby decide when to drop milk etc and to be lead by him/her. However, this wasn't working for us as Callum wasn't eating enough food to enable him to drop any of his milk. So, I thought we should try switching to 3 milks a day. This would mean that Callum would get to eat food first and then milk later rather than getting full up on milk and not wanting food. I suggested this to Stuart and thought we should try it for a week (until next food shop) and he agreed to try it. Our new timetable is:

7-7.30am - milk

8-8.30am - breakfast

9.30am - nap

12noon - lunch

1.30pm - milk

2pm - nap

5.30pm - dinner

7.15pm - milk

7.30pm - bedtime

Hooray! It seems to have worked! The next day, we were out at lunch and I had macaroni cheese. I was going to give him a couple of mouthfuls but he ended up eating about a third of it and I had to buy a banana too as he was still hungry, which he ate nearly all of. He has continued to do well at lunch and dinner ever since. Breakfast is still a bit hit or miss as this is the only meal he has after milk (might be worth thinking about changing this round too). He has between 1/2 and a whole wheatabix. However, he now eats pretty well for both lunch and dinner. Now I don't know where he puts it all! It is such a relief.

Callum had also started to get quite lazy about feeding himself. Rather than grabbing the spoon, he would just open his mouth for us to spoon feed him. I think this is because we swapped his chair to the other side of the table to give Lotté a bit of piece while eating. This meant his stronger feeding arm (his right) was further away from whoever was feeding him, so he didn't try to hold the spoon. We have moved him back to the other side and he has started to feed himself a bit more now. I do get a bit impatient with him when he starts banging the spoon in between mouthfuls as the food goes everywhere.

We now have 4 teeth in total. We were having quite a tough week of it last week as his two top teeth tried to come through. We actually had it quite good compared to what other parents suffer with teething - it was more a pain than anything else. Rather than going to sleep at 7.30pm, it would take him about an hour to go off, so 8.30pm. He would then wake up between 11.15 and 11.30pm and need resettling (which actually only took a couple of strokes to his face), then would wake up at 6am instead of 7am. So not too bad but I preferred his usual routine!

It was also very hot last week which I don't think helped. We just didn't know what to dress him in to go to bed. It was often 26 degrees in his bedroom with the window open. Should we put him in a gro-bag or not? What should he wear, just nappy, body suit or babygrow? Would he wake up cold in the night? Such fun!

Still no crawling yet. I'm not worried and quite enjoying the fact that Callum stays pretty much where he is put and I don't need eyes in the back of my head yet. Stuart is paranoid that he is falling behind because a friend's baby, who is younger, is crawling all over the place! The danger of comparing your child to others!

That said, although Callum isn't crawling, he is so much happier on his front and sometimes sleeps on his front. He has occasionally tried to pull himself into some sort of crawling position in an attempt to reach an object just out of reach but he doesn't appear to be strong enough yet and seems a way off being able to. Though I have heard it all seems to happen in the space of a week when it does happen!

I'm trying to get Callum to wave, clap and I have started to repeat more words to him now too. Things like Ta or thank you. With the waving and clapping, he is fascinated and watches me very closely but doesn't do it himself. I'm sure I've caught him trying to clap once, when he thought I wasn't looking but got all shy and wouldn't do it when I saw him and tried to praise him. Bless!

Think that brings us up to date. Really looking forward to our holiday in a couple of weeks time :o)