Elsie Marie - 10 Months

Elsie Marie is now 10 months old!  I absolutely love this stage she is in.  I have enjoyed most stages but this stage definitely has it positives.  We took these pictures on 10/15 and the weather was absolutely beautiful as you can tell by her wearing a short sleeve top.  We spent quite a bit of time outside on this particular afternoon.  

Growth

Elsie had to go to the doctor a week or so ago and her weight there was 18 lbs 6.5oz so over the course of three weeks she gained a whopping 3 oz.  From what I understand that is pretty typical with how busy she is.  She is pretty much only 12M pants, onesies, and one piece outfits.  She sitll fits in some 6M shirts.  I love getting her dressed into her fall clothes.  I was ready to trade in the summer clothes for the warm ones.  

Eating

Elsie has been eating pretty good these days.  Her typical daily menu hasn't changed too much.  

6:00 AM  - 6 oz bottle of formula

7:15 AM - oatmeal or wheat cereal with fruit

10:00 AM - 4 oz bottle, snack 

12:00 -Lunch-yogurt and a veggie

1:30 - 4-6 oz bottle of formula

4:00 - 4-6 oz of formula, snack

5:30 PM - Dinner, this varies sometimes it is avocado and fruit, a meat/veggie blend, or just fruit and veggie

6:45 PM - 6-8 oz bottle of formula

She still loves her finger food and I have been trying to give her more of than but I did end up going to get more baby food.  We need to work on the more chunkier textures, she still kind of gags when we try things that has a little bit more texture to it.  We didn't get a lot of new food checked off the list this month.  One of the first things we tried was egg yolk.  Well on the third day after breakfast her face broke out in a rash, like a bad rash.  It was weird.  The pediatrician's off told us to wait and not give her any more egg yolk and try something in a week or two that has cooked egg in it such as egg noodles.  Then if she tolerates that try just a bit of egg yolk again in a week.  Well the very next week she broke out in the same rash on the side of her face that she put against Cinder.  I now believe that she is sensitive to Cinder or to something on Cinder coats because it was almost instantaneous and she hadn't done anything but wake up, drink her bottle and snuggle on the bed with us.  So it was not food related at all that time.  So we shall see.  Beside the egg yolk she has tried turkey and mashed potatoes.  This next month we are really going to be checking things off the list such as beef, noodles, blueberries, strawberries, egg noodles, peanut butter (I am nervous about this one), corn, and cinnamon.  Oh and maybe prunes-I bought them months ago and have never fed them to her.  

Sleep

Elsie's sleep habits have once again changed and this time it is for the good.  This has been a WONDERFUL month in regards to sleep.  Shortly after her 9 Month post she started sleeping through the night.  Like no wake ups and I contribute this change to the wonderful makers of the Halo Sleepsacks.  I was worried about Elsie being cold and she had started getting attached to having a blanket in her crib which I was not okay with so I went out and got a size medium sleep sack.  We used them until Elsie was about 3 months old and then stopped.  Ever since that first night she wore one to bed 4 weeks ago she has slept through the night (except 4 nights when she was sick and would wake up when she would cough).  She has been doing great at laying down for her naps and sleeping for a decent amount of time.  About 45-60 minutes in the morning and about 1.5 hours in the afternoon.  She just stopped waking up for a nighttime bottle.  She does sometimes still wake up between 4:30-6:00 so we will bring her to our room to sleep for another 30-60 minutes, however the past two mornings she has slept until 6:00.  This makes me one happy mama!  And to top it off she did this all while getting 5 teeth!  

Typical Sleep Schedule

4:30-6:00 AM - Wakes up, comes and sleeps with us and sometimes gets a bottle if she won't fall back to sleep in our bed either. Some mornings lately we have to wake her around 6:30 to get her ready to go.  The past few weeks when we are home it has been closer to 7:00 :).  

8:30 AM - Goes down for her morning nap-sleeps for about 45 min-1 hour

1:30 PM - goes down for her afternoon nap - sleeps for about 1-2 hours

6:30-6:45 PM-We start to get ready for bed.  Routine is still bath if it is bathnight, play in her room for a few minutes, change into bedtime diaper (Flip Organic Insert, Fleece Liner, and Flip Cover), then PJ's (onesie, either cotton or fleece sleeper, then fleece sleepsack, then we three books, sing a couple songs, say some prayers, and then her nighttime bottle.  If she is really tired I might do songs and prayers while she is drinking her bottle.  

Development

This past month has been so fun with Elsie.  She has so much energy is really into exploring the world around her.  She is looking into cabinets now, loves to play hide and seek and is pretty good and finding me under the blanket.  The other day I hid my phone under the chair in the family room and she found it.  One of her favorite activities is climbing up the stairs. Up until about a week ago all she wanted to do was climb up, now she wants to come down so we have been working on that.  She actaully likes to climb up anything.  She has been trying so hard to get up on the couch and is successful when she can find something to use as a step.  She tries to climb up her little walk behind toy and loves to push it around.   She is waving bye-bye more and more and claps her hands in excitiement but I found hates to do anything on demand haha.  I just can't get enough of her shrieks and giggles.  We broke out a new toy that we got from one of our baby showers and you have to put the ball into a hole and it winds down the octopus.  The first day I brought it out she didn't really know what to do with the balls, the second day she tried to put the balls in the hole and she was way off mark and by the third day she was getting really good at getting them in.  Sometimes though she doesn't want to let go of them. She stands on her own for extended amounts of time and can go from furniture to furniture without having a hand on something whole time.  We have also noticed that she enjoys to play with more complex toys.  

Speech

She is talking sooo much and is copying the sounds we make.  She says "woof" when I say that is what a doggie says. I love to hear all of her inflection in her "words".  The other day I swear she says hi when you put the phone up to her ear.  She says mama and dada all the time and when something is exciting to her she will say "oooohhh".  

Teeth

Elsie's first two teeth came in relatively easy, in fact I didn't even know she was getting them.  This past month she got in five more teeth.  She got four teeth on the top about two weeks ago.  They took forever to come in but we noticed very little symptoms.  She wears a Baltic Amber Teething Necklace during the day and I would like to believe this is helping ease the symptoms.  Other than that we haven't had to do anything else for her and she has been sleeping well at night.  Then this past weekend we found another tooth had popped on her bottom so her tooth count is 3 on the bottom and 4 on the top.  

Elsie absolutely loves to be outside.  I told John the other day how I always feel like she is so busy all the timne and doesn't like to sit still at all but then I thought more about it and we can go for an hour long walk in the stroller and she does great the entire time!  Same thing for long car rides.  In the picture above Elsie was trying to get to our neighbor who was mowing their yard.  She loves the vacuum and the lawn mower.  It was so funny the way she was crawling because she didn't want to get her knees on the sidewalk.  She LOVES her doggie (not just Cinder) but a stuffed one that she got from my parents last year for Christmas.  She enjoys carrying that thing around everywhere and she will go get it when I ask her where her doggie is. 

Here is her bunny picture for the month.  No more laying down for this.  

We were pretty busy this past month.  We went to two different orchard/fall markets, she spent her first night away from Mommy and Daddy, she got to meet her new cousin Piper, and another new friend was born this month.  Hunter Harold Briggs was born on October 7th.  We have gone to story time at the library a few times and have gone on lots of walks enjoying this beautiful fall weather.  We are looking forward to celebrating her first Halloween this next month!