Weight: 20/21 lbs
Clothes: 12 to 18 months. Thank goodness this girl got some new clothes for Christmas!
Diapers: Size 4! Made another move up this past month. She will be wearing Lottie's old diapers in another month or two! :)
Eating: This child is an eater Her most favorite thing to do is EAT! She is still taking in anywhere from 30 to 32 oz each day. A typical day when she's going to daycare is:
6:15 a.m.: 6 oz
9:15 a.m.: 1 container of baby food
9:30 a.m.: 6 oz
12:15 p.m.: 1 container of baby food
12:30 a.m.: 6 oz
3:30 p.m.: 6 oz
6:00 p.m.: 6 to 8 oz
Snacks: Puffs, yogurt melts
Yep, still an eater. She stays on a pretty tight schedule through the week, but Steve and I swear she goes on a full on feeding frenzy on the weekends. She has to take in around 36 oz a day sometimes. I've never seen anything like it. Her favorite foods are sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, apples, bananas. She still hates rice cereal! She tried puffs and yogurt melts this past month for the first time and has grown to like them. It took her a minute to figure out how to feed herself, but she's slowly figured out how to get them from hand to mouth. Although, most times I see them thrown all over the floor, so not sure how many are actually going into her mouth.
Sleep: She hates to nap. She usually has two naps every day. The one mid morning usually lasts around an hour to an hour and a half. The one in the afternoon generally only lasts 30 minutes. While Stella still sleeps like a rock star through the night, she's had a hard time putting herself to sleep this past month. We've had to break out the ole Ferber method and let her cry it out when we put her down. We've been pretty adamant about putting her down between 7 and 7:30 p.m. depending on her level of sleepiness. She's never screamed more than 25/30 minutes at a time and has gone all the way down to only 5 minutes of crying. I generally try to keep myself really busy during that time by folding laundry, cleaning, anything to keep my mind off the "screams". I hate it, but I think it is definitely easier with baby #2! Lottie will sometimes say, "I can't hear anything, make Stella stop crying!" :) Like I said, once Stella goes down, she is down, we don't hear from her again until the sun comes up.
****Not much has changed this past month other than her waking up around 3/4 a.m. She lays there talking / cooing and puts herself back to sleep within 10 or 15 minutes.
On a side note, she is still doing her breathing treatments at night so most times it puts her out which is a good and bad thing. She usually falls asleep which means she isn't fighting me when I am giving her the treatment (awesome). On the other hand, I would rather her put herself to sleep in her crib. Oh well, I'm not going to worry about it too much. There are far bigger things to worry about!
Crying: Stella....................................... While you seem like a happy baby most times, you are a crier!!! She is still crying!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess no two babies are alike! Isn't that the reason we all try for #2 anyways???? Everything is sooooooooooooo perfect the first go around and we think it will be just the same with #2..... Ha, yeah right! I remember my mom always told me that I was the easy baby and my sister was "difficult".
Milestones: This past month has been full of smiles, laughs and very loud little girly screams. I swear she has the sweetest smile and spirit. She loves being tickled and sitting up right. She's gotten much better at tummy time. She has hated it from day one and still doesn't love it, but she's starting to really support herself and even scooting backwards and turning. Now if she could just build some more upper body strength to support that big body of hers, she might start crawling in a month or so. Lottie started crawling around the 8.5 month mark. Her favorite thing is to sit her up on the floor or couch and let her have at it with her toys. She loves banging them on the floor. She also loves to yell and scream. She loves music! She also loves "peek a boo" and when I make silly faces. She loves to rock back and forth like a psycho in her exersaucer. She gets more "air" in her jumper that hangs in the doorway than I've ever seen any child do.
This month also marked Stella being able to use those legs of hers to stand! She's not 100% standing on her own, but I imagine within the next month, she will be stronger and standing with little to no help. When I stand her up beside the couch or toys, I'm always there to catch her, but like I said, in another month or so, she'll be good golden when it comes to standing.
We are still at the stage where everything she touches goes immediately in her mouth. I know that won't be changing for a very long time!! I am waiting for the call from day care stating she's got hand/foot/mouth disease or thrush. If I recall correctly, Lottie got hand/foot/mouth disease at 8 months old. Good ole daycare for ya! Still waiting for the call............
We still have NO teeth. Lottie got her first two bottom teeth at 6 months. Like I said, I guess no two babies are the same! I'm sure she can't wait to get her teeth as much as she loves to eat!
Sibling Love: WOW, Stella loves her sister. Her face lights up when Lottie enters the room or speaks to her. Her favorite is when her sister dances or bounces up and down in front of her. She lets out the biggest belly laughs. When she sees Lottie playing with her toys, she wants to be a part of it. Lottie is constantly petting her head, trying to force a paci in her mouth or tugging on her hands. The tugging of the hands and arms has gotten out of control! I don't know how many times a day I have to tell Lottie to leave Stella's hands alone! I rarely leave the two of them alone in the room! That Lottie can't be trusted! Usually Stella is the one who's oohhhhinngggg and ahhhhhing over her sister. But this past month, Lottie has really taken an interest in Stella. She's constantly telling me how much she loves playing with Stella. She's normally snatching things out of Stella's hands or telling me to tell Stella to stop eating her princess and give it back...... And so it begins.................. Honestly though, Lottie has been a huge little helper this past month. Anytime Stella cries, Lottie is right there telling her it will be okay. I really love watching their relationship bloom. The way Stella looks at Lottie like she is already her idol just melts my heart.
Likes: EATING, sucking on her hands, taking a bath, putting her warm jammies on at the end of the day, seeing her daddy walk in the door from work, playing with sissy when she's not poking or prodding her, sitting up, playing with her new piano toy, pressing buttons/playing/swaying side to side like a psycho in her exercauser, putting any and everything in her mouth, standing up and being tickled.
Dislikes: Being hungry, napping and big sister tugging on her arms and hands.
