Whew! I’ve legit been working on this post since Friday of last week!!! It’s a beast 🙂 Brittlynn was 9 months old from Sept 6th through Oct 5th (her 10th month of life). Here’s a nice million-picture-filled post covering her month!
Eating: Baby Led Weaning is still going beautifully. My favorite thing about it is that we can ALL eat together as a family without one of our food getting cold while we feed the baby. Brittlynn loves it too! Although, I have to say, so far she prefers every food group other than vegetables. If she ends up not being a veggie fan then I don’t know WHAT I’ll do with #3…the main reason I did Baby Led Weaning was in hopes that she’d enjoy her vegetables more than Kye enjoys eating them. We’ll see!!!! Her pincher grasp fully developed this month. She can also pick up food that drops in her lap while she’s eating
New favorite food: corn on the cob!
Brittlynn gets fussy when we are eating something that she’s not eating. It amazes me how quickly she realizes that we have stuff she doesn’t have on her tray. Kye is JUST now more aware of that and at 9 months old she gets it. Haha. Kye got a cookie and Britt fussed and fussed about it so…
She got her first cookie too! (I use Goya cookies…they are basically a teething biscuit)
More corn on the cob
Chowing down and saying “So big!”
She LOVES corn!
Thankfully she loves corn because watermelon season is over so this was her last piece of watermelon till next year!
Haha
Girl LOVES to eat. I love that we have helped her enjoy meal time from such a young age 🙂
She will gladly try anything we give her and she typically loves it! You can tell she enjoyed pasta night…
Seminole girl haha doesn’t it look like Indian war paint?
Sippy: The sippy cup is still going wonderfully. Brittlynn really enjoys water and I give her some every time she eats. She drinks a LOT of it and I think it’s going to really make the transition from nursing to cup drinking smoother. She still isn’t a pro at tilting it up but she never complains about it and seems content with drinking it her way.
Diaper Surprise: With my first child I was able to watch his every move. With baby #2? It’s a little tougher to keep a watchful eye at all times. Proof of that was this little surprise I got while changing her diaper one day. This piece of foil was in her poop. Not a quality parenting moment FOR SURE. But, hey, she passed it so I guess it’s nothing to worry about haha.
“So Big”: Brittlynn’s favorite game is still the “so big” game. She loves it and does it all the time while eating. It’s hilarious and I think she EATS UP the attention she gets from doing it!!! She may take after her Daddy…she’ll do anything for a laugh 😉 Here’s a video
Kye will also do “so big” because when SHE gets attention he then also wants it haha
Her facial expressions crack me up 😉
Standing: Brittlynn pulls up on everything. She can just be touching a wall and get to the standing position. Unfortunately, she also started doing it in the bath tub. This was the first time she did it. In typical Emily fashion I took some pics of her then made her sit down and she hasn’t stood up since 😉
This is her “I’m doing something I’m not supposed to do and I’m loving it” face 😉
Bath buddies!
She spends most of her bath time CRACKING UP and her brother
Here’s a video of them together!
Independent Playtime: While at this age she should be doing independent playtime once a day for a longer time period, I still break it up into two sessions. It just works better for our schedule and I anticipate it probably staying in two sessions for a long time. She does it in the mornings right after breakfast so I can get Kye ready to leave for school then again right after she nurses at 11 so I can get lunch ready for the kids before we pick Kye up from school. As long as we all stay SUPER quiet during her playtime, she does wonderful at it. She has figured out that throwing toys outside the pack and play is a fun game. I don’t get onto her for it because she will learn the natural lesson that once she throws them out, she can’t get them back. I know it’s a phase and don’t want to interrupt the independent playtime to discipline her for it.
Hiding: Kye loves to play hide and seek and Brittlynn has caught on to the hiding game. She is SO cute. She will “hide” her face and then pop out and think it’s hilarious. I could just eat her up 😉 Here’s a video!
TV: Britt’s spankings (pop on the hand with a paint stick) typically come from her throwing food off of her tray at meal time, touching the outlets, and touching the tv. She loves to pull up and cruise on our entertainment center, which is fine. But she often can’t resist the temptation to touch the tv…which is spanking worthy.
Teething: Can this child EVER catch a break?? I mean how many more teeth can she possibly be getting??? She seems like she’s always got a tooth breaking through or on the way. It makes it tough because she is in pain and gets fussier. I do what I can to help her and she does enjoy sucking on the cold ice cubes!
Hair: It’s hard to look at her hair and ever remember that she even went bald in the back! It’s all grown in so nicely and while it’s still way shorter than the hair that never fell out (in the front) it looks totally fine. I actually even have had people ask me if I cut her hair to look like this.
“Hello” Kye has ALWAYS loved toy phones and Brittlynn is the same way. She loves to carry them around and play with them. This month I started saying “hello” whenever she put the phone to her ear. Now if I say “hello” she will put her hand to her ear. It’s super cute 😉 I sent this picture to Mr Rusty and he is obsessed with it. It’s his phone background picture which is so precious to me. He shows it to EVERYONE and loves to brag on his sweet granddaughter. My kids are so blessed with such proud grandparents!
I said “hello” and she put her hand to her ear!
Here’s a video
More phone fun
Just for laughs…
Pop-Up Toy: I had this toy for Kye but I don’t remember him playing with it often? It’s one of Brittlynn’s favorites though! I pop-up all the little animals and she has a blast putting them all back down again. I know it helps build fine motor skills and I love that it’s just a good classic toy. It’s one I’m sure we’ll use with ALL of our babies 🙂 Bonus? No batteries needed!!!
Teeth: Last month Brittlynn was teething so bad and had FOUR teeth coming in at the same time. This month, they all broke through the skin and she started getting two more teeth. On Sept 7th she and Kye were playing and he bumped her a little too hard. She hit the hardwood floor and it made her tooth break through the gums. It bled a little but she was okay. The other two top teeth broke through on Sept 7th as well! By the end of the month she had all four top teeth and three on the bottom with the fourth bottom one starting to come in. Yes. At 9 months old the child had SEVEN teeth!!! Once her teeth broke through my pain with nursing was COMPLETELY gone!!!! She also stopped biting me! Def good to know that those issues WERE totally teething related 😉
Puzzle Time: The time period from naps until bedtime is the longest block during the day where Brittlynn is awake. With her teething it’s a VERY fussy time of the day. It’s tough because Kye and Brittlynn are at such different levels and have different toys they can play with. Most of the things Kye wants to do, Brittlynn can’t do yet. It’s tricky. I decided to pull out some puzzles and let her play while Kye did some play-doh. It went GREAT. It kept her happily content for a solid 15 min. Which is a LONG time in baby time 😉 They both played happily and I sat and talked to Brittlynn about the different puzzle pieces. I feel like she often misses out on quality time with me so it’s a great chance for me to talk to HER on her level while Kye is busy with his play-doh. This is a new thing we’ve started doing much more often. I love it!!!
Yes, I’ve joined instagram! You can follow me here. I really think it’s fun but I don’t like the trend of people only taking pictures with instagram. It’s a TRENDY thing…not something that will be around forever and I def won’t be replacing my camera with my phone anytime soon!!!
She loves taking out all the pieces and Kye and I will tell her the animal sounds they make!
Peek-A-Boo: When Brittlynn is fussy during meal times I try EVERYTHING to make her laugh. One of the things we do is hide behind our hands and do the typical “where is Mommy?” thing and say “peek-a-boo!” Brittlynn has started to catch on and will “hide” herself, wait for us to say “where’s Brittlynn?” then pop out 😉 It’s precious!
Peek-a-boo!!! (here’s a video and another video!)
Your Baby Can Read: I mentioned last month why I haven’t been doing Your Baby Can Read with Brittlynn but also why I might start trying to do it. Like I mentioned in that post, dinner time is tricky! One afternoon I decided to give it another go. I let Kye sit and watch it with her while I made dinner. It went MUCH better than the first time! Kye straight up loved it which is so random to me??? I could hear him repeating all the words and even peeked in on them and saw him copying all the hand motions.
The video said “arms up!”
They lasted almost the entire movie. However, Brittlynn started BAWLING at one point and I asked Kye if she was okay and he said “no ma’am” I rushed in there and she was bent over the seat!!! I guess Kye was so absorbed in the movie that he didn’t notice she had bent down to pick up a toy and couldn’t get back up! I felt so bad for her!!!! I only did the video this one time the whole month. I do think it’s helpful to give me a chance to get things done and I do think it’s something I’ll probably do more in the future.
Little Sister: Brittlynn is the TYPICAL little sister already. She follows Kye around and always wants to do whatever he is doing. It already drives him nuts haha I think it’s precious but I also can see how it would bug him. She tries to grab all of his stuff and he has to now be careful what he plays with when she’s around as I don’t want her to get into anything that could possibly hurt her. It will be good at Christmas time for her to finally have some girly toys to play with 😉 Here’s a video of them playing together. Here’s a video of Kye attempting to read her a story!
Helping brother “fix stuff” with his tools
Here’s a video of them
Putting that hammer to work!
Building blocks together
While I FULLY believe in my kids learning to share with each other. Some toys we just need to have two of. Our fridge magnet set is one such toy. I am putting it on Britt’s birthday/christmas wishlist in hopes someone will buy her one. I drag this thing out when I’m trying to get dinner made or something else done in the kitchen. And they FIGHT over it!!! Having two would allow me to def get more done without having to step in and deal with a whining baby or angry preschooler every five seconds 😉
Brittlynn simply adores her brother. It’s so funny b/c if Zach or I try to get her to do something she won’t do it. Like if we try to make her try something new (like climbing in a big empty box) she’ll fuss and cry. But as soon as Kye does it. She’s ALL about it. He has a responsibility on his shoulders to be a good example because he has a little sister who would def jump off a bridge if he did it first! Their relationship reminds us a lot of Zach and Casey’s as Casey ALWAYS wanted to do whatever Zach did. If he skied down the black diamonds, you better believe Casey was right behind him! Here they are exploring the box 🙂
She was not interested in hiding in the box though 🙂 She left that up for Big Bro to handle!
Kye and Brittlynn play together a lot. It’s wonderful to hear them laughing and getting along so well. I am SHOCKED at how quickly their bond has formed. I thought they wouldn’t be playing together the way they do until they were much older. Kye comes up with all of these fun games and does a great job including her in them. Sure, they may be where he tosses a toy and she goes and gets it only for him to take it from her to toss it again. But it’s still a game of sorts and it keeps them both happily playing!!!! Here’s a video of this game they made up with a ball and I love this video too!
I rarely take them anywhere but when I do I’m always SO proud of their behavior and how well they will ride in the stroller with no complaints!
Things She Shouldn’t: Britt LOVES toys but she also loves to play with things that aren’t really toys at all. Sometimes I use this to my advantage. Gotta cut her nails? Hand her a brush and let her explore it while I cut them…she doesn’t even notice what I’m doing 😉 However, she often gets into “trouble” for her constant curiosity. If she is left alone for a second we will find her with something random in her hands or mouth!!!
This face says it all 😉
Kye is supposed to always put his shoes on the chair in his room when we get home…if he forgets then Brittlynn quickly reminds him!
Vocal: Brittlynn doesn’t talk a lot yet but she does make lots of sounds. She makes a blowing air sound a lot (here’s a video) as well as she smacks her lips all the time. She also makes a motorboat type sound. She also LOVES to do the Seminole Chop! (Here’s a video) She has started to kinda say “done” when she’s finished eating but she wouldn’t do it for me in this video..she just kept signing it haha but she DID say it here!!!!
Outside: As I mentioned, Britt is fussiest in the afternoon time. We have realized one way to cheer her up is to go outside. She LOVES it. She’s a HUGE fan of swinging, just like her brother. The two of them will happily swing all day long if you let them! I am not a big outside fan but she’s trying to turn me into one 😉
She was laughing, I promise 😉
Mirror: I remember around this age Kye fell in LOVE with my mirror (it’s a full length jewelry storage thing…I adore it). Britt is the same way. If we’re in one of the kids rooms and she crawls off I typically find her at my mirror. Laughing and being silly!
Other Stuff Britt was up to This Month:
- We often call Britt “Wild Child” because, well, she’s very wild. Haha She is always on the go and cracks us all up all the time!
- Her 9 month clothes are getting too short but the 12 month stuff is SO baggy on her!
- Whenever she hears any music, even if it’s just us singing, she dances and dances. She has so much rhythm!
- Britt is a busy body…ALWAYS on the move!!!!
- I hear my friends who nurse their babies talk about how sweet and cuddly that time is. Um. Not for me. Brittlynn is NOT a cuddly nurser. She is on and off, on and off, more interested in everything else going on than with laying down and being sweet!
- When she wakes up from her nap while Kye is at school she will look and look for him
- If we give her a bottle she will down 9 oz…yet when I pump I only get 6. I’m not overly concerned with this b/c I feel like it’s probably due to it coming so much quicker from the bottle.
- On Sept 30th she crawled over to me with her mouth opened wide. I puckered up and she gave me a big kiss! It was so sweet!
- She gives super big kisses. On Oct 3rd she finished nursing, pulled up on me, just to kiss me. Melts my heart!
- Britt knows the sign for “all done” very well and knows the meaning of it. She will use it in settings not related to eating. We were swinging and she signed “all done” to let me know she was finished swinging!!
- Britt waves “bye bye” but says “dada” when she does it. I think she does think she’s saying “bye bye”
- She barely holds onto us while she stands up. She’ll just be lightly touching us!
- She LOVES to do the “Seminole chop” almost as much as she does “so big” She also claps constantly. She also gives sweet little “high fives”
- I’ve had multiple people tell me that her head is much smaller in person than it looks in pictures? Kinda random?
- Her sweet fingers get smashed in drawers all the time. Does anyone know a fix for this? I try to rig up toys to keep the drawers from shutting all the way! She pulls the drawers opened then stands against them and her weight shuts it while her hands are still holding on.
- I’ve had to start spanking her legs during diaper changes. She does NOT like to lay still so I tell her to lay still and show her the paint stick then if she squirms around I pop her on the leg and tell her to be still. I then congratulate her and make a big scene about how awesome she is when she does stay still!
- Britt still loves her music table! Here’s a video!
- She has had SUCH a runny nose ALL THE TIME due to all the teething but thankfully she’s getting much better about letting me wipe it and doesn’t fight me so much on it anymore.
- Hairbows are not an accessory for Britt, they are a must have. Her hair is SO LONG in her eyes now. I hate to cut it b/c I don’t like babies with bangs. I’m just trying to be patient for it to grow out long enough where it’s not in her eyes!
- Brittlynn LOVES our pets…here’s a video of her and Sadie playing together 😉
- Finishes nursing SUPER fast. Like 10 min total for both sides.
- She loves to share her food and will laugh and laugh when we pretend to eat it
- I started taking the extra effort to read HER a story before her naps and bedtime. So now Kye hears two stories but I feel it’s important to read to Brittlynn. Reading my old posts about how much Kye enjoyed his story time at this age really made me start to think about how Brittlynn will typically crawl around and play when I read Kye stories. Making this extra effort to read HER stories is really paying off. She LOVES touch and feel books and enjoys turning the pages. I’m thankful I started doing this with her!
- When I lay Britt down to go to sleep she will immediately sit back up and crawl over to the side of the crib so I will pick her up, kiss on her, then lay her back down. She giggles and giggles and then falls right to sleep 🙂
Here’s more pics of my sweet girl from this month:
Schedule at 9 Months Old:
7:15: Up for the day. Diaper change then nurse
Following nursing: breakfast as a family
Following solids: independent playtime for 20 minutes
8:45: Read short board type book together
8:45-9:00: Down for nap
11:00-11:15: Britt up from nap, diaper change then nurses
Following nursing: independent playtime for 20 minutes while I fix lunch
After independent playtime: Lunch as a family
12:45: Read short board type book together
12:45-1:00: Down for nap
3:15-3:45: Up from nap, nurses (I let her sleep longer this nap since she doesn’t have the evening cat nap anymore…she typically wakes up around 3:30)
4:00: Wake Kye up
6:00: Dinner as a family
6:30 (or right after dinner): Bath time, kids bathe together
6:45ish: Nurse
Right after nursing: Read board book and say prayers as family then goes to bed for the night (try to have her in the bed before 7:20)
On Sept 9th we went swimming and she just REALLY started to enjoy the
water. She was licking it up with her tongue while I had her “swim” I
even dunked her completely under the water twice and she didn’t mind it
one bit! Future mermaid on our hands! It was SO SO fun and I just really wanted to capture her wonderful mood. I feel like so much lately she’s just miserable. I remember when Kye would be getting teeth I would feel like I still LOVED him but just didn’t really like him. A teething baby can be tough to handle…especially with her getting so many so close together. I want to cherish the sweet times so I can remember them during the tougher times! When we came inside she was still all giggly and cute but insisted on being held in my arms. I wanted a picture of her and realized the only way I’d get one was to be in it! So off to the bathroom we went 😉
We are making the same face in this one!
My sweetheart!
Me: Nursing has gotten WAY better. I no longer have ANY pain. Since her teeth popped through all the pain in my nipples stopped and so did her biting. It’s good to finally know the cause of it though!!! If ANYONE has pain like that then I know I can tell them it’s probably teething 😉
This month I had a RANDOM injury. It’s nothing to do with postpartum but I’m still gonna talk about it in this post 😉 We were swimming as a family and Dusty, our polaris, sprayed me straight in the eye with water. It hurt some but I figured it’d go away. Well it didn’t. It kept getting worse and worse. It was SUPER super painful. I figured it’d go away with time but then I posted on FB about it and someone mentioned a movie based on a true story about some girl who dove into a pool and the force that she hit the water with caused damage to her eye and she ended up going blind. Um, no thanks. I took Britt to her 9 month check-up and when Kelly walked in the FIRST thing she said was “you need to go see a dr about your eye, today!!!” I took both kids with me to the eye dr and they behaved beautifully. He said I got VERY lucky that it didn’t do damage and that I had to be very careful with it because I have tear duct plugs and where it hit it could have pushed the plugs further in and caused a lot of issues for me. He gave me lots of drops and said to put ice packs on it and give it time. Thankfully it got better!!! Brittlynn did notttt like when my eye was hurt. Especially not the ice on it.
She would cry and kept touching it sweetly when the ice was on it. I
cut my finger during this month and she would continually try to remove
the bandaid. It’s sweet how she has that naturally mothering instinct already 😉
The redness and puffiness moved into my cheek. How strange is that?!?!?
You can look back at Britt’s 9 Month Summary here…and Kye’s 10 month one here 🙂 They are so much alike in many ways yet also so different. It’s interesting how I’m now officially at the point of nursing her longer than I did him! I’m still 100% nursing her where at this age Kye got 2 bottles of formula a day and 2 bottles of breast milk but was completely weaned from the breast. I also re-watched this video and can’t imagine Zach being that rough with Britt!!!! Must be the difference of having a girl?? I think it may be partially that but also partially b/c she’s a baby. She seems more fragile than Kye does since he’s older so I think we’re more nervous about being rough with her????
