Caeden Elijah - 10 months

Our littlest buddy reading his favorite book, "Pat the Bunny"

Weight: 19 pounds --I said last month that he was 21 pounds; I'm not sure if I just had that wrong or if he's lost 2 pounds. Either way, he's 19 pounds as of the doctor scale last week. He's so tiny (yet longer) compared to baby Micaiah. He was a round chunk and a half. I love how they're so different, yet so alike in other ways.

Height: TBD

Eating: Nursing is mostly going well. Whereas the bulk of the biting was a phase, turns out he does still do it on occasion. The funny (or actually not-so-funny) thing is though is that he knows exactly what he's doing. You should see the look on his face when he does it. It's like he's thinking, "Watch how easy it is for me to get a rise out of Mama!"

Solids: Still eating pretty much everything. He will now eat broccoli. I just figured out that he prefers it cut up really small. He is still putting things he doesn't want in the cupholder section of the tray. It's so funny especially because he puts it in there with drama! We stopped the baby oatmeal. There's no need for baby cereal and it's expensive and he does NOT like homemade baby oatmeal. Regular oatmeal he'll eat all day long, but try to powder it in a blender and serve it to him, and he is not a fan!

Waketimes: Still pretty much the same. The first waketime is 2 hours and 15 minutes, and the second is 2 hours and 20-30 minutes.

Sleeping: He has begun sleeping less than 2 hours for his first nap the majority of the time over the last week. It's fine with me because it was around this age that I had to begin waking Micaiah early from his morning nap in order to preserve the afternoon nap. Caeden seems to be doing that on his own. However, he's also had a rough time sleeping for his afternoon nap. I mean, he goes right to sleep, but he wakes early crying, which is the sign of a bad nap. Maybe it's a phase. I thought one day it was because he was cold and today I thought it was because he was hot. Maybe he needs a longer waketime before his morning nap and that's why he's not sleeping for 2 hours in the morning and so therefore with a short morning nap he's becoming overtired by the time his afternoon nap rolls around. Hmmmm...I haven't thought through this until now, and that sounds like a very viable option! I'll be experimenting to see what I can figure out. See, people are so misinformed about babies and routines. SO many people think a routine is all about the parents and that you just can't fit a baby into a routine and make them sleep when you want them to sleep. It's true, you can't make a baby sleep whenever you want the baby to sleep. That's why the routine has very little to do with me. I work it based on what fits HIM, how long he can happily stay awake and still take a good nap. I could so easily get on a soapbox here, but that's not what this post is about. :)

Independent playtime: We started this with Micaiah at 19 weeks, and at 1o months we added a second session, so he was doing 30 minutes of alone play twice a day. If you don't know, the whole thing with independent playtime (or roomtime as well call it now that Micaiah is older and plays in his entire room instead of just the Pack-n-Play) is that most kids will play by themselves, but will they do it when Mama tells them to and for an extended period of time? Maybe they will, but this is something we've chosen to train our boys in. It helps with their attention span as they only have select toys to play with, self play adeptness, creativity, and other things. Anyway, with Micaiah we started early, but with Caeden we really just now got consistent with it this month. Right now, he does 30 minutes. There was absolutely no adjustment for him in learning to like it. He just dove right in and plays happily until the timer goes off and we go to get him. Though he loves his brother, I think he's probably relieved to have a little bit of time to play by himself without Micaiah being around! I am planning to add a second session this month in the afternoon while Micaiah is also doing roomtime, and I'll do dinner prep during that time.

New discoveries and other notes: This boy will be walking before too much longer. He pulls up on EVERYTHING. He can climb a full flight of stairs by himself. On occasion he will let go and freely stand alone for a second before plopping down. When he is standing between the couch and the ottoman that is in front of the couch, he will let go to turn from one to the other. He says "Dada" often. He will say "Mama," but usually only when he's wanting to be picked up and I don't seem to be hearing his whines the first, second, and third times. Then he will break out the big guns and say Mama, at which point I scoop him right up since it's still so rare! He will sign "more" and "all done". His versions of the signs are very similar, so it's often hard to tell the difference. He has just begun waving bye bye. Every day after nap we drop his owl back into his bed and we wave bye to him. I think he's yet to wave bye to a person, so most people don't believe that he actually does it, but he waves bye to "Whoo Whoo" all the time! :) One other thing we've noticed this month is that when we get Caeden alone without Micaiah he is extremely chatty. Either he feels like he can babble more without Micaiah around hogging the spotlight OR I just notice it more when Micaiah's not around hogging the spotlight. :)

Favorite toys: The walker toy that he can hold onto and walk behind, anything that shakes or makes noise, Little People, and the dog guitar. The most exciting new toy this month is that he finally enjoys sitting and listening to books. We've been reading before nap here and there for a few months now (not near as much as with Micaiah--poor second child!). One of the main reasons I haven't done it regularly is because he just didn't appreciate it yet. But now he will happily sit with me in the glider and read. It's such a sweet time with just me and my littlest buddy. 2 books is about his max at this age though, and even that is sometimes a stretch! He LOVES "Pat the Bunny."