Alma turned 17 months on the 4th, but we had a busy weekend, and posting her monthly update slipped my mind! This month has felt like a whirlwind, but I’ll try to piece together what I can remember.
Sleep
I think I’ve mentioned, either here or on my Facebook page, that sleep training has gone south for us. I’m working on a full post about this area, but the gist is that for the first 2-3 weeks of sleep training, Alma was responding really well, and sleeping through the night frequently. And then, it just turned and she wouldn’t stand for being put in her crib to fall asleep by herself. She also started waking during the night, unable to fall back asleep unassisted.
It just felt wrong to continue pushing the sleep training when it was clearly causing her distress, so we stopped. We tried different things at night to soothe her and get her to sleep without tears, and we ended up deciding to get rid of her crib, replacing it with a floor bed (again, more on that soon).
I’m happy to say that, while still not perfect, our evening bedtime routine and overall sleep habits are looking much better. Alma sleeps through the night about 3 times a week, and she has mostly been sleeping past 6am again. I’m glad we changed how we were handling her sleep based on her needs, because we are all much happier with the new routine.
She’s still averaging about 10 hours of sleep at night and a 2-3 hour nap midday (usually falls asleep around 11am). I’ve noticed that the best schedule for Alma is taking a nap 5 hours after waking in the morning, and going to bed 6 hours after waking from her nap. So, that’s what we’ve been aiming for, unless she has a very restless night and then occasionally she will take two naps the following day.
Eating
Alma’s favorite foods right now are fruit/veggie pouches and breast milk. Everything else is hit or miss. Teething is pretty much ruling our lives at this stage, disrupting sleep and playing a part in her disinterest of food. It seems like every time a tooth pops through, and I think we will get a little break, I notice another tooth is starting to work its way through the gums. I will be so glad when it’s all over, and I’m sure Alma will be, too!
she does love veggie grill!
Some other foods she’s been enjoying are oatmeal (which she actually requests – “oh meeeeal?’), pretzel sticks, coconut and almond milk yogurt, tofu scrambles, hummus, the occasional spoonful of nut butter, and…that’s about it, I guess! Everything else she will just nibble, then hand back to us, saying “all done!”.
She’s nursing about six times during the day, and once during the night about every other night or so, lately. I plan on letting Alma self wean completely, so unless something comes up that interferes with nursing (say I need to start taking a medication or something – purely hypothetical!) I’m totally fine with her nursing beyond age 2. It will be interesting to see when she decides she no longer needs to nurse!
Development
No height or weight measurements this month, though I’d guess she’s around 22.5 pounds. And I know she’s gotten taller because last month she wasn’t able to reach this area at OMSI:
She wears size 18-14 month clothing mostly, though she can squeeze into a 12-18 months in certain clothes. She’s still a banana baby – long and lean! She outgrows clothes in length long before she outgrows them in width.
She’s wearing size 5 in shoes, though they are just a tad big. But size 4 are way too small, and I can’t seem to find size 4.5 shoes anywhere. When she wears disposable diapers, she’s in size 4.
Alma has 15 teeth now, so just one new tooth in this month. A bottom canine. Her first molars made their way completely through the gums over the course of the month, though they began emerging last month. Her last canine is almost through, and I think I saw some activity around her bottom second year molars. No end in sight in that department.
Alma’s vocabulary and general language skills are rapidly growing. When she talks to strangers, or people who don’t see her very regularly, they can understand much of what she says to them. One (kind of) embarrassing thing that she does is point out women’s breasts by saying “na-nah’s?”, which is her word for breastfeeding/my breasts. Luckily, most people don’t pick up on what she’s saying, and usually think she is pointing to their necklace or something. Unless I know the woman, I don’t interpret her meaning!
She’s been pretty successful with her puzzles recently. I think it’s time to put a few more into the rotation! She also figured out how to peel thin magnets off the fridge, which she worked hard at for about a week. She loves her Curious George magnets!
Her favorite toys are books, balls, and babies! Her newest obsession is pushing her little stroller around. She spotted it at a consignment shop, and she liked it so much, I bought it. It has been a well-loved addition!
One thing that I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned is that Alma loves to sing. She can actually pick up the tune on her favorite songs, and I can almost always tell what she is singing. She has a lot of songs memorized (or bits of them, anyway), and she’s been known to sing her goodnight song as she falls asleep. I think it’s time for another round of music classes!
I’m not sure if this fits under “development” or not, but Alma had her first bubble bath this month. Needless to say, every bath is a bubble bath now.
Schedule
As usual, Alma’s schedule changes everyday. With all of the sleeping changes we’ve been experimenting with this month, she’s had some really wild differences from day to day. But generally, it goes something like this:
- 6am: wake up, nurse
- 6:30/7am: breakfast, then play while Andrew & I trade off showering, etc
- 8:30/9am: nurse, then head out for swimming/park/neighborhood walk/playdate (has snack while we’re out)
- 10:30am: back home, more snack if still hungry (usually not)
- 11am-1/2pm: nap (nurses to sleep)
- 1/2pm: wake up, nurse, eat lunch (Andrew takes his lunch break with us), then play around the house while I clean
- 3/3:30pm: park/farmer’s market/sensory table play on patio/neighborhood walk (has snack while we’re out if lunch was light – it usually is)
- 5/5:30pm: home, nurse, I work on dinner while Andrew and Alma play
- 6pm(ish): family dinner, followed by a few minutes of play and bath (taking one every night now, which seems to be helping with light eczema)
- 7pm: start bed time routine (pj’s & diaper, sleep sack, book or two, nurse, roll around on floor bed talking and singing)
- 7:30pm: goal to be asleep! (closer to 8pm if she took a 3 hour nap)
Posts
- toddler travel: first flight
- june review; july goals
- toddler travel: activities in san francisco
