8 months

Katelyn turned 8 months old yesterday! She is growing so fast and learning so much every day.

Here are a few things she likes to do at this age:

- a lot of babbling, giggling, and squealing
- eat bananas and sweet potatoes
- can give high fives! :)
- hold on and walk around different things
- crawl really fast
- eat every 3-4 hours
- go to bed at 7:30 or 8:00 p.m.

This past month I gave myself a challenge: To help Katelyn be able to fall asleep on her own. This may not be a challenge for some parents, but in my case it was.

Katelyn only fell asleep if she drank a bottle, that was her routine. I wanted her to be able to fall asleep on her own though (for various reasons). I knew it would require a lot of patience especially if I did not want to just let her cry herself to sleep (which I definitely did not want her to do). So I took on the challenge. I set up a routine for her every night as well as lengthened the time in between each feeding session during the day, and moving her bed time up earlier. She was eating every two hours and a friend recommended I try every 3-4 hrs. so I did. I also read somewhere to try moving the bed time up.

She struggled the first night w/o a bottle and with me just helping her in her crib fall asleep. It took about an hour and a half or wanting to come out of her crib, tossing, turning, rubbing her back, scratching her back, until she finally fell asleep on her own. This went on for about four days, and finally she slowly got the hang of it. Each nap time she did better and better. Each bed time she did better and better. And now she does great at both! She knows the routine and will usually just lay down turn for a minute or two and fall right asleep. It's so nice not to have to hear her cry and feel bad, and not to have to depend on a bottle to put her to sleep. I'm so proud of her.

I feel like this has helped both of us so much. She doesn't wake up at 2 or 4 a.m. to eat anymore.  I think because the longer stretches she has between feedings now. And also because if she does wake up in the middle of the night she can put herself back to sleep. It's really nice to be able to sleep straight through the night :)

She is getting so big and I can't believe she has really been with us for 8 months now. We enjoy her every minute of every day!