Sophia's 8 Month Update

At first I thought this would be a pretty lame update, because there really hasn't been many new developments since last month. But she did have a few fun firsts, which you'll see at the end of this post.

- She's still not crawling (although I don't do nearly enough tummy time with her, so that probably has something to do with it).

- She's been teething forever, but no sign of any teeth. (Side note: I won a Facebook contest with the online cloth diaper retailer Dearest Diapers, and the prize was a gift card for the store. This store also carries Baltic amber teething necklaces, so I'm going to buy her one very soon.)

-When I was planning to write this post, I was also going to mention that she still doesn't roll over, but on Sunday, she rolled from her tummy to her back all by herself! I've tried to get her to do it again, but I guess she felt that once was enough. ;)

-She's wearing 9 month and 12 month sized clothes. We recently bought her some Christmas pajamas and a Christmas dress. I can't wait to show you pictures of her wearing them!

-She is FINALLY on a schedule! [It probably shouldn't have taken this long, but hey, you live and learn, and you know what to do differently with the next kid.] Knowing when she'll wake up, nap, and go to bed has made my life so much easier.

-I recently implemented Dr. Sears' method of teaching her to fall asleep on her own, and that has made a huge difference. I love that I don't have to nurse her to sleep anymore. She takes longer naps, and goes to bed earlier.

The only downside is that I incorrectly assumed that this would lead to fewer night wakings, but it seems she wakes up more than ever. I'm up with her anywhere from 4 to 6 times every night, and often all these wakings are between 2:00 am and 6:00 am, so that's 4 hours of sleep I'm not getting. I don't want to night wean her completely, but I don't know how to go about reducing the wakings.

Well, I do have a few ideas, but it's hard to remember them, and even harder to put them into practice when it's 3:00 am and I'm barely awake. I'll see how these next few nights go, and I'll try to remind myself to be strong, even though it's the middle of the night and I desperately want to go back to bed.

-I've been trying to give her solids twice a day, but it's hard because I can't share my breakfast with her (eggs give her eczema). I've gotten into the habit of giving her some banana in the morning instead, but I forgot that bananas cause constipation. In the past week and a half, she's only had two dirty diapers. So I cut out solids, and I just started giving her some prune juice. So hopefully we get that all cleared up soon!

-She had her first Halloween! We didn't go Trick-or-Treating, but we did dress her up in somewhat of a costume. My mom got this outfit for her.

Despite the fact that we didn't go door-to-door, Sophia still managed to score a bunch of candy, because Art's mom put together a little Halloween basket for her!

She really enjoyed the noisy packaging, and Art and I really enjoyed the candy inside. ;D

-Mari and I bought her some hair elastics, and she got her very first ponytail!

Which quickly turned into two cute little pigtails.

Which then became three...

...and then turned into four.

Our goal is to eventually make her look like Coolio, only cuter. [Please click the link. It's hilarious.]

So that's our 8 month old girl! Since I won't be posting for the rest of the week, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!