Although I’ve been taking notes, I completely missed putting up Willow’s 9 Month update and we’re now even creeping past her 10 Month update! They’re so important to me to document, so I’m putting them together for now.
Left: 10 Months | Right: 9 Months
Willow was quite poorly in February when she was 8/9 months; she had a chest infection, conjunctivitis and a viral rash over the space of a few weeks. Luckily she is much better now!
Just before she turned 10 Months, she has started to go through Leap 7… this is probably our most challenging leap so far with lots of clinginess and the start of tantrums, I dread to think what the Terrible Two’s are going to be like!
Height/Weight:
I don’t take Willow to get weighed as regularly now she is a little bit older and we have established a good feeding routine. She was last weighed at the start of February, when she was 8 Months and weighed 19lbs and is plotting nicely on her growth charts. I’m hoping to take her to be weighed again soon now that she is 10 Months and then she’ll be checked for everything at her 12 Month check with the Health Visitor.
Routine & Sleeping:
We are now safely out of the 8 month sleep regression, thank goodness! Willow has bedtime 6:30pm – 7pm and sleeps through until about 6am (we have the odd early morning stir and occasional 5:30am start), she then has a small early nap in the morning and a long (often 2 hours) nap in the afternoon. I feel we’re probably not far off having one nap a day, as this does happen sometimes when we are out and about!
Eating/Feeding:
Willow continues to have 3 meals a day and a couple of snacks if I feel she needs them. She has a wide & varied diet and I’m clinging to the fact that she’ll eat everything for now, as I know once she becomes a toddler it won’t be the same. She’s starting to eat a lot more finger foods and loves feeding herself, we’re soon going to start tackling trying to feed herself with a spoon (wish me luck!). She has 3 bottles a day but now at 10 months I’m going to cut this down to two gradually, as I want to slowly get ready for her to transition to one bedtime bottle once she turns 1.
Sizes:
She still wears the odd 6-9 month item of clothing (I even had her in a 3-6 month cardigan the other day and a 0-6 month dress, they must have been big for their sizes ha!) but she is comfortably in 9-12 months. Ive bought most of her spring/summer clothing in 12-18 months, purely to get the most wear out of them, although it means I’m struggling at the moment whilst we are having lovely weather in the UK and she doesn’t have a lot of approriate clothing, so she’s in lots of over-sized t-shirts!
Milestones:
I mentioned in my last update that Willow was pretty mobile rolling everywhere, when she turned 9 months she started to commando crawl and now she is OFF! I spend my days chasing her around and trying to stop her hurting herself, she is into everything and anything (mostly things she shouldn’t be). I’m forever telling her to keep away from the radiator! The baby gates are now up and the house has been baby proofed, we no longer have anything because ‘it looks nice’ as it normally will get destroyed! She occasionally goes on her hands and knees, but is pretty speedy getting about army style. She also loves to stand but isn’t at the stage where she can stand herself, she can pull herself up on most things and tries a lot, often pulling and grabbing at me (she struggles in our living room as the wooden floor is so slippy). She cruises along on the sofa, holding on to the top whilst she looks out the big window, it’s one of her favourite games. We also bought her a little walker to help encourage her to take steps, although at first she treated it like a jumperoo and just bounced!!!
Willow now claps, waves (most of the time on demand) and in the last couple of days has started to do the actions of twinkle twinkle little star. She’ll reach up or come over to you if she wants to be cuddled, picked up or wants something from you and has just started to point/reach her arm out in a direction of something she’d like. She also recognises people properly now, she literally beams with happiness and excitement when her Daddy comes home from work (which breaks my little heart with happiness).
We haven’t had any new sounds just lots of “Mama” “Dada” “Nana” “Baba” noises. She loves to shout, scream, screech and growl, she’s always making people laugh with her silly noises that she makes.
In February, Willow was also a little Flower Girl for my Sister’s wedding… she looked adorable!
Loves:
She adores the cat (Pumba) and would spend her day loving (tormenting) him, luckily he is super patient with her and usually escapes and hides.
Toys that she loves are still anything she can shake or rattle. She has some little Disney characters that were actually bath toys, but she loves them and plays with them a lot. Willow also loves playing with anything that we can stack and she pushes over! She also has a Teletubbie toy called Lala, which she loves and always gives it a big wide open mouth kiss ha! But really all her favourite things to play with are not toys; phones, remotes, keys, bags, rubbish, wires, radiators, shoes etc! I’m constantly having to move things around the house that she shouldn’t be playing with, but were in her reach!
She’s also still very sociable and loves playing with other children and beams if we are out and she sees other children.
Personality & Looks:
I felt it was important to add this section again as I feel it’s changed SO much recently, I can honestly see how she is changing into a toddler and not a baby right infront of my eyes… it makes me so emotional.
Willow knows her own mind and doesn’t like anything to be taken away from her or to do anything she doesn’t want to (like have her nappy changed). But she is so loving, sociable and happy. She’s really showing herself as a Gemini baby, with her strong willed personality balanced out by a beautiful kind natured side too.
She has the cutest little quirks, such as her constant wriggling feet and hands when she is excited or trying to get your attention.
Her hair is starting to thicken out again and is getting so long in parts (I really am not ready to take her for a cut just yet), it’s still dark brown and has the most beautiful little curl to it. I can’t wait to see what she looks like with long curls! Her eyes are a dark hazel brown and she has the most beautiful long dark lashes and perfect eyebrows… I’m so jealous.
She’s definitely tall and has super long legs, taking after her daddy there.
In the last couple of weeks I think she has started to get the odd freckle! One on her arm and one on her cheek. Wayne & I are both covered in freckles and moles, so it was inevitable that it would be something she would develop… I just wasn’t sure when they would come.
The Letter B 