Piper’s 10 Month Update!

My girl is getting so big and making huge leaps developmentally this month. We had a wonderful 1st Mother’s Day together (below photo) and discovered Piper’s love for strawberries! We are getting ready to MOVE in less than two weeks and while I’m sad to be leaving the house we brought Piper home to, I’m excited to make memories in the house I know she’ll grow up in! Piper’s “chatting” up a storm, giving kisses and so close to walking!

WEIGHT & LENGTH: We finally had Piper’s 9-month doctor’s visit and she weighs 16lbs and is 27 inches. She’s still a petite little thing but growing “beautifully” on her curve. I love her chubby little thighs!

DEVELOPMENT: It’s been so fun to see more and more of Piper’s personality come out this month. She’s been saying ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ for a while now but started saying ‘dog’ and ‘doggie’ about a week ago and it’s so cute. She loves Sully but says it allllll day long. I still consider her a very happy baby, though a bit of her temper is starting to show when she doesn’t want to do something — like have her diaper changed! She does great entertaining herself, loves to ‘read’ her books and WAVES! She also started giving kisses a few weeks ago and it melts my heart every.single.time. The other night I was reading her “Brown Bear Brown Bear” (her favorite book) and unprompted she just started kissing all of the animals on the face, so sweet. Piper loves her bath time and has been playing with water outside the bath, too! She likes to dance and be ‘chased’. She’s pulling up on anything she can and walking very quickly along the couch, table etc. I think she’ll be walking within a month, she tests her balance all the time. She continues to love to swing and ‘play’ at the park. I love to watch her interact with other babies – I started a playgroup and it was adorable to see the babies together.

SLEEPING: This has been a rough month for sleep… we think Piper may be teething or growing or just being contrary. But she’s been waking up several times after we put her down and will drink a full bottle. I’ve been trying to feed her more during the day and I think we are back on track but I think our move will mess her up for a bit, which is OK. She takes a morning nap around 10 and then most days will take an afternoon nap around 1/2 … but sometimes she declines. Her naps are still (as always) only for an hour. When she’s napping I’ve started putting a book in her crib with her and she’ll sometimes look it when she wakes up for a bit — or sit there and read it if she doesn’t want to sleep.

FEEDING: We are still nursing (or pumping) 5x a day but also giving Piper 3 meals a day of solid food. She goes through periods of having no interest in eating anything but sweet potatoes and puffs to gobbling down everything. It’s really hit or miss. We introduced meat (chicken and pork so far) and eggs and she’s been great about eating them. I do get frustrated when I spend so long shopping, planning and cooking her fresh meals and then she eats one bite… but such is life, right? You can read all about how I make Piper’s food and what products I use here.

WHAT WE ARE LOVING RIGHT NOW: 

My favorite cookbooks are Real Baby Food  and The Baby & Toddler Cookbook  and I can’t say enough good things about the Béaba Babycook Baby Food Maker.

Since we’ve finally been able to get outside in the sun I’ve been using this Babyganics sunscreen and really like it so far.

I got this big tablecloth at Target to use for activities like painting and water play.

We’ve tried about 4 different cups and finally found one that Piper can hold and sip and actually DRINK water! It’s this Munchkin Weighted Straw Cup and we love it. It even came with a special brush to clean the straw!