Bree at Nine Months

Bree is nine months old. How can my little baby be this old already?

A few things about Bree at nine months.

Stranger/Separation Anxiety

She has been experiencing stranger anxiety for a month or two. This phase happened to coincide with my dropping her off at the nursery for church and MOPS. She cries when I drop her off, which makes it really tough on this mama. The nursery workers often rock her during the service so that when I arrive to pick her up, she has nodded off to sleep.

Today I tried something different and walked into the room and placed her on the floor with some toys instead of handing her over to a nursery worker. Bree still cried when I set her down but when I picked her up an hour later, she was still on the floor and was awake. As soon as she spotted me and heard me calling her name, she started crying again and began crawling towards the door where I was.

Sleeping

Bree typically wakes twice every night. Once around two and again around five or six. Then she is up for good at around seven-thirty. Bedtime has become more difficult as of late. I don’t know if it is due to separation anxiety or not, but the moment I put her into her crib she often wakes up (where she previously was sleeping in my arms as we rocked and she nursed) and cries. If we are lucky, we can rub her back for a couple of minutes and coax her back into sleep. If not, she will wake up fully and protest being in the crib. Loudly. She has a healthy set of lungs. After I nurse her and try (unsuccessfully) to get her to sleep, Greg will often come in and rock her back to sleep and then she will sleep until her first waking at two. I long for the day when I can sleep a solid eight hours.

As for naps, Bree is not a fan unless she is laying in bed with me. Just like the bedtime routine, she cries as soon as I lay her into her crib. But if I nurse her in my bed and we fall asleep together, she will sleep for up to two hours with no problem. She also falls asleep in the car quite easily. I would be very tempted to drive around, just so she could fall asleep and I could get a break, except that she often wakes soon after we arrive at our destination so I would have to drive around for the entire nap.

Some of the “experts” say not to feed her or rock her to get her to sleep (or back to sleep) but Bree is persistent. Seriously. This girl will not stop crying. We’ve tried it, believe me. And when she cries at bedtime or nap time, it is often cries of anger. Greg and I wonder if she is going to have a fiery temper, because she sure gets mad when she doesn’t get her way! Maybe it is the red tint in her hair…

Crawling and Pulling Up

Bree is a crawling master. She loves her new independence. She recently has started pulling up on everything and is quite proud of her standing skills. She also has started raising her arms when she wants to be picked up. I cannot resist picking her up when she does this.

Eating

We started her on Mum-Mums at the beginning of September. We had previously tried other finger foods without any interest on her part but she immediately took to the Mum-Mums. After our California trip, I reintroduced some other finger foods again and now they have become a big hit. I love that she can feed herself for a little bit so I can eat. It also keeps her busy while I make dinner.

She is not crazy about taking a bottle but she will if it is Greg who offers it and if he is persistent. She much prefers nursing with her Mama though.

Mama’s Girl

Bree is such a Mama’s girl. I love how she reaches for me. Her babbling of ma-ma-ma has become more refined and is now just “Ma-ma” when she sees me or calls from her crib. I melt when she flashes me her little gummy grins that contain only two cute little bottom teeth. Those two little teeth are quite sharp and strong, as she sometimes demonstrates when nursing – Ouch!

She likes to bounce to music and when I sing to her, she sometimes will “sing” back. She also likes to imitate repetitive sounds back to me (la-la-la), thinking it a great game. She loves baby dolls and anything that Adrianna is playing with. She is a little explorer and wants to get her hands on everything.

We are enjoying watching her personality grow and develop. We love our little Bree-bers, Breezy-Boo, Breezy-girl.