YT is 9 and a half months old now. He is a cute little baby and we always look at him and say “You are the cutest baby in the world!” He loves to clap and never fails to win strangers’ smile.
At 9 mths old, he can crawl finally! He wasn’t too successful with crawling before this month. I was a little worried that he may miss the crawling milestone all together. I always believe that crawling will stimulate the brain as it needs some intelligence and working of the brain to work out the arms and legs coordination to make crawling happens.
He can sit up without help, though not all the time, but improving! In fact, he is starting to discover standing from a sitting position with the help of my arms.
He is now much wary of strangers as stranger anxiety sinks in. He will hold on to me tight and turn his head away whenever someone unfamiliar approaches him too fast. Then he will peep at that person again and again turning his head repeatedly. He is very clingy to me too. When I walk out of the room, he cries immediately. If I walk past him without carrying him, he cries too. When I returned home from work, he opens up his arms wide, waves them in his signature wave and literally flies in his walker to the door for me to pick him up and hug him. At such moments, all tiredness dissipates in the air.
He is eating well with 2 meals and about 4 milk feeds a day. For weekdays, he eats brown rice cereal and fish porridge. On weekends, I give him pureed sweet potato with avocado or sweet potato with steam apples. For his milk feed, he drinks 180ml each time. My breastmilk is dwindling ever since I recovered from my fatigue. Stress really cut down milk supply drastically. Kel says 9 months of breastfeeding should be very sufficient and I have done my part to give YT the best milk already. Now, he only latches on twice a day. I know I will miss the breastfeeding and so will he. Well, I will just document here to remember this.
My baby still wakes up in the middle of the night. Some parenting advice suggest that the baby misses the mummy’s presence in the day and compensates at night by waking up for milk feeds and cuddles. I don’t really mind and just let him be. It feels good to be needed.
YT’s favourite toys are toys that can be chewed on (sounds like a dog). He chews on anything that is within reach. This must be a baby’s way of exploring new things. He chews on toys, chews on books, chews on his favourite bolster. He likes to turn an object upside down and explore at all angles too.
His sister and brother play with him everyday. They simply love playing with him. This is great joy to me. Each time I encounter some depressing incidents at work, I will always think of my baby’s smile and my children’s laughter. It always soothes me and I feel much better after that. My children are truly my life!
I look forward to YT’s next milestone and look forward to every evening. Will update again on his next milestone!