1 year (adjusted)!

Cameron has hit her due date for the second time! She is officially like a one year old!

Adjusted age: 12 months / 1 year

Actual age: 15 months, 5 days

Weight: 20 lb 0.6 oz, weight gain has significantly slowed down

Height: 28 inches!! She had a growth spurt :)

Diaper size: 4

Clothing size: 12 months / 6-12 months, a few 18 month things

Medications/medical concerns: None, Cameron is a healthy girl!

Sleep: Cameron sleeps through the night every night. Usually from 7:30 or 8 until about 9 or 9:30 in the morning. She is sleeping a longer stretch at night and I think it's because she went down to one nap during the day. She usually naps from 1-3 now. She started flat out refusing her second nap a while back so one nap it is!

Eating: No changes. All solid food and milk or water. She is drinking a little bit more than she had been which makes me happy.

Developmental milestones: It's been another slow month. No changes in gross motor. Still crawling and standing without support. No real changes in language. She may or may not say "doggy", I'm really not sure. And she may or may not have waved a couple of times, but again, I'm not sure.

Teeth: Still 6 teeth, 4 on top, 2 on bottom. No others coming that I can see.

Best moment this month: Probably Christmas morning. Christmas is so much fun with a baby!

I think I'm done doing the monthly pictures but I'm going to continue doing her monthly updates. I will no longer use her adjusted age I don't think. I'll just start with her 16 month update next month.

11 months (adjusted)

I have completely neglected the blog. This post is a month late, I wrote it on time so the information is accurate but I just never got around to publishing it. Nor did I get around to doing her 11 month photo. I will post her 12 month adjusted update later too.

Adjusted age: 11 months

Actual age: 14 months, 5 days

Weight: 19 lb 12.8 oz, weight gain has definitely slowed down which is normal at this age on top of the fact that she had the flu this month

Height: Really not sure, but maybe 27 inches?

Diaper size: 4

Clothing size: 12 months / 6-12 months

Medications/medical concerns: Cameron had the flu and another cold this past month but she is healthy now.

Sleep: Cameron is consistently sleeping through the night now. She sleeps usually from 8-8:30. Here and there she wakes up but a lot of the time she puts herself back to sleep and if not, I can't nurse her back to sleep anymore so I just bring her into bed with Josh and I and she sleeps the rest of the night there. I secretly enjoy that immensely and part of me wishes it would happen more often. But we all sleep better separately so she is better off in her crib. For naps, I'm not really sure what is going on. She is straddling a one nap and a two nap schedule. Most days now she is only getting one nap.

Eating: She is on all solid foods and milk or water. No more nursing :( She has three meals per day and usually two snacks. She doesn't do so well with vegetables but everything she does pretty good with. Her favorite foods are bananas, yogurt, cheese, and toast with peanut butter. She is not a big drinker but she usually drinks a sippy cup full of liquids per day. She has plenty of wet diapers and I give her lots of yogurt and applesauce so I'm not concerned.

Developmental milestones: Not much at all has happened this month. She is still standing without holding onto anything but for longer periods of time now. She attempts a step here and there but nothing close to walking. No words or anything yet, still just a lot of babbling. She says mama and dada all the time but still not to the correct person. She still does not have any gestures either but her pediatrician is not concerned so I am not either. I have to say I have finally given up on worrying about development. She has proven over and over that she will do it all, just in her own time. I am going to let her do things at her own pace and not worry :)

Teeth: She has six teeth now, four on top, two on bottom. I don't see any others coming.

Best moment this month: Putting up all our Christmas decorations! Christmas seems to take on a whole new meaning when you have a child. I am so excited to celebrate Christmas with Cameron in our new house. During Christmas last year she had just come home from the hospital and there was still so much uncertainty about her future, plus I was so worried about her getting sick that it was more stressful than anything. This year just feels so different!

The end

This past week marks the end of my breastfeeding journey. I would be lying if I said I wasn't really sad. It took a LOT of work and dedication and I'm proud of myself for making it as far as I did, from pumping 8 times a day for months to getting Cameron to latch after months of bottle feeding. But we did it and I'm sure glad we did. We made it almost 14 months. I sincerely cherished all the time I spent nursing Cameron and she enjoyed it immensely judging by the fact that she refused any type of bottle no matter what once I started nursing. I struggled a lot when I knew I was nursing her for the last time. It was just such a special bond between us that I thought would not be possible given our circumstances. I'm sad because we no longer have that bond, I'm sad because it means she's growing up, and I'm sad because it means she doesn't really need me like she used to. Most of all though I'm sad because I took something away from her that she wasn't ready to give up. The first couple of days she would cry for me to nurse her and I couldn't because I had dried up and had nothing to offer her. It broke my heart to deny her that comfort. I have been giving her a lot of extra cuddles and snuggles to hopefully make up for that void.

I will say I've learned that Cameron is quite the willful baby. She decided once I stopped nursing her that she was going to refuse all liquids from any other source. She would not take a sippy cup, bottle, straw cup, regular cup, nothing. I could not get fluids in her. She went days without drinking so I had to give her lots of applesauce and yogurt to keep her from getting dehydrated. I was stressed to say the least. She seems to have somewhat given up her fluid strike. She is taking a sippy again although she's still not drinking too terribly much but something is much better than nothing.

Other than that, Cameron is 14 months old today! I can no longer say "she just turned a year old". She is getting older all the time and it's so exciting to watch her learn and grow. I can't wait to see what she has in store for us next :)

Stomach bug

Poor Cameron was sick all weekend. Thursday night I kept hearing her on the monitor awake so I would wait and see if she would fall back asleep. She always did but finally I went in to check on her for peace of mind. When I went in there both her and her crib were covered in vomit. I felt horrible. She was dry heaving for the rest of the night and neither of us got any sleep. She continued to throw up for the next three days. She was not acting like herself at all. She would not play with toys or do anything. She just wanted to be held and cuddled. She was also sleeping the majority of the day, poor girl felt awful. It was actually nice for a while because I miss the days when I could just hold her all the time and she would sleep on my chest. But then I got really sick. Let me tell you, taking care of a sick baby while you are sick and all you want to do is lay on the couch is not fun at all.

But the good news is today Cameron woke up acting 100% better. She is back to eating and playing and talking and smiling. None of which she would do over the weekend. I know this is only the beginning of stomach bugs with a child but I never want to experience that again. I'm starting to feel better myself, after getting no sleep Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night I finally slept through the night last night. This morning I was able to eat and drink quite a bit and not feel terribly sick afterwards. Josh was the last one to get the bug, his started yesterday and he didn't go to work today.

So anyways, that's my update. I am just so glad Cameron is feeling better.

Randoms

Cameron has been settling into her new house wonderfully. You can tell she loves it and she is really enjoying all the new space and all the new stuff for her to explore. I can't stress enough how much the new space is benefitting her, it really is great. And her new room, wow. I wrote about how her sleep issues are getting better but that she was still waking up once per night most nights. Well, 4 out of the 5 past nights she slept all the way through. She has slept through the night three times in a row. I can't believe it! Last night I heard her wake up on the monitor and whine for a second and then fall back asleep 3 times!! She didn't cry for me to come get her! I was so happy. She is learning to self soothe and that is a very important skill.

Cameron is currently taking classes as the Little Gym. She has so much fun when we go! She gets to explore and play with other babies and climb and crawl until her heart's content. She loves it. I am also really enjoying getting out of the house with her and meeting some new moms as well as getting her some socialization. So much so that I actually signed her up for an infant music class. We go for the first time tomorrow, I am really excited. These classes are a great way to get her out of the house and away from the same toys that she has seen a million times before.

Lastly, someone is ready for Thanksgiving! Only a week away :)

Standing

I got a video of Cameron standing all by herself! She is starting to be able to stand for longer periods of time now. She has even attempted a few VERY premature steps as she does not have great balance yet. She is getting a tad bit ahead of herself but I imagine walking isn't too far off in the future!

Her own room

When Cameron came home from the hospital last December, she came home on an apnea monitor and was still very vulnerable to the health risks that come along with preemies. I worried she would stop breathing or she would spit up in her sleep as she so often did but that one day she would aspirate and choke. The only thing I could do to get some sleep was to put her in my room with me. She would sleep about a foot away from me and whenever she would cough or anything I would wake up and be able to check on her. We had a false alarm on her apnea monitor here and there and I was thankful to have been right there next to her. By the spring her doctor had discontinued the use of her monitor and she had started to grow out of her reflux issues. She was starting to sleep through the night and I was feeling much more comfortable with everything. But then came time for summer. We had no air conditioning in our house so we put a window unit in our bedroom to keep cool at night. I opted to just keep her in our room for the summer instead of putting a separate window unit in her bedroom, which admittedly was still used for storage that this point and would have taken some rearranging to get her in her crib.

So the summer came and went and by the end of summer, she was sleeping terribly. She was up every hour or two and wanted to nurse back to sleep constantly. It was completely exhausting for me. But looking at it from her perspective it makes sense. She would wake up and see me right there and think, oh how convenient, there's my mommy ready and willing to nurse me back to sleep! So she would make her demands known and I would oblige so that I could get back to sleep as soon as possible. It got to the point where I knew I needed to put her in her own room. It was clearly the healthiest thing for both her and I, because babies need good, uninterrupted sleep just as much as moms do. Her brain would function better during the day on good sleep and uninterrupted sleep is imperative to brain development for babies. But at this point, we were looking to buy a house and I didn't want to move her into her own room at the old house only to move her again at the new house. Cameron is not exactly a baby that likes change. She has her routine and wants to stick with it, so I thought it would be better to wait until we had moved and make the switch all at once.

Well that time finally came at the end of October. I was very ready but a little bit sad at the same time. The first night she felt so far away from me and I laid in bed worrying about ridiculous things like "what if someone breaks into her room through the window and I'm not there to respond?" and I would get sad at the thought of her waking up and feeling alone. And honestly Cameron did just fine. So the second night I went to sleep feeling much calmer. And once again, Cameron did just fine. So the third night I went to sleep without a single worry. Our new living arrangement was just what we all needed.

So as it stands, Cameron's sleep has SIGNIFICANTLY improved just by simply moving her into her own room. This is a MUCH healthier pattern for both of us. We don't get completely woken up and out of our sleep cycles 5 or 6 times per night. Now, at worst she wakes up once per night and she has even slept all the way through the night a few times! One wake up compared to 5 or 6 is quite the improvement I would say. I feel much better in the morning and I am sure that Cameron does as well.

Anyways, I am very excited about all of this for many reasons. In addition to her better sleep, during the move I was able to sort through and put into storage what we don't use from her old room and only keep the stuff that we do use in her new room. That on top of the fact that her room is significantly bigger makes for a much more comfortable and organized nursery. Her new room is one of my favorite parts of the new house, and it's all hers! But most importantly, I am happy to report that Cameron too loves her room and crib! It's a win for all of us :)

Here is an impromptu photo shoot that I did of Cameron "modeling" her crib after waking up from a nap one day.