Update

I feel so in touch with the blog world because I read blogs ALL THE TIME! Yet for some reason I never drum up the energy to do my own posts. :( Bad blogger.

Alexandra is now 9 1/2 months old. She is doing great. Getting really big and really active. She has been crawling for over a month now and she now cruises everywhere along furniture, climbs up steps, walks pushing her little walker-car-thing, and is generally into everything. This kid can not sit still. She is not a cuddly one at all. Sometimes I'm sad and wish she would just cuddle in my arms but she will not sit still for a second. She's also very tempermental. Either very happy and smiley or super pissed off. She's always been like that so I guess that's just her. She can go from a huge smile to a crying mess and back to giggles within a matter of seconds! I'm definitely anticipating an emotional teenager!!

She loves playing with other kids. She hates being home alone with just mom. BORING! We go out everyday for a play date, otherwise the whining would just kill me. Good thing I have a big network of mom friends to keep me company while the kids play. There are also a lot of awesome coffee shops nearby that cater to babies/kids and have big play areas with mats and toys and slides and swings etc. Very handy!

Alexandra has 2 teeth now and by the amount of snot and drool that is coming out of that kid I swear there are more on the way but I can't spot any. We don't go to the doctor this month but if I had to guess I would say she is 18 pounds. Getting heavy to carry (and unfortunately for me she still hates the stroller). My left bicep is huge.

In my last post I talked about weaning. Well, now is the time i'm going to get serious about it. I went back to the fertility doctor today and we are good to go with trying for a second as soon as I wean her! I had blood and baseline ultrasound done today and when I want to start my protocol (menopur injections and IUI) I just call and we begin! Crazy!

I am currently nursing Alexandra in the morning, before her afternoon nap and at night. I give her two bottles of formula a day. One with lunch and one with dinner. I'm thinking that I will next cut out the feeding before her afternoon nap. I don't think I will be ready to fully wean her for a while (a month...or 2? ) but maybe in November we will be ready to start the meds. It is exciting and scary to think about the possibility of a second baby! I really hope to give Alexandra a sibling (or 2 ...or 3!) but atleast I have her no matter what!

Anyways, my teething angel is waking from her nap and sounding miserable (wish me luck! ooooohhhh the whining!!!!! Argh!) , here's a pic of my girl on the go!


BEEP BEEP!!!

Weaning

I thought I wanted to nurse Alexandra for a year and then switch her directly to milk in a sippy cup, thus skipping the formula and bottle all together. Well, I'm having second thougths on that. I want to continue to give her some breast milk until atleast a year but I am feeling like such a prisoner and am ready for her to take a bottle. Until last week, my girl had NEVER taken a bottle. Utter refusal. And so, I have NEVER been away from her for longer than 3 hours when I went to get my hair done ONCE. Other than that it has been max 2 hours apart. In 9 months. That's a long time. Now, that she is crawling (yes...at 8.5 months that girl was off to the races!), sitting in my lap is SO. NOT. FUN! She is squirming and not interested in nursing. But the problem is that she is not interested in eating solid food either. Or bottles. In the past week I have been trying to get her to take breast milk or formula from a bottle once a day. I have some success when she is strapped in her carseat and I sit in the back with her. Or when she is really sleepy, but then she does this weird nursing/sipping the bottle thing. Probably not good. I should just put my boob away! I also decided to cut out night feedings completely since she was not eating during the day. That has been surprisingly successful and this weekend she actually slept from 8 pm to 8am without waking! (actually... not entirely true...when I cut out night feeds I introduced a dream feed around 1130pm so that if she wakes at night I can rest easy knowing that her tummy is full, she doesnt' wake for the dream feed though and I wish I had started that months ago!) So, this is major progress from the multiple wakings to nurse I was having just 2 weeks ago!

Most of this post is just my babbling, but I wan to know from others who have weaned, are weaning...how do you do it ? Did you cut out one feed and replace it with a bottle? Which feed is the best/easiest one to cut out? Cold turkey? Easier for you or dad to give bottle? How do you know how many ounces to give? She doesn't seem to ever want more than 2 or 3 ounces and I read about babies wanting 8 ounce bottles! Also, would love to hear how much solid food other babies are eating. she was eating a ton! but when she started crawling and got her first tooth all in the same week her appetite disappeared. Now we are lucky if we can get her to eat a couple cubes of squash and a butt ton of cheerios a day. She is obsessed with cheerios. That is one food she will always eat!

anyways, would love any advice! Hope you all had a great long weekend!

LTB