He's Mobile! (Sort Of)

Your baby boy, Matthew, is 37 weeks (Approximately 8.6 months) old now.

If you decide to introduce pureed meat to your baby's diet, start with small portions, and be sure the meat is tender, thoroughly cooked, and pureed. Depending on how many teeth your baby has and how long he or she's been eating solid food, you can try a few small chunks of meat. Remember to introduce new foods one at a time, several days apart. Your baby's taste buds are still getting used to the taste of food, so don't add any seasonings including salt, spices, herbs, sugar, honey, butter or margarine. He or she doesn't need much protein now and is probably still getting enough from your breast milk or formula. You may want to prepare yourself for your baby's first bowel movement after eating meat. A good sturdy clothespin should do the trick. I can promise you, after he or she starts eating meat you'll no longer wonder whether he or she has had a bowel movement or not. You'll definitely know.

Take a moment to double-check your baby's sleeping arrangements. He or she will be standing and pulling themselves up soon (if he or she isn't already), so you may need to lower the mattress in his or her crib so he or she will not accidentally fall out if he or she stands up and leans against the railing.

Well, this is different. Usually the newsletter talks about stuff that Matthew isn't doing yet, but he's been eating meat for about 2 months now. Only pureed for a while, but now he gets into some chunks. It really makes no difference how many teeth they have...think about it. Babies get their front teeth first. The first set of molars don't come in until they are almost 2. How often do you chew with your front teeth? Not very often probably. Matthew does just fine mashing things up with his gums, which is what babies who have teeth at this point do also. Now, he HASN'T pulled up, but his crib mattress has been at its lowest possible level for quite a while so that we don't have to end up moving it again.

A couple exciting things...Matthew has been sleeping much better as time goes on. He normally will wake up maybe once a night still, and then it's probably 50/50 as to whether he will need to be fed or just have his pacifier stuck back into his mouth. The last 2 nights, though, he has slept all the way through without even needing his pacifier. So that's good. And also, he's crawling!! Not very well yet. He can only go for very short distances, kind of shuffling his knees forward and then usually falling when he tries to move his hands at the same time. But he is covering some distance and I'm sure he'll get himself coordinated pretty quickly. Things are about to get a lot more interesting on the parenting front, I think! :o)