The Journey of Parenthood…

Tess Summary of Month 11

This summary covers Tess’s 11th month of life (so she’s 10 months old in this post). This month was from June 1- June 30th. 

Nursing: Tess still really, really loves nursing. By this point I wasn’t nursing Kye at all anymore and Britt was all over the place. Tess has no desire to do anything else when it’s nursing time. I love it. She loves it. 🙂 It’s really the only time when she IS calm and cuddly at this point! She’s also still very “urgent” with it. She knows when its nursing time and she’s ready for business!

My FAV is when she falls asleep while nursing!

She is falling asleep less and less at the last feeding of the day and is silly now when she’s awake. She will hop off my lap and be so funny! This particular time she immediately laid on the pillow next to me and tried to be sneaky to grab the remote ha!

When Kye was a baby he constantly swung his head back to look upside down. Tess does the same thing and does it all the time when in my lap after nursing. She always holds her mouth wide opened and swings that head back!

Having those sweet hands on me while nursing NEVER gets old!

During the 11th month of life I go ahead and introduce cow’s milk (more on that in a second) and begin the weaning process. I have a HARD time drying up so I try to wean as slowly as possible. I dropped the 3:00 feeding first. My last time feeding her at 3 was on June 27th. I was so sad about it. Once I dropped it though she started being SO SWEET for her night feeding again and started falling asleep on me again during it so I didn’t mind too much 😉

Sleep: I LOVE this age when it comes to the daily schedule. It’s just so much easier and so much less stressful. I don’t worry if she wakes early from a nap, she plays happily in her crib until it’s time to get up. She often wakes early in the morning (around 6-615ish) but will typically go back to sleep until 7. She always wakes happy and now greets us when we come to get her!

Schedule: By the end of the month Tess was no longer nursing at 3:00 so here’s what her schedule looked like at that point:

7:00 Up for day, nurse, breakfast (whole milk in sippy with meal)

9:00 Down for nap

11:00 Up from nap, nurse, lunch (whole milk in sippy with meal)

1:00 Down for nap

3:00 Up from nap, sippy of whole milk with some cheese/cheerios as snack

6:00 Dinner with family (whole milk sippy with meal)

6:30 Bath

6:45ish Nurse then straight to bed

Whole Milk: I know a lot of people have varying opinions about milk but we’ve always used organic whole milk with our kids and feel fine doing so for Tess as well. On June 16th she had whole milk for the first time. I still nursed her at 3 then offered her the whole milk in a  small sippy just to see how she liked it. She wasn’t instantly interested in it but then seemed to enjoy it once she tried it. 

However, the first day she didn’t nurse at 3 did not go well. It was on the 27th and she wouldn’t drink AT ALL. She was so upset and it broke my heart. I realized she had a MASSIVE poop (usually she only gets upset when she has a poop diaper) so after I changed her she was happy and fine. Whew. She still wasn’t interested in the milk though. I didn’t stress it but the next day she still continued to just not want any. That night she nursed for a SUPER long time and the following night Zach did a bottle and she drank 6 oz for him which is more than her normal (and I pumped 8 that night for the missed feeding). Carter struggled with the transition to whole milk so I knew Casey had gone through it which made me stress a little less. Tess is my first baby to not take to whole milk right away! I continued to offer it at each feeding as well as for that missed nursing session and she’d go all day and only drink a few ounces. Thankfully it did improve but man it took awhile and still at a year old (current time!) she doesn’t chug it or seem to love it like my other two did. 

Tess is doing amazing with the bottle though and continues to love Baby Led Weaning! Girl can GRUB!

I love when she just dug into my snow cone 🙂

First corn on the cobb!

This month Tess started doing her prayer hands all on her own at the start of meals. She did it for the first time on her own on June 19th and then became obsessed with it and “says prayers” all the time 🙂 

One of my favorite memories of Britt as a baby was her “so big” phase and now Tess is in that phase as well. We say “how big is Tess?” And she replies “So big!” by throwing her arms in the air. She does it NON STOP and it never gets old 🙂  

I found a birthmark on Tess this month! She has a small white area on her back that is white. Britt actually has the exact same marking but hers moved from her back up to her neck now that she’s older. 

Independent playtime started to get a little tougher this month. She started crying at the start of it each time but then would start playing and be fine and would greet me with a huge smile when the timer went off! Typically we do about 25-30 min a day of independent playtime!

Tess is pretty much into everything now! Meal preps have gotten tricky. I love my kitchen but it has multiple entrances and wider doorways so it’s hard to block off and keep a mobile baby from escaping. Our neighborhood has a Facebook group for selling and buying items from each other so I picked up a walker from a neighbor. I’ve never owned a walker b/c I’ve always heard how unsafe they are but I felt like if I used it just in my kitchen that it’d be fine. It was the first item I’ve ever purchased used that was straight up DISGUSTING. Ugh I wanted to barf while cleaning it. Once I got it all clean I put it to use. She isn’t crazy about it but it does give me a chance to get things done without having to chase her down every few minutes!

Tess is ALWAYS on the GO and usually always has some sort of smaller toy in one of her hands when she’s crawling around!

Baby gates are crucial!

If something is on the floor she WILL find it! Baby Tod on the path of distraction 🙂

She also loves to open and close things, especially the trash can in our kitchen.

Tess legit amazes me with her ability to get out of tight spaces. She will crawl under things and then not cry at all but just figure out how to get herself out. Zach is a big problem solver and the way Tess does this really makes me think about him! In these pics you can see how she crawled up under her play table. I didn’t help her at all and she just figured out how to get out from under it on her own! She gets under her walker in the kitchen all the time too and does the same thing!

Tess’s silly and wild side is coming out now that she’s so mobile. You really have to watch her all the time because she’s quiet, quick and sneaky!!! 

Tess points  a lot with her pointer finger and says “tissss tisss” at everything. She especially loves body parts (particularly eyes, noses, and mouths) and will poke you if you come too close!

On the Parker family trip this month we tried having Tess take a bath without her seat. Zach handled it well and it was so stinking cute…

But then we got home and I gave it a try. Bahaha, It was a disaster. Tess kept standing up and I had to get onto her a ton and then she kept stealing Britt’s toys and Britt would get upset and it was just a mess…

So back to the seat we went 🙂

Here’s more of Tess with little toys 🙂

This is her favorite! It reminds me a lot of the yellow link Kye loved. It’s a soft yellow pool toy from her pool float 🙂

Tess is getting more and more interested in my phone and pictures and notices when I am taking pictures of her 🙂

We had our first walk at the park this month! Tess wasn’t too sure about it but did well and was happy the whole time. Hopefully my foot continues to heal and this can become a more regular occurrence!

As you can tell in the pics from this month…Tess’s hair requires a pony tail holder of some kind or it’s CRAZY and all in her face! She has the lightest roots of any of our children but since she had so much hair at birth and since it was SO dark her hair, overall, still looks pretty dark. I’m so interested to see what it ends up looking like as she gets older! This pic cracks me up b/c it looks like a toupee!

Tess LOVES the water. When we go in the pool she will put her face right down in the water with ZERO fear. I have to constantly remind myself that she can’t swim haha She really seems like she will just take off and GO. I don’t regret waiting on her survival lessons (we will do them this coming Feb) but man if we did them now she’d do so well with them b/c she does love the water so much! Hopefully it’s a love that’ll stick for lessons 🙂 

Tess still constantly puts her head down on the floor while propping herself up on her arms and legs. She just really loves to see the world upside down 🙂

She started covering her eyes this month to play “peek a boo!”

More About Tess This Month:

  • Early this month Tess was teething. She had a lot of poop diapers, was more fussy, and didn’t eat her solids as well. She broke in her bottom teeth on 6/3, the bottom right one broke through first
  • Church has become much more tricky. Child is ALL over the place!
  • She is starting to sit so well in Bible class and is in the youngest in the class by 7 months
  • She has a coarse spot in the back of her hair that’s exactly like a coarse spot I have in the back of mine
  • Tess has mastered waving as well as giving high fives
  • She says “doggie”
  • She started using her pointer finger to do “this little light of mine” SO CUTE! The first time they sang it in Bible Class she just immediately started doing it!
  • She knows that “dada” is Zach
  • Britt was eating and had some corn on her nose. She looked at Tess and Tess started cracking up!
  • She loves touch and feel books
  • Tess leans in and gives Zach and Kye BIG open mouth kisses still but won’t do it for me
  • She started sticking out her tongue this month
  • Tess mimics extremely well and will copy what we do
  • She dances to music and will bounce up and down
  • She LOVES attention and will do all kinds of little tricks on demand because she loves the praise
  • She broke three of my necklaces this month so I’m trying not to wear them around her
  • She picks up things off the floor and will eat them much worse than I remember Britt doing (it’s hard to remember if Kye did it or not?)
  • She folds her hands while others pray
  • On the 26th she started open and closing her hands to say “bye bye”
  • We often call her “Crazy Girl Tess” just like we called Kye “Crazy Boy Kye”
  • Still not saying “mama” 🙁
  • She cruises a little, she will move from one thing to another but not legit cruising yet
  • She is VERY tough. If she gets hurt she’s over it very quickly and won’t want me to cuddle her or comfort her
  • Tess is legit happy all the time, no matter what we are doing. She’s very go with the flow and just content! If I knew all my future babies could be just like her then I’d never be able to stop having them!

Videos

I took pics for Tess’s birthday invites this month. We had to have her party a week early and we went to the beach for a week so I had to take the pics and order the invites pretty early! Here are several of the pics I took of her in her birthday dress 🙂 

Sibling Comparisons: You can read Britt’s 11th month post here! You can also read Kye’s here. I love reading back over the older kids posts. It brings back so many memories and helps me to see the similarities and differences between them all! 

Emily Parker
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