The Journey of Parenthood…

Tess Summary of Month 8

This post covers Tess’s 8th month of life. From Feb 28th – March 30th. These monthly posts are always long and are always ones I’m sure people skip, but they are filled with TONS of details if you have a baby around the same age as mine it may be helpful 🙂

Nursing: Tess has her own groove when she nurses and it’s really funny. She always twists her head to the side. It’s like a dance move the “latch then twist” Yes. My nipples look awesome thanks to this positioning 😉

Nursing has gotten MUCH quicker. The middle of the day feedings often finish up in 20 min total which is great!

I remember Britt got to an age where she was almost violent with me while nursing…Tess has now hit that phase too and she’ll hit me while she eats. 

My favorite feeding is the one before bed, she gets the little beads of sweat along her nose just like Britt always did 🙂 She’s also the most cuddly then and tends to nurse the longest for that feeding 

She’s drinking only 7 oz in her bottles rather than 8 so I stopped heating up 8 in order to stop wasting that ounce!

On the 25th of the month my nipples hurt SO badly and they were cut and were bleeding and even pumping was painful and I had to lower the setting. I’d had some nipple pain leading up to that day, but that day was def the worst. I ended up realized that day was the same day that Tess had her top teeth break through the gums: 4 of them!!! I also had a lot of nipple pain when Britt broke teeth! 

Around the same time as the teeth coming in I noticed I started getting more milk than usual when I pumped. I wonder if she was maybe not getting as much when she nursed due to pain?

She comes off the breast to look at me, say “dada”, then goes right back to nursing. It’s like she’s taunting me that she isn’t saying “mama” 😉

I love when she has her little fists up while nursing. It reminds me of when she was a newborn!

Because don’t all breastfeeding moms feel like cows?

Along with the hitting, Tess has also started to show a lot of interest in my mouth and nose while nursing! 

Typically around this age babies start to become distracted from nursing. They get very interested in the world around them. I don’t know if it’s because Tess is used to craziness around her all the time so she’s already learned how to tune it out or if it’s because she just LOVES to nurse but distractions haven’t been an issue for her. And she even still sits in my lap and cuddles and kisses on me for a good 10-20 min after each feeding too if time allows 🙂 

This doesn’t really have all that much to do with nursing but I think it’s funny. Every day at 3 I have my Spark while she nurses and I just think it’s one of those things that’s super normal to me right now but will be humorous in the future to look back on! (and yes, Spark is safe while nursing as long as you only drink it once a day! I make mine into a slushee with Rehydrate mixed in…that combo has helped me go from like 4-5 headaches a week to only 1-2 a month!) 

Solids: It’s still going VERY well with Baby Led Weaning! She LOVES her solids and eats pretty much anything we offer! And I’m still LOVING our high chair! So glad we made the investment 🙂

I did pics of all the “first foods” she ate during her first month of solids…I stopped this month with that but Kye kept thinking I was still doing it and would remind me to take pics of her 😉

I save the messy foods for dinner so she can eat in a diaper and just go straight to the bath 🙂

Now that Tess doesn’t have the evening nap it makes going and doing SO much easier! This month we went to Steak and Shake! Kids eat free on the weekend which seriously makes it so cheap. If you have kids and want to eat out then it’s the place to go on Sat or Sun for sure! Yes, the floor is sticky and you may not wanna look at their health code rating…but it’s delicious 😉 Plus hello…free hats!

She’s sad she can’t have a milkshake with little chunks of ice in it 😉

This month I also got mega super brave and took all three kids out to dinner by myself! Zach was going to be home late and it was a Wednesday night and Zaxby’s does 99 cent kids meals on Wednesdays. I ended up being able to get meals for all of us, and Zach, and only spent $12 🙂 Anyways it was one of those rock star mom moments where I felt like I was super woman. I had all three kids sitting happily eating there food and we were all enjoying ourselves. Man, I deserved a medal or something. Then I looked at the table across from us. And I realized there was another solo mom their with her kids…all nine of them. Yup. She wins. Trophy is hers for sure! 

Don’t let Britt’s pout face fool you…she did really great the whole time!

We had a REALLY good time! I honestly think I handle the three kids solo out and about better than I did just the two when Britt was a baby. That miiiiight have something to do with the fact that Tess is a waaaaay easier and content baby than big sister was…

This month we also went to eat at Mema’s house. It was SO nice to get that quality time with her (she’s Zach’s grandma…Mrs. Charlotte’s mom). It was really cute because she went out of her way to make things our family enjoys. One thing we all love is Queen Zipper Peas. Tess grubbed OUT on them. Child wouldn’t stop shoveling them in!

Sidenote but I am obsessed with this high chair. It’s amazing. Seriously. I mentioned it in an earlier post but I got it from someone in my neighborhood for $10. And it’s worth way more than that. It folds up and is easy for travel and provides a legit seat for the baby! No attaching it to the table! Pure awesomeness. It’s a Evenflo BabyGo High Chair. It’s out of stock on Amazon but it’s worth the hunt to find one! For real!

With the nice weather March brings to our area we enjoyed a lot of meals on the back porch too 🙂

Schedule:


7:00 up for the day. Nurse and then do solids.

25 min independent playtime, if not taking kids to school

9:00 down for nap

10:45-11:15 up from nap, nurse

12:30 solids with kids after school for lunch

1:00 nap

2:45-3:15 up from nap and nurse. Sometimes she will still sleep a little later, but usually she’s awake right at 3.

25 min of independent playtime

5:30-6:00 solids during family dinner

6:30 (or a little earlier) bath

6:45 nurse then straight to bed

Sleep: Well sometimes parents are idiots. We had Tess’s Angel Care monitor on the corner of her crib so we could easily turn it on and off. That meant the cord to it kinda dangled from behind the crib. Neither of us thought anything about it at all. THANK THE LORD that I happened to be up getting ready one morning when I heard the angel care beep. We got to where we kinda ignore it b/c it will do the warning beep since she sometimes sleeps down in the corner of the crib. I happened to look and could tell something was wrong. I ran in and the cord from the monitor was wrapped around her neck! Stupid, stupid error could really cause a major life ending event to happen. Even when you are a “hardcore mom” you can still screw up! Ugh. I wasn’t mad at myself, I was just SO glad she was okay. And we immediately moved the monitor to the floor. Bending over to turn it on and off is worth the effort 🙂 

I know many babies sleep a certain way…but Tess has a variety of sleep positions. Sometimes she’s on her back sprawled out, sometimes she’s on her belly, sometimes she’s on her side with her bunny friend covering her face, and sometimes she’s sitting up 😉

On the night of the 16th I tried dropping the sleep sack. With the warmer weather coming, I figured it was time. The next morning her leg was stuck between the slats of the crib. This often happened with Britt and it’d be so bad sometimes that she’d have bruises! I still went ahead and tried her first nap on the 17th without it (which was the same day I did my day in the life post). She didn’t fall asleep well and then had BOTH legs stuck so I just put it back on and decided to wait on dropping it for now. 

She can still sit up and rock on all fours while wearing the sleep sack. In fact, we lowered the crib this month as I kept finding the little ties of her crib railing cover untied…and soggy 😉

One thing about Babywise that people don’t often talk about is how HAPPY the babies are when they wake up. Even if Tess wakes early she will be HAPPY in her crib until I go get her. There is no urgency! The times when I have to wake her up from sleep she still wakes up with a big grin. I LOVE it and I always like to be the one to get her up so I get to see those sweet smiles 🙂 Kye has caught on to it too and always gets excited when he’s able to get her up with me!

The bed head struggle is real!

I love this…totally a big sister/little sister moment. See Tess sticking that tongue out?

Sickness: Ugh. Y’all. This was so pitiful! Tess got a low fever the Thursday prior to our beach trip. It was 102 which is SO HIGH for my kids. I was hosting Kye’s class Easter party Friday morning so Zach took her in to the walk in clinic for me. Which, let’s be real, made me nervous. He’s an AWESOME Daddy but I’m the mommy. I wanna be there. I wanna comfort her. I wanna ask the questions. I wanna be the one to study the dr while he answers my questions and decide if his demeanor is saying we should be concerned. 

She was SO miserable and pitiful. In the days leading up to the fever I had noticed one of her eyes looked smaller than the other one. Almost swollen. I took like a billion pics of it so be warned. Zach said he didn’t see it, but I could REALLY tell and was so nervous! Of course when Z took her in to the walkin and showed them the pics they said they didn’t see it either. But when I went in that next week or so for Kye’s 6 year visit my girl Kelly totally saw it and made me feel a TON better about it. She said it’s a common thing and when they are sick or sleepy it’ll get puffy like that and by a year it should stop but if it doesn’t we can go to an eye dr. Since her pupils are even in size and she doesn’t appear to have any vision issues, we’re cool just to wait and see with it. Honestly I think I might have the same issue? I’ve posted before about when I first have a baby and am SO tired how Zach teases me about my eyes being different sizes! 

When he took her in to the walkin they ran tests for strep and flu and both were negative. They also did a bag to catch her urine and tested that (such a sweet daddy…he brought her home and collected it and then took it back up there!). And it was also negative. What was super strange was that Carter had the same symptoms too!

Earlier in the week Tess had the low fever and we were at Britt’s swim and Casey came to watch with Carter. I had her feel Tess and she felt Carter to compare and realized he was really warm. She took him in and they told her it was just a virus and it’d pass. He ended up being a couple days ahead of Tess with it so it made me feel better as she developed symptoms to know that he’d already been through them. 

On our beach trip she broke out in a rash. Her fever was done and she was much happier but the rash was not cute! I decided she FOR SURE had roseola. A puffy eye is even a symptom of it! Thankfully she was back to her happy self during the trip and the rash completely faded within a couple days. 

Attempts to get pics of the puffy eye (it’s her right one)

Sweet Daddy holding her at the dr!

You can really see the eye here!

The day Zach took her to the dr she was SO PITIFUL. She just wanted me to hold her all the time and she cried a ton. I ended up nursing her at 3 and then just literally sitting on the couch and holding her until dinner time. She even fell asleep in my arms. Not gonna lie…it was a moment I’ll always cherish! Sick babies are so sad but also SO sweet 😉

Sidenote: middle children need attention 😉

Here’s the rash!

At the beach, eye still pretty puffy and this was after fever was gone

I hated that she wasn’t herself at the beach and she didn’t LOVE it like I think she would normally, but thankfully she was done feeling icky by the time we left and she had a BLAST at the zoo!

This pic is really good b/c you can see both the rash and the puffy eye! 



Teeth: A big reason I didn’t realize Tess had a virus was because she was cutting FOUR top teeth AT THE SAME TIME. So, duh, a slight fever and fussiness made sense! I felt so bad that she was so, super miserable. But the benefit of getting so many at once it that it’s over quicker!

Hair: Tess’s hair has just been pretty awesome since Day 1. 🙂 Now it’s getting less and less crazy but the color is what is so interesting to me. Her roots are SO blond but her tips are SO dark! 

Bath: I still really like the bath seat. Mine is almost exactly like this one but there are a lot of cheaper options on Amazon! My only issue with it is that it can tip. Which, hello, that’s why they are recalled so often! But what do you expect of a chair in the water? You just have to really pay attention to them and you should be paying attention to them anyway! Tess loves, loves, loves her bath and gets upset when it’s over!

A rare bath alone 🙂

Car Days: Tess spends a good chunk of time in the car. I’m so fortunate that Zach is able to take the kids to school pretty often! I have a lot of guilt over Tess having to be her in car seat a lot. If I take them then her entire awake time in the morning is spent in the car. And then her entire awake time between the 11-1 time frame is in the car to pick them up. While I am sad about Kye riding bus in the fall, it’ll be nice with Britt still only going three days. Tess will get to be home at lot more and have time to PLAY!

This makes me laugh. We couldn’t even fit Britt in and Tess has her little hand on her chin like she’s just “so over it” bahaha

Sunday School: I know it’s awful. But up until now Tess hasn’t gone to Sunday School. Our Sunday School starts at 9:30. She naps at 9. Plus with her bottle issues and all I didn’t even take her to legit church for awhile. And I was really, really concerned about the TDap vaccine situation. She had her second round of the booster and was cleared to be around strangers/people who hadn’t had the shot. So I took her to class for the first time!

The way I make it work is I get up super early that morning and wake her at 6:30. I then put her down for nap at 8 and wake her at 9 to leave. Britt did great with this. Because Britt was a high needs sleeper. Tess? She may sleep but it won’t be for very long! I also heat the bottle up super super warm so it’ll stay warm until services and I wait and pump until we get home. 

Her first day of class went great! I didn’t leave her but she sat in the chair and everything! Big girl! (also that next week she had the freaking virus so you KNOW I was totally cursing myself for taking her haha). 

Independent Playtime: Still going strong! She does awesome and plays happily for 25 min. I aim for twice a day but sometimes it’s only once and sometimes it’s twice but with shorter times. I really, really think independent playtime is important and I make it a priority for her!

Potty: When our babies are little we go ahead and start putting them on the potty prior to bath time. It’s an easy time to do it because they are already diaper-free 🙂 We just talk positively about the potty and I really think it helps with early potty training. Britt actually pooped on the potty for the first time on her first birthday! I know a lot of people talk about this “elimination communication” thing right now and it just sounds way too intense and messy for me. I guess what I do is a more relaxed version of that? Here are my tips for early potty training 🙂 Yes, that’s a regular toilet seat with a pull down child seat attached! We have this toilet seat
and it works great 🙂 

Toys: With cutting 4 teeth at once Tess has LOVED her Raz-Berry Teether
this month. I love to buy these as baby shower gifts. Especially for first time moms. Because first timers have NO CLUE what the torture of teething is and really anything  you can find that helps make it even slightly easier is like gold. 

She still sits great in her bouncer seats! I love how she always has a leg all funky

Also still likes the jumperoo but with her being so close to crawling we do a lot more playing on the floor.

Child is ALWAYS surrounded by toys. Her siblings make sure of that!

With the beautiful weather this month I tried to take the kids outside as often as I could! I’m so glad we got this KidCo Peapod back before we had Kye! We’ve used it for him to sleep in while traveling and it’s come in very handy for Tess outside and even at the beach!

Straight chill mode!

She really enjoys being wherever the family is…outside or inside she’s just happy to tag along!

All the swinging babies 🙂 Daddy loves to take ’em to the playground!

Siblings: Britt is really starting to show more interest in Tess! I remember when Robyn had Cooper, Lorelai was 6 months older than Kye was when Britt was born and I remember saying that I liked that age difference. That extra 6 months makes a huge impact for sure! Britt is now more into Tess, more helpful with her, and even plays with her some. If Tess was a newborn with Britt at this age I think she’d be a lot more interested in her than she was when Tess was born!

Love!

My girls!

Of course Kye continues to adore his littlest sister!

His new thing is wanting to get her out of the pack and play when independent playtime ends. This freaks me out haha I try to be all “oh that’s so sweet” and not say “be careful” 1,000 times.

Tess is really starting to want to be more involved in the action!

More About Tess:

  • On March 8th I was putting the kids games away in the closet and put her on her belly to play. When I got done she was sitting up! First time I’d seen her go from belly to sitting on her own 🙂
  • She has THE most perfect posture. She sits up SO tall and straight!
  • On 3/18 she said “dada” for the first time (I’m pretty bitter about it!)
  • She also signed “all done” for the first time that same day
  • She’s gotten much more talkative in the car seat, almost like she’s singing to the songs
  • Says “nanananana” a lot
  • Tess has entered the stage where she’s LOUD during church services!
  • She throws her cup off her tray on purpose so we have had to start popping her hand to let her know she can’t do that
  • She’s constantly getting up on all 4s rocking back and forth like she wants to crawl
  • She’s still very tiny. Her 6-12 month sized clothes are massive on her but the 3 month stuff is just too short so I went ahead and finally packed it up
  • All the sudden this month she just really blossomed and seems to have SO much personality! It’s such  fun age!
  • She gives TONS of kisses. For sure it’s my favorite thing about having a baby. I love me some baby kisses
  • Started saying “hi dada” but i mean she doesn’t know what either word means yet
  • I’ve found if she’s teething or has a fever she responds best to Motrin. Tylenol doesn’t really help her at all. First one of my kids to be this way
  • Tess is THE most happy, easiest baby EVER. I appreciate it SO much and she’s SO FUN! She’s just EASY and CONTENT and a true JOY. 

Videos:

I’m so thankful the Lord blessed us with this precious, sweet, adorable little girl!

Sibling Comparisons: You can read all about Kye’s 8th month of life here and all about Britt’s here. I got sucked in watching the videos of Kye. Oh how I love remembering back to him as a baby! He’s just SO BIG now. And it’s SO awesome to see the similarities and differences between my babies. He and Tess really both blossomed a lot this month. I love how he said “dada” and was blowing raspberries at the same time. Stinking adorable. And his laugh and him giving kisses to his friend. Oh my heart! And looking at Britts? Ohmygoodness that child was crawling and pulling herself to standing at this point! I guess she’s been my quickest developer and Tess and Kye stick together on their timelines. I always laugh reading Britt’s posts because the child hasn’t changed much. There are pics of her SOBBING and you’d think the world was ending…but that’s just Britt. I also laughed at how she messed up Kye’s trains as just today we dealt with that same issue haha. I cannot get over how adorable she is in her little t-shirts. Britt is still my snuggly girl but that little baby version of her sure is precious! 

This is a comparison of all three of them around this age (slightly younger but still an idea!)

Emily Parker
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