Carter - Ten Months

Diapers

Still wearing 3’s.

Shoe Size

3 1/2 wide.  He only has one pair of shoes and he wears them all the time.  This is why I got brown shoes.  They go with everything!

Clothes

6-9 month tops (even though most 9 month ones are still a little big on him), 6 month pants and 9 month sleepers (and all of the sleepers are big on him, but the 6 month ones are too small)

Feeding

We are rocking the homemade foods!!  Carter loves it all and eats it all.  If he doesn’t eat it, it’s usually because he’s not hungry, not because he doesn’t like it.  The only thing I’ve found that I really think he doesn’t like is cantaloupe and it’s because it’s kind of runny.  It’s such a pain to make and with it being as runny as it is, it’s difficult for him to eat with a spoon.  I stopped making it after the first batch I made!  This month, I started making combination meals for him.  Such as chicken with brown rice and green peas and sweet potatoes with turkey.  But it’s still all blended together in baby food form.  He needs protein though so we’re starting to give him  meats.

Sleep

No issues on the sleep front.  Still 12+ hours at night and two naps during the day that last anywhere from 1 hour to 2 1/2 hours.

Waketime

No changes.  Outside is his favorite still.

Mother’s Day Out

The teachers have told me how much of a joy he is at MDO now that his two top teeth have popped through.  He still only takes a 20-45 minute nap, but the teachers say that’s all he needs.  They tell me that he isn’t fussy or anything, he just naps then wakes up and plays some more until Justin or Debbie come get him.  He really doesn’t like missing anything which I’m sure is why he takes such a short nap.  I’m so glad he has gotten adjusted to being in school!  The only time he gets somewhat “fussy” is right when he’s dropped off and he knows we’re gone, but it’s a 50/50 shot on whether he cries or not when we leave.  Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.  He did get sent home one day this month because he was sick.  See below for info on that.

Justin’s Travel

October wasn’t too bad.  Justin was out of town 3 of 5 weeks and those weeks he was home on Thursdays instead of Fridays.  The two weeks that he was in town, he played stay-at-home dad because his dad was out of town so he didn’t have to work.  It does suck that Justin travels as much as he does, but weeks like those where he is with Carter all day while I’m at work make up for it and they happen on average about once a month. 

Statistics

No 10 month appointment, but at 10 months, I measured him at roughly 28.5 inches (40th %) and weighed him at 19.7 lbs (24th %).  So still a pretty small little boy.  Next pediatrician appointment isn’t until he’s one year old, but he does have to go in this Friday to get his flu booster.

Abilities

The biggest thing he learned this month was to say “dada” and “nana”.  He said “dada” for the first time on October 6th after Justin and I had gotten back in town.  We went to the Auburn vs. Arkansas game that day in Auburn and my mom was keeping him for us.  When we got back in town we picked him up and brought him home and then went on a golf cart ride to the playground and played in the swing.  Justin said that he thought he heard him say it on the way back to the house, but I didn’t hear anything.  I was giving him his bath before bedtime and he said it over and over again!  He’s been saying it non-stop since then.  He has also learned how to say “nana” and says it about as frequently as he says dada.  He’s said “baba” a couple of times and did say “mama” one day, but I haven’t heard him say it since.  These are all words he is learning to vocalize.  He doesn’t necessarily understand yet that dada is Justin, mama is me and nana is his grandmother (or a banana, depending on what he’s doing while saying it).  That will come with time and more practice :)  Right now we’re working on saying “mama” and on clapping (and of course walking).  Oh and speaking of walking….little sucker walks FAST with his little walker.  Good lord it is hard to keep up with him once he gets a hold of that thing.  Justin and I joke that he’s going to skip walking and go straight for running!

Teething

HOLY TEETH.  So remember in Carter’s 9 month post where I said month 9 was AWFUL because he was getting his top two teeth?  Well they finally poked through at the end of September (and even now they’re still growing  and pushing through) so I thought “wow that was a pretty fussy month for two lousy teeth”.  Oh no.  Boo Boo literally has FIVE teeth coming through (yes we call him Boo Boo sometimes - like from Yogi Bear).  He has those top two teeth and also has two on both sides of those top teeth as well as one additional one on the bottom.  I see now why he was so fussy.  One tooth is bad but I can’t imagine five!  So now we’re up to a grand total of seven teeth!!

Discipline

My mother in law told me one day that Carter definitely knows what “no” means and he obeys it for everything…except jewelry.  He LOVES to play with jewelry and won’t stop even if you say no.  I guess there are worse things for him to continue doing when told no.  He hasn’t done anything major yet for disciplinary purposes.  He has tried to go out Gizmo’s doggy door in our back porch and that is NOT going to be one of those things that we let him figure out when he hurts himself.  There are brick steps that he would fall down if he was able to get out that door.  This is why we watch him INTENSELY when he’s in the kitchen. 

He still pulls up on the cabinets in the kitchen, which I’m ok with him doing, but I’m not ok with him opening the cabinets, which is something he’s learning how to do.  He hasn’t quite figured out how to go through the things in the cabinets and I’d prefer he not get to that point.  Any time he opens a cabinet, even if it’s accidentally, we tell him “no”.  He also still tries to stand up in the bathtub sometimes, but when he does that I really only have to look at him and point at him and then he sits back down.  No “no” necessary :) 

The only other time, other than jewelry, that I have noticed him ignoring my “no” is when he’s about to take a bath.  I usually let him stand up on the floor holding on to the tub while I take his clothes off.  He loves to walk towards the bottom of the tub where the shampoo and conditioner sit on the edge and knock them into the water.  I have told him no repeatedly on this and he still does it.  It’s pretty frustrating.

Other Notable Things

We got our first high-grade fever this month.  Carter was sent home from Mother’s Day Out on October 23rd because he was fussy and they assumed he had a fever because his head was hot.  My MIL picked him up and brought him home.  She said he was happier to be at her house but she could tell he just didn’t feel good, but she didn’t have a baby thermometer at her house to take his temp.  When I went to pick him up after work he had just woken up from a 3 hour nap (I know a lot of babies have sleep issues when they are sick or teething, but Carter is the COMPLETE opposite.  He sleeps like a log when he’s sick or doesn’t feel good).  I could also tell he just wasn’t happy because he whined a lot.  Not so much crying, but a constant unhappy whining.  I touched his head and it was ON FIRE.  So I took him home to take his temperature. 

He does NOT like having his temp taken in his ear.  He moved his head so much and I couldn’t get a good reading but the first reading I got was 101.5.  So I stripped him down to a diaper and gave him some juice.  I propped him up in his bouncy seat in front of the TV and let him watch back to back episodes of Baby Einstein, which I NEVER do.  He loves Baby Einstein, but I’m trying to limit his TV time so he only watches one episode a few times a week.  But I could tell he hurt so bad and I wanted to help him forget the pain, so I let him watch a couple of episodes.  

Once he was sitting down and glued to the TV, I took his temp again since he wasn’t moving as much.  Three times in a row (and in both ears) it was over 102, the max being 102.5.  My heart hurt for my baby.  I also called the after hours pediatrician.  I knew 102 wasn’t worthy of emergency room, but I didn’t know where that line was that I should do something, so I called.  Shockingly, they say not to take a baby to the ER unless they have over a 105 fever.  If I had a 105 fever I would be dead.  Seriously.  But babies temps are different than ours.  They can handle more than we can.  Anyway, the doc said it was most likely a cold and told me to do the things I was already doing. 

After watching some episodes, I fed him his dinner (carrots and green beans) and he ate all of it.  I was grateful because I know they tend to not eat when they’re sick.  After dinner we got a bath and I made it a lukewarm bath in hopes to help the fever break.  I put him straight to bed after a bottle (which he barely drank from) and he was out cold by 7:30pm.  He didn’t wake up the next day until 8am.  I needed to go to work, but I didn’t want to wake him.  And if he still had a fever I was going to stay home anyway, so I just let him sleep.  Luckily, his fever broke and he was fine the next morning. 

Likes

Carter still likes everything I’ve put in this section in the past several months (golf cart rides, being outside, Baby Einstein, puffs and mums, etc.) so I won’t repeat all of them, but will just list the new likes or the likes that seemed the most prevalent this month:

• Having his teeth brushed.  He smiles SO big when he sees that brush!
• The swing at the playground
• Walking with his walker
• Teething pacifier.  Yes, my child that has REFUSED a pacifier for 10 months now actually likes chewing on the teething pacifier.  But he will still throw a normal paci away, he only likes the teething ones because of the texture:

• Walking around things like a coffee table or toy while still holding on to it
• Watching older kids move and play
• Doors.  This is a new one.  He LOVES to play with our bedroom door.  He likes closing it and opening it and the sound the door makes when banged against the stopper.  I’m scared he’s going to lock me out of our room one day.  A couple of weeks ago, I was in the kitchen making dinner and he crawled into the bedroom and all I heard was the door slam.  I was freaking out hoping that the door wasn’t locked.  Luckily it wasn’t.  He just likes the sound of the door closing for some reason.
• When daddy says “UH OH!”.  I don’t really know why, but he thinks it’s hilarious.

Dislikes

• Falling.  He is experimenting more and more with walking and I can’t catch him every time he falls.  But needless to say, he gets upset when he falls and bangs his head on something.  Usually picking him up and walking outside cures those tears though.

Advice

I need some advice from the momma’s out there.  I’m trying to transition Carter to the sippy cup.  We introduced it a month ago but it was very casual.  We didn’t force it and most of the time we just let  him play with it so that he could get used to holding it.  Well, now I really want him to start drinking from it.  And he won’t.  I use to put apple juice in it and he wouldn’t drink that, so I thought it was the sippy cup and put the juice in his bottle but he still wouldn’t drink it, so I thought it may just be the juice he doesn’t like.  So then, I tried to put his formula in the sippy cup and he refused it.  I put it back in a bottle and he sucked it dry.  How do I get him to drink from the cup??  Anyone have this problem??