PushUP24: 11 Month Check In

When I check in next month, I’m pretty sure I’ll be typing from a keyboard saturated in new mom tears. HOW IS MY BABY ALMOST ONE!?

Chase is officially 11 months old I honestly feel like he becomes more fun with every month that passes.

We’ve officially entered the phase of life where Chase no longer feels like my itty bitty baby. He moves a mile a minute, loves to roll, crawl and climb everywhere and gets the biggest kick out of pointing at everything, clapping his hands, waving, dancing when we ask him to dance (his side-to-side head bob is just the cutest) and constantly communicates though baby babbles, squeals, breathy noises and grunts.

Chase has been saying “mama” since he was six months old (back then it was more like “mamamamama”) but now it seems like he really knows that “mama” is me… or milk. We really only hear “mama” from him when he wants comforting or when he’s especially sleepy or hungry. He will also point at Sadie and say “da” so I think we may be on our way to “dog” as well!

One of my favorite personality traits from our little boy is the way Chase seems to love to try to engage others. He will crane his neck when we are out to try to look at the people around us and he’ll smile at strangers until they look at him and smile back. (Sometimes this backfires when the stranger is a man who says hello in a low voice which scares Chase and makes him cry!)

I have so much fun with Chase every day and Ryan and I constantly talk about how cool it is to watch him grow, learn and develop new skills seemingly overnight.

One word I constantly use to describe Chase is determined. He already seems to know what he wants or where he wants to go and will do this crazy up-down pushup inchworm crawl to get there in a flash. For a few weeks we kept waiting for him to learn how to crawl “normally” but Chase’s unique hand-release pushup crawl seems to be here to stay! Our pediatrician said some babies are crazy crawlers (or even skip crawling!) and apparently Chase falls into that boat with his up-down-scooter crawl. His crawl makes us (and our Gymboree friends) laugh a lot.

Chase seems to love climbing over things (like our legs) and is very determined to pull himself up to standing in his crib or along furniture. We aren’t seeing any signs of walking just yet, but Chase is a very mobile and active little guy!

Feeding

Well, it finally happened. The boob biting I’ve heard so much about occurred for the first time this month. Ouch! Thankfully it doesn’t happen regularly, but even a small handful of times is more than enough. What a little stinker!

Aside from the biting, breastfeeding seemed to change a lot this month and is quickly becoming an acrobatic endeavor as Chase twists, turns and even sits up to nurse. He will also often seem to only want to feed on one side for a hot second before shooting up and wanting the other side… We repeat this three times or so during at least one of our daily nursing sessions before he’ll eventually settle in and nurse normally. So strange! Chase has always been easily distracted while nursing, so this is just the latest in a string of crazy breastfeeding behaviors.

One thing I want to include in this recap mainly for my own memories is the response I receive from Chase to my singing during nursing sessions. When Chase is particularly flustered or overtired and refusing to nurse, the moment I start singing “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,” his whole body relaxes and he’ll nestle in and begin to nurse. It’s one of those moments that pulls at my heartstrings and gives me that ever-fleeting cuddle time with my baby boy that makes my heart overflow with love and joy. He really is my sunshine and my greatest source of happiness. Sometimes he’ll take a short break from nursing and make these sing-song baby coos along with my singing and I think my heart might just burst on the spot.

For those who have asked about my breastfeeding plans for the future, my initial goal was to make it to a year and reassess and that’s still my current plan. I don’t see myself stopping at a year if things continue to go well and will continue to take nursing day-by-day.

As far as real food is concerned, we are seeing progress! I ended up taking Chase to the pediatrician last month after a few days of some extreme fussiness and odd nursing behaviors. While we were there, I voiced some of my always-present concerns over Chase’s eating and preference for play over food at ALL times. Even though Chase is a small little dude – he’s still under 17 pounds – our pediatrician told me he’s growing along his own little curve and doing great. The doctor basically told me to chill out about his eating. He told me not to force spoon feeding if Chase is over it (I get a locked-jaw most of the time these days) and just give him plenty of opportunities to feed himself every day. This laid back approach is working so much better for Chase (and for me) and I definitely feel less stressed about Chase’s food.

I’ll prepare batches of plain/unseasoned foods for Chase but he really seems to like eating what we eat the most! He surprised us by loving chicken sausage, a spaghetti squash casserole and more. And he LOVES peanut butter. I know enough by now to know that when I hand a spoonful of peanut butter over to him, I will have baby covered in peanut butter to clean afterward, but he gets so excited and will suck on the spoon and try to grab the peanut butter off the spoon whenever we give it to him, so sometimes the mess is worth it.

Though Chase still seems to enjoy when I help him drink from a real cup (or water bottle) the most, he figured out how to use the straw on his Lollacup and drink a few sips in a row this month! Chase really likes water a lot and so far the Lollacup is the best sippy cup we’ve found that Chase was able to figure out on his own.

I feel like my motto surrounding feeding this month was to “chill out” and let it happen when it’s supposed to happen. Many of your comments about your little ones who didn’t seem to enjoy eating real food until after their first birthday helped ease my new mom anxiety SO much and I thank you for sharing your experiences with me! I do believe Chase’s desire to eat real food will progress and get better and better as he gets older.

Sleep

Ugh. Sometimes I just want to skip this section of Chase’s monthly recap because I feel like there’s so much back-and-forth and I could write a new summary about his sleep habits every week. Let’s just say some nights are good and some nights we’re up two times to nurse again. It’s hit or miss and dependent on so many factors. The good news is that whenever sleep seems to regress, it only takes a night or two of sleep training to get Chase back on course. Sleep is still far from wonderful over here, but it ebbs and flows.

Earlier this month, I started to get worried that Chase’s usually stellar napping habit was falling by the wayside after one week of super-short or no afternoon naps. I really rely on Chase’s naptime to work so I was very thankful when he slipped back into his two-naps-a-day rhythm the following week. We’re back to two 90-minute to two-hour daily naps which typically happen around 9:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. and I’m very thankful for this work time!

Likes

Pointing at everything
Clapping
Dancing (aka swaying his head from side-to-side)
Clicking his tongue
Waving
Looking and smiling at strangers
Peanut butter
Chicken sausage
Saying “Da,” “Mama” and “Ba”
Splashing in the bathtub, pool or lake
The drum at Gymboree music class
Giving us his “stank face”
Crawling toward Sadie’s food bowls

Dislikes

Getting cleaned up after eating
Low voices
Being in one place for too long

Eleven Month Baby Favorites

We’ve had some new discoveries this month that Chase seems to love and I’ve added them to the beginning of this list that also includes some of our tried and true favorites that continue to be go-to items for Chase at eleven months old. (I also removed some past favorites that Chase decided he was no longer into this month.)

PLAY