Clara Nine Months

Sweet baby Clara is nine months old! She's going through a particularly tough stage right now (actually, both girls are) and hasn't been herself the past few days. I see her bottom left tooth just starting to poke through her gums and she is not happy about it. The poor baby has been grumpy needing cuddles constantly and I can't even think about leaving the room without her in my arms (i.e. taking a minute to go to the bathroom is a struggle).

Clara moved out of our room and into her shared room with Amelie a couple of weeks ago. We had a couple of tough nights getting her adjusted, but it wasn't too bad. She then started sleeping through the night until the teething started and now usually wakes up once or twice. I've stopped breastfeeding her during the night as well, which seemed like such a big deal with Amelie, but Clara doesn't seem to mind. Side note - Amelie is also sleeping in her big girl bed and most nights wakes up a couple of times as well. We're back to getting very intermittent sleep followed by wake ups between 5-6am which makes for a very tired household. Nap times are either one long morning and afternoon naps or three short half an hour naps.

Food wise, Clara continues to enjoy mostly all foods I give her. She was a fan of oatmeal with almond butter, but won't really open her mouth for it anymore. She loves strawberries, blueberries and bananas. Scrambled eggs, meatballs and roasted chicken are her favorite proteins. Fusilli pasta is her favorite grain. She loves greek yogurt for dessert. She mainly feeds herself with exception of the more messy stuff. Also, she's graduated fully from stick shapes to cubes too as her pincer grip is on point.

I'm still breastfeeding Clara four times a day and plan to gradually decrease this to just a morning and bedtime feed by the time she's about 11 months. When she's about one, I'm planning to stop breastfeeding to finally gain some freedom back and give her cow's milk as a drink. Speaking of drinks, she's really into drinking water too and gets so excited when I show her her cup.

This weekend, Clara learned how to clap and just the day after, she did it when I asked without showing her what to do! I can't wait for more of these moments as she is learning and growing into a cute little girl.

^middle pic: see what I mean about going to the bathroom?