My 9 Month Old Baby
My Baby!
My baby is 9 months old! Why is this year going by so quickly? Does it go faster with each child you add to your family or is it just me getting older faster? Either way, these 9 months have been the most memorable as I have been able to stay home the entire time. Plus, my husband received 12 weeks of paternity leave from work, so we have had so much extra family time this year. He took 6 weeks paternity leave for summer holiday and the girls had 5 weeks off from school, so we took a wonderful train trip to some major European cities we hadn’t seen before.
Travel
OK, I never keep track of how many countries the girls or I have been to, but since our baby hasn’t been to many, I’ll pretend like I’m counting the countries he has visited. So far it’s UAE, Oman, South Africa, Mauritius, Portugal, England, The Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Switzerland. Can I count Switzerland? He has been to 13 countries in his 9 months.
Eating
He has kind of started acting interested in food. Not wildly so, but a bit more interested. His bottles are still by far his favorite time of day, besides seeing his sisters. But he does eat porridge most mornings and before bedtime. Then the rest of the day we feed him bits from whatever we are eating. One of our funny moments on our train trip this summer was going to Hotel Sacher in Vienna for their famous chocolate Sacher Torte. Our baby went straight for the pile of whipped cream next to the chocolate cake. He dove right in and had cream all over his face and hands. Clearly he must have thought it was delicious. (The Sacher Torte does live up to all the hype by the way.)
Sleeping
Every place we stayed provided a playpen for our baby to sleep in which was absolutely amazing. He is just the best sleeper thank goodness. He is a bit wobbly on his nap times, even crying for 5-10 minutes sometimes before falling asleep which kills me. His naps are from 9-10am and 1-3pm. But lately his 1-3 nap is delayed by my daughter who comes home every day for lunch, so he is falling asleep after she leaves. Then he sleeps 7pm-6:45am through the night.
Teething
No update here as he is still all gums. He doesn’t seem to be teething and doesn’t have any teeth just yet.
Milestones
It was so cute to see him crawling in every new city we visited. And my favorite memory from or summer trip was doing the Sound Of Music cycling tour through Salzburg, Austria with our baby in the pull along bike trailer. He still loves to gasp and giggle with his sisters. And he loves looking at other people and smiling. His favorite thing right now is plugs, wires, and sockets…
Pediatrician
Liam had his 9 month check up at the pediatrician this month. No shots! Just a quick check up. Everything looks good and he’s basically 50% for everything, so right there in the middle. His next appointment will be for his 1 year check up in October!
Next Month
Next month we will just be recuperating from our summer train trip and swimming in the lake as much as we can before the girls go back to school and leave us at home. We have friends from South Africa, who now live in Dubai who are coming to visit. We are so excited to do some fun day trips with them.
More About Me
I have low estrogen, meaning my body seems like it is already in menopause. This is causing all kids of crazy symptoms which made me think I was a total nut case while everyone kept saying “but you just had a baby!” My personal diagnosis is that this happened as soon as I had my third child. But my gynecologist is keeping an eye on me and I’m going in often for more testing.
I have been taking an estrogen gel (rubbing it on my tummy 2-3 times a week) for a few weeks now and the heart beating out of my chest feeling has stopped, my insane anxiety has lessened, I’m still sweating as we are in a heat wave here in Europe, and I still cry at the drop of a hat thinking about how quickly time is passing. But I would say I feel 60% better than before.
And I think just having the result of very low Estrogen has helped mentally as well. Plus, taking iron every day is probably helping as well. Yesterday I read that women can go into what looks like full early menopause but is actually just low estrogen. So maybe I’ll start calling it low estrogen instead of menopause. Sounds better? If you need to catch up, read this. And please let me know if you have any ideas or advice. Has this happened to you?