Sophie’s 8 Month Update

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Our sweet Sophie B is 8 months old! Here are the updates from this past month!

Sophie’s 8 Month Update

Nicknames: Sophie B, Sophie Bean, BeeBee (probably the most often used one), Honey, Dolly, Bugaboo, BeeBee Brynn 🙂 And the most recent nickname? Sophie-Saurus! Haha. She’s been making dinosaur noises as she climbs all over us!

Size: I took Sophie in for her next vaccine (we do one at a time) on May 30 (at 7.5 months old), and she weighed in at exactly 15 pounds!! She’s definitely still putting on that cute baby chunk. We love her squishy cheeks and baby legs! She’s 26 inches long now.

Sophie can still fit into some 6 month clothes, and her 9 month items (we mix and match sizes a bit), but she has actually started to wear some 12 month clothes as well!! My mother-in-law got her a 12 month romper that she’s already worn and it looks so cute on her! She’s in size 3 diapers and will stay that size for a while.

Fun milestones: 

Sophie continues to change so much! We are constantly impressed by all she can do! This past month has basically been all the “big girl” things month! 🙂 This includes things like sipping water from her sippy cup, sitting up like a big girl on her own, trying sitting in the shopping cart (still a little small for that!), holding her first flower…all sorts of fun things!

She loves to play little “games” now days – things like saying “ahhhhhh” as we pat her mouth with our hand. She loves that sound and the fact that it gets people laughing. 😉 She also smacks her hands on the table to hear the fun noise, and loves looking at books and toys, but the most exciting part by far is her desire to crawl and scoot everywhere!

Sophie isn’t officially crawling on all fours yet, but she army crawls, rolls, and scoots to get everywhere she wants to be! 🙂 We couldn’t leave her on the floor for even a few seconds without her getting into something…so the babyproofing has begun! Actually, we went with an awesome gate enclosure (a really big 8-panel one) from Target.com, and we have it set up in the downstairs living room area. It works really well as a play area for Sophie.

She’s usually happy in it, and it’s big enough that several adults can even hang out with her in the enclosure, too! 🙂 That’s how we’ve begun the babyproofing process thus far. When Bjorn and I lay on the floor with Sophie, she climbs and clambers all over us! She also makes a low breathing-in growling noise like a dinosaur, haha. So that’s why she’s referred to as the Sophie-Saurus!

We’ve lowered the mattress in Sophie’s crib recently, because she is starting to pull up to a kneeling and even standing position!

^^ Sophie loves to peek up at her monitor camera. It’s hilarious and I love it so much. ^^

Sophie has also tried some fun new foods this past month. She’s started to have yogurt at some of her meals, and she’s also tried things like blueberries, sweet peas, green beans, bananas, and apples (I’ve pureed and frozen all of these in cubes). Some things she likes more than others. 😉 We’ve also given Sophie some foods in her mesh food feeder, which she loves holding and gnawing on! We have her “big girl” high chair set up in the kitchen now, and she loves sitting in it and either eating or playing with toys.

Our sweet girl is teething as of the past couple weeks. It’s been sad to see her a bit more fussy this way. She isn’t miserable, though, but I can tell her mouth is bugging her a bit. As of yet we haven’t given her medicine since it’s not awful. Mostly, she gets fussy in the evenings, but she is soothed well by nursing before bedtime, which is something we do normally anyway. She has a sharp little tooth coming in on the bottom. It’s her right front bottom tooth, and her other bottom tooth looks like it’s starting to come in as well.

Sleep: 

I’m happy (THRILLED) to say that Sophie generally sleeps through the night these days! Since she’s teething lately, she has had some nights of waking and needing a pacifier or some soothing – sometimes nursing – but generally, she is sleeping well! We are so proud and grateful for the sleep!

Sophie’s bedtime is still 7:30 pm, when I feed her and put her down for bed. Then she sleeps very soundly till about 10:30 or 10:45 pm, when I feed her before I go to bed. Most nights, she won’t wake till maybe 6 or 7 am. There have been a couple times lately, like I mentioned, where she’s needed some soothing at 4 or 5 am. It’s nothing like it used to be when she was a newborn, though! We’re grateful that she’s sleeping so much more solidly now days. It’s good for her, too! She’s sure been busy growing and learning!!

^^ that precious little baby hand <3 ^^

RELATED READING: Our Best Baby Sleep Tips & Strategies // I share all of our sleep tips and techniques in this post, in hopes of encouraging and helping other new parents. Be sure to check it out if you’re looking for ideas or solutions that may work for your family, too!

Regarding naps: Sophie still takes a 90-120 minute morning nap each day, and then a 1-2 hour nap each afternoon. If her afternoon nap is super short or not very restful for her, then I’ll have her take a shorter cat nap later in the afternoon.

Sophie likes: 

  • Music, dancing, singing, hearing people clap…
  • Baths in the bathtub! We have a smaller plastic tub that we stick inside our big claw-foot tub, and Sophie’s loved taking a couple of her recent baths in the tub instead of in the kitchen sink! 🙂

  • DADDY! 🙂 These two have such a special bond. Bjorn is on summer break from teaching now. Although he’s still busy with other responsibilities like farming, army, and mayoral duties, it’s been a blast having him around during the day more! Sophie just loves giggling, reading, and playing with him!
  • Animals! She loves petting dogs, looking at cats, staring up at the horses, and slapping the glass on our fish tank. 😉 She even notices birds outdoors and enjoys their chirping!
  • Touch & Feel books. These are a big thing for her right now. She knows just where the fur is on each page, and giggles endlessly while she grabs it with her hands.

  • Mama. 😉 She and I sure are buddies, and it’s so sweet that she looks to me for reassurance and comfort. But Sophie still loves smiling at people we chat with in the grocery store, being held by all of her relatives, and more.

Sophie doesn’t like:

  • Teething. :'( I think it’s been just a bit sore for her, and it makes her fussy as she works through what it’s like to have a tooth come through her gums. 🙁 Makes me so sad, but luckily, she hasn’t been miserable. It’s just no fun.
  • Toys being taken from her! I had no idea that could start this early, but if she’s playing with something she’s enjoying, and if it’s something we don’t want her holding/sucking on and we take it away, she can fuss loudly about it!! I guess the plus side of this is that she can really express preferences now days. We’ll continue to learn as parents how to make good boundaries and explain to her what she can and can’t hold or suck on! 🙂

  • Green beans. Sweet peas. And she’s a little iffy on plain yogurt. 😉 I used fresh ingredients, pureed them, and froze them into 1 oz. cubes. We thaw one cube at a time to try it with her meals of cereal, etc. but green beans got the most dramatic reaction! She’ll squint her eyes shut, pucker her lips, and blow raspberries loudly at things like green beans. Haha! But then things like pureed apples and bananas don’t get that same dramatic reaction!
  • Also, she’s happy:

  • Until the wind is in her face. Hahaha.

This month, Sophie:

  • Watched her Auntie Signe graduate from college! We couldn’t make it to Nevada to see Signe graduate in person, but we were able to watch live, which was a great little viewing party in itself. And then we had a family grad party for Signe later on, which was fun.
  • Attended her first pizza party! Haha. Sophie and I stopped by a pizza party at the middle school. Bjorn’s 7th graders were excited to meet her, and she just enjoyed being held by her daddy and looking around at everybody!

  • Played in her new pool! I snagged one for under $20 on Amazon and Sophie has tried it out a couple times so far this summer. I love how it has some shade on top for her fair skin!

  • “Helped” with all the farming that had to be done! Sophie’s role was mostly just going with the flow and being ready to hop in the car whenever transportation or a meal was needed! 🙂 She was a great sport during planting season this year.
  • Celebrated a baby shower for her first cousin – a girl! – due this summer! We’re so excited!!

  • Started going to a women’s Bible study with me. This was a new thing for us, since Sophie had never been watched by someone other than family members before! She did such a great job in the nursery these first two weeks of the study – I’m so very proud of her. She has a blast with the toys and her caretakers there.

  • Signed up for the summer reading program at the library! 🙂

  • Met up with Grandma Jan (my mom) halfway between our homes. We spent a rainy, cooler day at the mall and it was such a sweet time! Sophie was thrilled to see her grandma and we enjoyed some great cuddles and conversation as we hung out at Barnes & Noble and other stores.

  • Celebrated Father’s Day! She sure loves her daddy.

I feel like I may be missing some things, but that’s all I can come up with at the moment! It’s been a full, happy month!

Sophie brings light and joy to everyone she meets. I always prayed for a child who would be joyful and bring life-balancing joy to others, and she is such a sweet day-brightener for so many! What a blessing our Solveig Brynn is! We can’t wait to see how she continues to grow over the next month!

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