8 Months

Dayton's hit many milestones in the past month - the biggest being he is very, very mobile now. He's crawling all over the place, pulling up to stand on everything, rolling over and getting to a sitting position by himself in seconds. Although it's fun to watch him progress, one of the downsides is how it affects putting him down for naps and bedtime. Just a few weeks ago, I could lay him down awake on his back and he would stay on his back all night and just go to sleep pretty easily on his own. Now he will quickly sit up then stand up in the corner closest to the door of his room crying to be rescued. It is cute though when he's standing there in the morning, and he gets a big smile on his face when someone comes to get him.

Sadly, he's currently in the middle of another bad cold and on top of that he's getting his top 4 front teeth at the same time. He's been a real trooper though. I can't wait to see how he handles teething when he's not sick on top of it because so far all of his teeth have come in when he's been really sick.

Another big milestone is how much he's improved at taking a bottle! He got the hang of using his sippy cup to drink water, and it helped him not hate bottles so much. In fact, he's kind of been weaning himself because he prefers a bottle to nursing during the day. He's not completely weaned, but this is major progress. As far as eating goes, he also now loves to feed himself cheerios or the dissolvable puffs. And he continues to be a good eater of any baby food.

He's still a pretty mellow kid and lets you know when he wants something - usually to be held. He always wants to be held for several minutes after he wakes up, and if you try to put him down, he screams until you pick him up. Luckily he's pretty easily distracted with food or toys within a few minutes.

He continues to keep a good schedule and goes down for bed between 8-9 pm, wakes around 4-6 am to eat and goes back to sleep until 7-8 am. His naps vary a little, but part of that is from being the third kid and always having to adapt to other people's schedules.

Recently, he's also started giving kisses more on demand than he used to. He opens his mouth big and wide and often licks your cheek too.

We just love him and feel so lucky to have him!