Evelyn | Eight Months

-Wears size 4 in diapers

-Wears 6-12 months in clothes

-Rolls and scoots everywhere. Not crawling yet but she's so close, I'm sure she'll have it down within the next month.

-Drools SO much, but no sign of teeth.

-Very vocal. Her noises are sounding less like a baby and more like a toddler. And she likes to randomly let out ear-piercing screams.

-Still breastfed, but eating a lot more solid food. She's such a good eater and so far she's liked everything we've given her. I have noticed a drop in my milk supply which makes me sad, realizing I won't be able to breastfeed her forever. But our goal is to make it at least a full year, and very slowly ween her. I love everything about breastfeeding- mostly the opportunities it gives us throughout the day to snuggle, which is harder now that she's getting more active and mobile.

-Holds a bottle by herself.

-Drinks from a sippy cup.

-Takes the sacrament at church.

-As I mentioned last month, Evelyn was waking up about every two hours at night. I worried she was waking up out of habit. So basically I decided I wasn't going to feed her every single time she woke up, even if that meant letting her cry for long periods of time. It seemed reasonable to give her 4-5 hours in between feedings. The cry it out route was last resort for us, but that's where we were at! On the first night we started this sleep training, Evelyn woke up about 40 minutes after being put to bed, as she usually does. It seems to do nothing but upset her even more when Jay or I go in the room and try to calm her down, so I quietly snuck in her room to make sure she was ok. After a few minutes of observing her I saw that she was perfectly capable of getting a hold of the binky-bear. (The binky-bear is vital.) This was such a relief- I didn't feel like I was abandoning her because I knew she could get to her bear. She fell back asleep after about 20 minutes. Two hours later she woke up again. By that point it had been three hours since her last feeding. I wasn't going to feed her until it had been 4-5 hours. She was back and forth between subtle little moans and angry screams for 90 minutes. (This is the longest she's ever cried.) It was really really difficult but I had to stick to it, I had to know if this method was going to work and the only way to know was by being consistent. She slept for two more hours, then I fed her. The rest of the night she only woke up one other time.

By the second day her crying time went down to 30 minutes. And from there things only got better- she slept longer stretches at night, never cried when we laid her down for naps, and she even started taking longer naps! Hallelujah! Every night is unpredictable, but on average I'm getting up to feed her twice at night. This sleep training technique was defiantly hard at first, but it was so encouraging when we noticed such drastic differences in her sleeping habits, and therefore I am so grateful we stuck with it.

-Is the happiest in the mornings.

-Lights up when Jay comes home from work.

-Loves to watch us play with Kella.

-Loves playing rough. (Obviously it's not that rough, but she's getting more aggressive when we play with her.)

-Loves being in the car.

-Loves being at the store.

-Loves her jumper.

-Loves Baby Einstein.

-Loves being read to.

-Nicknames: Peanut, Gorgeous, Love, Baby Evelyn, Eleven.

I bought a beanie on Amazon that turned out to be way to big. Rather than paying $10 (more than what it was worth) to ship it back, I made some alterations.

New storage for her accessories.

 FaceTime with Uncle Luke

Chatbooks.

Morning photos for daddy.