Isla’s 8 Month Update

Time is flying and it is so bittersweet. I am missing those newborn cuddles all ay long, but I will say, the 7-8 month is by far my favorite thus far. Isla is in such a fun stage. She is crawling all over the place, loves every type of food we give her, loves being outside, and she is ticklish all over her body. She is also starting to pull up on anything and everything. I’m curious if she will be an early walker? She is changing and developing so fast!

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Milestones:

Like I said above, I feel like she has developed so quickly in the last two months. The biggest development being she is crawling! She began army crawling at 7 months and right at 8 months she started crawling on all fours. She is also pulling up on furniture and toys. right at 7 months she got her first two teeth in the same week. She loves to hear “yay Isla” anytime she does something good!

Sleep:

Per usual, Isla is a great sleeper. I have said it a million times, but if you are expecting or even if your babe is already here, I highly encourage you to take Taking Cara Babies for sleep training. Isla has been sleeping in her own room for a while. By 8 weeks she was sleeping from about 9pm-7:30am so we moved her to her crib. She currently sleeps 7pm-7am with rarely any wakings. We are now at two naps a day for her and she sleeps until exactly when it is time to wake up. For those of you who wanted to see her current routine, it is below. PLEASE NOTE, this is a routine NOT a schedule. She may wake up a few minutes early from a nap or we may not be home until 8 to put her to bed. Below is just her sleep routine. I will include our feeding routine under the feeding category!

Isla’s Routine:

• 7:00am – Wakeup
• 10:00am-11:30am – Nap
• 2:00pm-3:30pm – Nap
• 7:15pm ish – Bedtime

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Feeding:

If you are new here, you can check Isla’s 4 month update and 6 month update for more on how and why we went from breastmilk to formula. Isla has been on all formula bottles now since 6 months. It has been great for her. My supply was never an issue. Isla just didn’t thrive with breastmilk. She was having major trouble gaining weight and we have found her spit up to be worse with breastmilk compared to formula. At 6 months we decided to just start doing all formula because she thrives better on it. Between 6-7 months, she went from the 13% in weight to the 50%. This definitely helped assure me we were doing what was best for her. Her spit up is also tremendously better with formula. As far as what formula we do, we started with the HIPP formula. Like breastmilk, her spit up was bad with it. So we then moved onto trying Similac for Spit Up after some of you recommended it. It helped, until it didn’t. The thing with formulas “made for spit up” is that they are basically formula just with added rice starch to thicken. Well this led to Isla becoming extremely constipated which led to an increase in spit up. No matter what tips and tricks we did, we could not get her to poop. She was screaming in pain every time she tried. After talking with her pediatrician we decided to start Similac Pro Advance. Within 24 hours she had 5 big blowouts. She has been doing great with that formula. Regular poops and very minimal spit up!

At 6 months we decided to start Baby Led Weaning instead of doing traditional purees. From 4-6 months we did purees and Isla loved it. I won’t get into all the BLW research, but after reading all about it that’s what we decided to do. Today, Isla eats everything we eat with a few exceptions. She has loved every single thing we have given her which is so nice! We have found one allergy and that is to salmon. If you want to look into BLW, I highly suggest following these two pages on Instagram. @babyledweanteam, this page has great ideas for meals and what to have your baby try. @feedinglittles is great for more than just babies. They also have a BLW beginner program that gives you every bit of detail you could need.

Isla is starting to wean herself from formula. She is not taking as many ounces as she used to now that she is getting more food. Her bottles are anywhere between 3-6oz each. I am going to drop one bottle and do 4 bottles instead of 5. Her pediatrician just said as long as she gets about 24oz a day of formula she’s good. Again, times vary every single day.

Feeding Schedule:

• 7:00 – Bottle
• 8:00 – breakfast.. ex. yogurt, toast (with avocado, peanut butter, or almond butter), waffle, fruit, eggs.
• 10:00 – Bottle
• 12:00 – Lunch.. ex. leftovers, earth’s best chicken nuggets, Annie’s Mac n Cheese, fruit, a pouch.
• 1:00 – Bottle
• 4:00 – Bottle
• 4:30 – Snack.. ex. a pouch, a wafer teether, yogis, fruit.
• 6:00 – Dinner.. ex. pasta, chicken, veggies, literally anything we eat.
• 7:15 – Bottle

Q&A:

I asked y’all if you had any questions regarding Isla and told you I would add them here. I got a ton regarding she sleep and eating schedules which I answered above! Here are some of the others.

1. Where do you get her bows from? Isla is not into bows these days. She basically keeps them on long enough for me to take a picture and that’s it. I think I am going to order some clip bows soon and see what she does. But I love Baby Bling, Mini Prep Boutique, Ives and Indy, Bloom Headwraps, Blondes in Bows, and Bek and Jet.
2. Favorite baby clothing stores? Majority of Isla’s cute clothes are Zara or H&M. Super cute things, but also very affordable. I also get some things from Old Navy and Gap. As far as onesies and PJ sets, I get them from wherever. Usually Target, Spearmint Baby, Old Navy, H&M.
3. What toys is she liking? I did a round up of our most used baby items which includes lots of toys!
4. What formula is Isla taking? Similac Pro Advance. It is the third formula we have tried and the best one for her that we have found.
5. Did you do anything to teach her how to crawl? Not really. She really just started doing it on her own. She started with coming to all fours and rocking back and forth. One day she just started army crawling then it turned into crawling on all fours. Now she is pulling up on everything and walking around like crazy in her walker.
6. My baby spits up a lot, any advice? The best advice I can give is to stay strong. The only thing that has helped Isla is growing and getting older. She is 8 months now and only wears 1-2 outfits a day compared to 5-6 before. I know thats sucky advice, but nothing we tried that was suggested helped.
7. What’s the process of getting her ears pierced like and where did you go? It was actually a very smooth process. We went to a local pediatrician at Just Kids Pediatrics to get them done. They took us to a room, numbed her ears for 20 minutes before piercing, and then came back to pierce them. She cried, but only because we had to hold her down. We should’ve taken her a little earlier before she could roll around. It would’ve made it much easier for sure.

Alrighty I think that sums it up!!

Xo, Kelsey