Happy 9 Months, Knox!!

The big man turned 9 months old yesterday!!  Where has the time gone?? 

On July 19, 2012 Knox mastered learning how to go from laying down to sitting up by himself.  Combine that with the army crawl he’s got going, and he’s getting pretty independent!  :) 
On July 25, 2012, his top left tooth broke through and he slept his longest stretch ever: 11 and a half hours, from 6:30 pm until 5:55 am!!  Coincidence?  I think not.  :)  That long sleeping stretch lasted just one night though, and we’re back to waking up once in the middle of the night for him to eat, and then he goes back to sleep pretty easily afterwards.  But man – that one night was wonderful.  :)   

On July 29, 2012 he started pulling up by himself.  He really likes practicing this one.  There’s way more things to get in to when you’re standing up than just crawling around on the floor!  :)
Modeling his “pulling up” for you on the bookshelf. 
“Re-organizing” more books. 
On July 27, 2012, he started waving, which is adorable.  I was lucky to get this shot of him waving, since he doesn’t like to do it on command!
On July 30th, 2012 his top right tooth started poking through too. 
On August 8, 2012, he started doing what I call the “crab crawl”.  His crawl looks totally normal – except for his right leg.  :)  He sort of reaches forward with his right leg and pulls his back side forward with it, then crawls normally with his arms and left leg until it’s that right leg’s turn again.  It’s the craziest thing to watch.  Sure has made him faster though! 
On August 9th, 2012 Knox got his first taste of formula.  That was hard for me, and I cried.  Up until now, I’ve been exclusively nursing him but for the last 6 weeks or so, he just will not stop biting me while he’s nursing.  I have tried absolutely everything to get him to stop.  I’ve tried sternly telling him no.  He laughs and bites me again.  I’ve tried flicking his forehead or cheek.  He cries for less than 2 seconds, and then laughs and bites me again.  I’ve tried swatting him.  He smiles at me and bites me again.  (And he’s too young to be spanked anyway!)  I’ve tried stopping nursing and putting him down in the floor and ignoring him for a few minutes.  That’s not punishment to him though – he’s excited to see what all he can get in to!  I’m at a loss.  My goal was to nurse for his first year, and I really, really wanted to meet that goal.  I’ve asked everyone I know for advice, and no one has anything new to suggest that I haven’t already tried.  I hate that feeding time has become so stressful for us because I feel like I’m always disciplining him for biting me, and nursing is supposed to be this great, relaxing, bonding time.  So I’ve started pumping every 3 hours so that he can still have the benefits of breast milk.  But lemme tell ya, I’m having a really hard time finding somewhere to put him while I pump!  I’ve been putting him in his exersaucer, but pumping takes me about 30 minutes, and he’s ready to get out long before I’m done.  And since I’m having to pump every 3 hours, that means he’s getting really bored with the exersaucer.  I know that my pumping days are probably numbered (and hey, 9 months of exclusive breastfeeding is something to be proud of!!), so I tried giving him a bottle of formula the other night.  I figured I’d at least see if it would help him sleep any longer like everyone swears.  Nope.  No change at all.  (Which kind of makes me happy.  See?  Breastmilk IS best.)    :)     

All in all, we are doing very well!  I just keep reminding myself that everything is just a phase, and once I figure out this biting phase, he will have moved on to another something that I’ll be trying to figure out.  :)