Happy 10 Months Birthday, Cody!

Cody’s first year is coming to a close, and he’s truly becoming more of a toddler than a baby now. I’m starting to want another baby now, because I miss those days! But at the same time, Cody has our hands full for the moment.

He is officially walking on his own. Just a few days before he turned 10 months old, Cory and I were playing with him and he suddenly just stood up by himself and walked a few steps to Cory. I was so excited! Since then, he has slowly but surely been growing more and more confident in his ability to walk unassisted. He still likes to use our hand for security sometimes, but yesterday and today he has been letting go more and more, and sometimes he won’t even take our hand if we want him to. Our boy is becoming more independent every day, which is both exciting and saddening.

One of his new silly antics this month is dancing. When there’s music playing, or any rhythmic sound, he sometimes will start bouncing up and down by bending his knees. He’s learning the white-boy shuffle at an early age! He also likes to bounce when he’s sitting on his bottom, and when we’re holding him.

Cody enjoys going in the pool with us, playing with our dogs and our cat, exploring the house and new surroundings, getting into anything new or interesting, watching older kids play at the park or the play place we like to go to, and staring at people. His favorite toys are balls of any size, and his favorite game is playing fetch with himself—picking up a toy, throwing it, walking to get it, and repeating that over and over again.

He is now in toddler clothes (12 months size), which involve mostly t-shirts and shorts rather than onesies. He looks like such a big boy in his new clothes! At night time though, we put him in a onesie for bed, so I still get to feel like I have a baby. 😉

For about a week, he cooperated very well with eating baby food and one time he even ate an entire jar (it was an extra-small jar, but still). But after that one week, he went back to refusing to eat solids, and now we’ve decided to let that be. He’s on an iron supplement now, and other than that my milk provides everything he needs until he’s older than one year. We’ve decided to do baby-led weaning, allowing him to eat baby-appropriate solids as he shows an interest in them rather than worrying about trying to force-feed him baby food.

His sleep has been up and down. By most standards, it’s still pretty bad but by our standards it’s actually been good for the past few days. He wakes up about 3-5 times per night to nurse, and nurses back to sleep, then usually needs to be rocked back to sleep when he wakes up at 6 AM to get that extra hour in. He’s doing well with his schedule, and usually naps for at least an hour during both of his two daily naps. He goes to bed around 8 PM and wakes up around 7 AM. Sometimes he goes down easily, in anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes with very little crying; but other times, he fights sleep tooth and nail, and cries for up to 40 minutes before he finally goes to sleep or I give up. He does a lot better going to sleep for his naps and his bedtime when Cory puts him down, for whatever reason. Weekends are really nice, because Cory takes care of all of his naps!

Last week, I began to suspect that I may be dealing with some delayed onset postpartum depression. I’m not sure, especially because I don’t fit the typical profile or have some of the more common symptoms. I feel very connected and attached to Cody, and I don’t feel weepy or deeply sad most of the time. Instead, I find myself losing patience very easily during the long days with my high-need baby, and sometimes feeling overwhelmed with anger and frustration, particularly when it comes to his difficulties with sleeping. I’ve also experienced guilt because of my anger, and questioned whether I was really meant to be a mother. I’ve felt that I couldn’t handle it anymore and I’ve felt that things would never improve. Those are all symptoms of postpartum depression, which I have discovered can actually begin anytime within a year of birth, or even afterwards. My symptoms are at their worst during the work week, when Cory is at work all day and I’m on my own, and they practically disappear during the weekends and the days when my mother-in-law comes out to help me. For now, I’m waiting to see how I feel in the weeks to come, and I’m planning to see a therapist if things don’t get better.

That’s pretty much the gist of Cody’s 10th month of life. We have wonderful days, and also really hard days, but I’m happy to report that overall he is developing perfectly and he’s a very smart, curious, affectionate, active boy. I love him so much, it’s crazy. <3

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2 comments

  1. Sounds like everything is going great with Peanut! Sorry to hear you’re not feeling so great yourself. Sounds like you are on right track with counseling. Good news is all of these things are perfectly normal and it doesn’t make you a bad mom. You’re a great mom and we’re super proud of you!

    1. Thank you Kimmy <3 That's the hardest part, hearing a stupid voice in my head saying I'm less of a good mom because of it. It's a symptom in itself. So thanks for saying that, because I need to hear it!

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