9 Months Old

Jesper weighed 22 lbs 15oz at his 9 month appointment and is 29.25 inches tall (75-90th percentile for
both). The doctor confirmed that he’s still perfect. :)
 

9 Months Old

His eating habits haven’t changed much in the last month, but he is really starting to get the concept
of “pick food up, put it in my mouth”. We’ve been trying to give him as many opportunities as possible to
practice with finger foods. At this point, that means some puffs and yogurt melts before the meal.
He’s still sleeping super well at night (bedtime: 7-7:30pm and wakes up around 6:30-7am), but his naps
have gotten shorter at school. At first we thought it was because he graduated to the next classroom, but
we asked the doctor about it and he said that some kids just start taking shorter naps around 9 months.
So, now his schedule is a morning nap at approximately 9:30/10:00 for an hour and another one about 3
hours after he wakes up for another hour.

Jesper has started to imitate us much more. If we play “pat-a-cake”, he tries to do some of the
movements with his own hands. So cute! We’re starting to learn more of his personality as well. He’s a
little cautious and doesn’t seem to try things (pulling up, eating finger foods, etc) until he has observed
for a while and thinks he can do it. That means we spend a lot of time demonstrating something and
he usually gets the hang of it shortly after he attempts it. His motto seems to be more “watch, try, do”
than “try, try again”. And he LOVES praise and smiles. If he does something and gets a cheer from mom
and dad, he gives us a little shy smile and then repeats his performance.

Drawers are endlessly fascinating to Jesper. However, he found out that they "bite" every once in a while, so he's started to use the handles more.

Playing at school

He still adjusts well to new situations and is a pretty relaxed kid. I asked his teachers recently how
his transition from the little infant classroom had gone and if he seemed to cling to something in the
classroom (several of the kids who graduated around the same time as Jesper immediately became
attached to a “transitional” item in the room, like a stuffed animal or pillow or even one of the toys). They
thought for a moment and said that he didn’t seem fazed by it. He likes to play with some of the musical
toys (baby piano, xylophone), but wasn’t attached to any one thing.

Baby Butt!

Bathtime with Turtle

Some of my new favorites:
- Watching him stand by the tub while he’s waiting to take his bath. He gets SO EXCITED to get in the
bath and it’s one of the first things that he pulled himself up on. Plus, he has such a cute little dimpled
baby butt. :)
- He follows simple directions. When we ask for something with our hand out, he will hand us whatever
is in his hand.
- He turns the pages in books (correctly!). I’ve read a couple books to him every night before he goes
to bed basically since he was born, and now he gets quiet and relaxed and helps me turn the pages.
It’s one of the best parts of my day.