One year old!! The first update I wrote on this blog was when Toby was four months old and now he’s one. I know everyone says it but I really can’t believe how quickly the time has gone.

There have been a few developments this month; Toby seems to be getting bigger every day (and everyone comments on how massive he is!) but I still haven’t had him weighed since he was 10 months old. He’s still very long and skinny though, not your typical chubby baby in the slightest. He’s so strong though – he doesn’t stay still unless he’s sleeping and if we try and sit with him he wriggles away and crawls all over us. Nappy changes are often something of a challenge!

Toby now has eight teeth and had his first visit to the dentist today, although he refused to let the dentist actually look at his teeth! I thought we might get a bit of a break from teething for a while but his sleep has been all over the place for the last week and after a feel around his mouth today I think one of his first molars might be on its way. Did I mention that I hate teething?

Toby still loves to stand up but won’t do it unless he’s pulled himself up. He did actually let go and stand unsupported the other day but only for a few seconds and he hasn’t tried it since. He’s cruising a little bit but still mostly prefers to sit down, crawl to where he wants to go then stand up again. He got a push along trolley/walker thing for his birthday though so maybe that will encourage him to start walking rather than crawling. His favourite toy is still his stacking cups. He doesn’t try and stack them but he’s got very good at separating them then putting them back inside one another again. He’s started giving some of his soft toys cuddles recently too which is so cute! And he’s still giving us lots of cuddles too (and less biting which is good).

We still don’t have any real words – Toby does now say mama and mum as well as dada, and we sometimes get yeah and hiya, but I still don’t think he really knows what he’s saying. He’s very cute babbling away to us though.

Toby’s still eating pretty much anything we put in front of him, although he does have days when he seems to have less of an appetite than others. Breadsticks are a firm favourite (in fact, so much that I do worry slightly about how many he eats!) and cherry tomatoes are high on the list too. We have started to make the switch to cow’s milk but after lots of night waking we’re going to stick with formula at bedtime for now in case hunger is part of the problem. He’s accepted cow’s milk without any trouble though, although it is still warm and in a bottle so I wouldn’t imagine there’s much difference. He’s also doing better with drinking water – we couldn’t get him to use a sippy cup at all really, despite trying all sorts of different ones so he now uses a bottle with a silicone straw and is really good at drinking from it. We’re trying to make an effort to offer him a drink more often too, to make sure he is getting enough fluids throughout the day.

And I think that’s about it for this month. Toby’s such a little character these days and I can’t wait to see what developments will come next!

Another month gone – Toby is ten months old and we are getting closer and closer to his first birthday, I really don’t know where the time is going!

Toby has been doing some more growing this month. I finally got round to having him weighed the other day and he is now 21lb 10oz and happily sitting just below the 75th centile line. I’m not surprised though – he loves his food and is still eating everything we give him. He’s now wearing all 12-18 month vests and sleepsuits and some other clothes too. I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s grown out of all his 9-12 month clothes too. I know some people find it sad when their baby grows out of stuff but I’m just happy that Toby has new clothes for me to put him in! I’ve got him some really cute things to wear on our holidays, and I hope we get some nice weather this summer so he can get plenty of use out of them!

The big development this month has been that Toby is properly crawling on his hands and knees now. He still drops down to his tummy and commando crawls sometimes but whichever way he chooses to move he is very speedy! He is almost managing to sit himself up now too and has started reaching up for things on tables and shelves although he isn’t really trying to pull himself up yet.

He still has six teeth but I’m fairly sure the next bottom two are only a few days away (at least I hope so). Toby seems to suffer much worse with the bottom teeth than he did with the top ones and he’s been waking up in the a lot for the last few nights. It’s so horrible to hear him in pain and not really being able to do anything about it except administer Calpol and cuddles. Talking of sleep this month has been OK on the whole, although when we were on holiday it was a nightmare trying to get Toby to go to sleep. He would properly scream whenever we left the room we were sleeping in and I ended up lying on the single bed in there for ages most nights until he was calm enough to go to sleep. Once he was asleep he slept all night but it was horrible because it’s just something we’re not used to. At home we give Toby his milk, put him in his sleeping bag, say ‘night night Toby, sleepy time now’ and leave the room. And that’s it, he goes to sleep on his own. I think there were a few things contributing to the screaming on holiday though – firstly, now he’s older he’s much more aware of his surroundings and he knew he wasn’t at home. He hasn’t slept in the travel cot since Christmas either so that was different. It was really hot in the cottage too, even with no heating on, so hot that eventually I ended up just putting him to bed in his sleepsuit, without his sleeping bag at all. And lastly, the room had a skylight. There was a blackout blind but there was a small gap letting light in and I think looking up at that maybe freaked Toby out a bit too. I’m sure being out every day and not getting his proper naps didn’t help either. He was back to normal as soon as we got home so it wasn’t too much of a disaster – I’m just hoping we don’t get a repeat performance when we go on holiday to France next month!

He’s still such a cheeky little boy, always ready with a smile and a giggle (despite the teething!). It was lovely when we were away that he seems to have started to recognise his grandparents – he certainly had big smiles for them all when he saw them. He babbles away all the time too, although despite Barry’s best efforts to teach him he’s not really managed to say Dada yet, apart from a couple of times which I think were more luck than intention! He’s new way of communicating this month though, which I’m not quite as keen on is squealing. It’s so high-pitched and so loud too! I think he must be trying to shatter glass or something. It can be very cute though – when I had been in Dundee for the day for my Spanish course, and left before Toby got up he did the biggest squeals of excitement when he saw me walk back through the door.

So I think that’s it for this month – Toby is ten months old already, and he’s developing so quickly. I wonder what the next month will bring?

Yep. It’s that time again! Another month has gone by and Toby is now seven months old, so what’s he been up to since his last update?

Well, there have been quite a few developments since last month. Toby now weighs 18lb 11oz  and is already wearing 9-12 month sleepsuits and vests! Weight-wise he has gone from being in the 9th centile when he was born to now being in the 50th. And his height is still in the 91st centile! He’s almost grown out of his first car seat now so we’ll be having to buy a new one in the next few weeks.

After his random, only being able to sit up at Baby Sensory, Toby can now sit pretty well unsupported. He still topples over sometimes if he reaches for something but most of the time he can stay upright. He still prefers to be on his tummy though and is really pushing himself up on his arms and trying to get up on his knees too. He has started shuffling himself backwards sometimes now too – especially when I am trying to change his nappy when he rolls onto his tummy then pushes himself backwards off the changing mat (we’ve been changing him on the floor for quite a while now!). He can now roll to either side to get on his front, and roll back again! I wrote in last month’s update how he’d learnt to roll onto his tummy but would shout when he wanted to roll back again but it only took about another week before he worked out how to do it himself. Toby is also now able to stand up holding onto the furniture, but only if I put him there. He has started trying to pull himself up a bit on his cot too – I don’t think it will be long before we have to lower it.

We have teeth! Well, teething symptoms have ramped up again this week. It feels like both bottom teeth have just about broken the gum, although it’s hard to really see anything at the moment. Luckily teething hadn’t bothered Toby too much (until yesterday!). We’ve had lots and lots of dribbling, lots of chewing things, red cheeks and a few very nasty dirty nappies and then yesterday (typically while I was at work for the day and daddy was in charge) Toby was really, really grumpy – he didn’t want to sleep, he cried if the hubby tried to put him down and it was generally a very miserable day for them both. I’m hoping that now they have broken the gum things might ease off a little bit. Fingers crossed eh?

Weaning is going reasonably well too, although Toby still doesn’t seem that interested in food. I wrote a guest post about our first few weeks of baby-led weaning on Redhead Babyled a few weeks ago. Since then Toby has tried lots of different things. He has started trying to get things in his mouth occasionally but mostly he only eats if we hold the food for him. He does seem to like trying to feed himself with a spoon though – so far porridge and fromage frais have been favourites. With these things I give him his own spoon to try and use himself and feed him a bit with another spoon which seems to work pretty well for us. We’re just going to continue offering Toby lots of different foods and combine giving him a chance to play with his food and feed himself along with holding things for him so he can eat that way. I’m sure he’ll figure out how to get things in his mouth himself soon enough. His manual dexterity is improving all the time and he has almost worked out his pincer grip now.

I think that’s about it for this month. I’m absolutely loving this phase of babyhood – it’s just awesome seeing Toby learn new things and become more and more like a little boy every day.