Freddie's 13 Month Update

How is Freddie 13 months old, already? Well, he turned 13 months on the 16^th but my internet was down, and we've been super busy, that's why this post is super late. I have thought since he turned one if I should carry on his monthly updates but I think I will be until he is about 2 and probably cut it down to every 3-4 months maybe. He’s changed so much in such little time, and that was my reason to carry on writing. He’s at the age where he’s properly exploring absolutely everything now. He’s walking with a few stumbles in between, and he’s such a funny little character. Also, his sleep is improving.

SLEEP

Ah. The sleep. It’s improving (I hope I don’t jinx it now). The time I struggled with was the wake up time between 1 and 3 am. Although my partner can help during the nights now too, I mostly get up to feed. But he’s had about two nights this past month where has slept ALL night. It felt amazing. This was after a few weeks of not settling during the evening. He would go to bed his regular time around 7pm, but wouldn’t actually settle until either 9pm and some evenings 10pm. I felt like we were slowly going backwards.

However, things have slightly improved. He still has the odd evening where he won’t settle until late but most nights he has been waking up only once. Some it has been between 1 and 3am, and he will sleep until 6 or 7am. The other nights he will sleep until 5am then come into bed with me until 6 or 7am. He’s an early bird and has got into the routine of waking up before 7am each morning. He’s had two or three mornings where he had a lie in until 8am, and it felt amazing.

But yes, he’s improving!

SIZE AND DEVELOPMENT

He’s in 12-18 months clothes and fits some 18-24 months, but all depends on where they are from. He’s roughly a size 4 in shoes. I don’t know his weight as the Health Visitor still hasn’t come to see him for his 1 year check up. I’m going to phone once the girls are in school so we can arrange a date for her to come over.

His development is coming on brilliantly. Although, I know and from experience, that each child develops differently and in their own time. He’s started walking and can now walk from one side of the room to the other but with a few stumbles inbetween. But, he still likes to crawl most of the time, with that one leg dragging behind him. I haven’t seen him bum shuffle for a while now, and I miss it. It was so adorable when he did it. He absolutely loves his walker from Infantino.

He’s also learning to dance, and he looks so proud of himself when he does dance. He waves his little hands around in the air and moving his body. His favourite game is pee-bo (peek-a-boo), and his giggles are just the cutest. He will be in tears laughing. He still likes the nursery rhyme row row your boat and has giggles with that too.

He waves his hand when we say ta-ta (bye) and gets all excited when we say hello. When he plays with his toy phone, he passes it to me as has a huge smile on his face when I’m pretending to talk to someone. However, most of the time when I give it back to him he will just throw it and laugh. That’s another thing he loves doing at the moment. Throwing things on the floor, whether it’s his food or beaker from his highchair. Throwing his toys down the sides of the sofa and the most annoying one is his dummy, especially when he’s in his pushchair.

FOOD AND BREASTFEEDING

He has 3 or 4 meals a day and absolutely loves his food. He has the same meals as us all, and it’s so much easier and less hassle. He sits at the table with us, and he loves it. His favourite snack is snack a jack rice cakes and cheese sticks. His favourite meal is bolognese, and I’m sure you can just imagine the mess.

We are still breastfeeding, and if someone told me about three months ago that we were still breastfeeding, then I wouldn’t have believed them, at all. I wrote an honest post about my breastfeeding journey here if you’re interested to read it. I struggled, but I am proud of myself that we are still feeding at 13 months. He doesn’t feed often which really helps, I think. He will have a feed in the morning around 6am or 7am but some mornings he hasn’t as he’s so wide awake, so we just come downstairs, and he has his breakfast. His next feed is around 10 or 11am just before his nap time. He only has a 5 or 10 minute feed before he’s fast asleep and he can go without if he’s with someone else or if we’re out and about – which is handy. I think it’s more of a comfort when he’s with me. He won’t have a feed at all then during the day unless I put him to bed in the evening.

Most evenings my partner will put him to bed as it’s my time to work in evenings, but I don’t want to miss out on every single bedtime with him, so I will still take him up about 3 times a week. I will feed him formula, and then he will feed off me too but again, I think it’s comfort. Sometimes he will unlatch himself and other times I need to unlatch him. The only other time he will feed is during the night, which recently has been once or 0 times.

SIBLINGS

He’s such a funny little character. He absolutely adores his two big sisters and always has a smile on his face when he sees them or even hears their voices. He will get bored very quickly if they’re not playing with him and god help them he’s a bit older. I can see Freddie being quite hyper and wanting to play continuously throughout the day. He annoys the girls every now and then he tries to grab their toys of them, but in my eyes, I find it hilarious. The girls don’t, but it is, ha ha. It’s just so lovely seeing the bond between all three.