Happy 16 months, Hunter!

It was a major rollercoaster month for us. We spent the first-half of the month in Australia, which significantly threw his eating and sleeping patterns out of whack. Normally a top-notch textbook eater and sleeper, Hunter transformed into total WILD CHILD and Chris and I were left zombie-fied and at quite a loss as to what to do. But somehow, we survived the Australia trip and the instant we got back home, Hunter reverted back to his usual eating/sleeping habits – THANK GOODNESS!

The photo above was taken during our flight back home. It was a day flight, and British Airways has a car-seat type device that docks onto the bassinet (because Hunter doesn’t fit into airline bassinets anymore, which we discovered on the flight there). It elevated him above everyone else AND gave him a great view of the aisle and people walking past, which delighted him to no end. He spent the majority of the journey waving and dishing out HUGE smiles to people, and animatedly chatting up the little girl in the bassinet across the aisle from him – much to everyone’s amusement 😉 For this reason, we love British Airways and their baby seats!

He has a new tooth (or 2) coming through this week, so has had unexplained periods of crying out in pain during the past 2 days or so. Giving him a frozen teether or rubbing on Bonjela helps a great deal, so we just need to ride it out. Fortunately, none of his teeth erupting so far has caused fever/illness or restless sleep, so I suppose we can’t complain!

MONTH 15-16 PROGRESS:

• Eating – Pretty bad when we were in Australia, except when we were in Canberra for a few days where he had home-cooked food. Otherwise, he survived on our table food and baby-sachet food. But now that we’re home, my Mum’s been cooking quite a bit for him so he’s been having lots of nutritious food which is a huge relief!! Hunter also specifically likes her cooking, and will eat GIGANTIC portions.. portion sizes that I would eat myself!
  He drinks milk 3x a day, 7oz/210ml each time. Is that considered normal? Do your kids drink less/same/more? I really have no idea but since he appears healthy and growing, I’m just leaving it 😉

• Sleeping – After the madness of Australia where Hunter transformed into a newborn’s sleeping habits, he instantly reverted back to his 7:30PM – 7:30AM sleep-through-the-night-without-waking, much to our relief. He still has his noon nap for around 1.5hrs. Nothing much to report here, I guess. No news is good news 😛

• Motor control – Getting very hard to keep up with him because he races off everywhere! He’s now really good at picking up balls and throwing them, or kicking them with one foot.
  He’s been brushing his own teeth for the past 1-2 months, and can take off his own pants, and wriggle the appropriate arm I ask him to for his tops.
  The doctor pointed out that his concentration levels, attention span, and stability is pretty different to other children his age. We’ve noticed that too – he can really focus on a task and loves toys that require attention-to-detail, like analysing intricate pieces on a toy for ages, toys that screw together, shape-sorters, etc. The medical term she used is “low accident prone”, because he doesn’t lunge/grab stuff but rather approaches things and new situations carefully, and will look to me first before picking something up, especially if it’s sharp etc. Good for us, I guess! 🙂

  Hunter’s now doing his poo in his potty, which is SUPER CUTE to see! OK I know that sounds weird, but it’s just really cute seeing him sitting/squatting on the potty and working his poo out. Haha. He doesn’t yet hold his pee in to go in the potty though, but will in general try and wait until we change his diaper, then a whole flood of pee comes out 😉

• Talking/listening – His list of words (existing, with new words in italics at the bottom):
• Hunter – but sounds more like ‘haaaahn-tahhh!!’, whilst patting himself on the chest
• Ma ma – when looking for me
• Da da – when looking for Chris
• Kong Kong – what he calls my dad
• Playground – possibly his favourite word
• Park – same as above
• Star – accompanied with hand actions. Will say it whilst singing songs, or point to a picture of one and say it
• Up – to ask to be picked up, when lifting this up, going up the escalator, etc
• All – whilst singing songs, possibly his favourite word to sing out
• Nan – for milk
• Woau / oohooh / roar / brrmmm – sounds for dog, monkey, lion, motorbike
• Por Por – what he calls my mum
• No – one of his favourite words, sadly!
• Row – part of the song and when he wants us to rock him
• Hiiii – greeting people or when playing with a phone
• Ball – for his favourite toy
• Teddy – his security toy
• There – to tell us where an object/person is
• Whoaaaa – hilarious! His reaction when he spots something interesting that he wants to go check out

He’s really really chatty and will have a constant stream of babble, but not all of it coherent/obvious like the words above.

Hunter’s such a bundle of joy and laughter to be around, and he brings such sunshine to our days. I feel really blessed to have him as my son 🙂  He’s super-fun to engage into games, and I wish we could bottle up that perfect baby peal of delight when he laughs. It makes all the hardships of having a child worthwhile 😉

PREVIOUS PROGRESS:

• 15 months
• 14 months
• 13 months
• 12 months
• 11 months
• 10 months
• 9 months
• 8 months
• 7 months
• 6 months
• 5 months
• 4 months
• 3 months
• 2 months