Oscar: From Nine Months to One Year Old

The last few months with Oscar have certainly been unique. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be parenting in a pandemic a year ago when I had him! But like many others, Oscar has been a lockdown baby and of course this has comes with lots of negatives such as not seeing family and friends, missing baby groups and no summer holidays or day trips. But there has also been positives such as lots of time with daddy, plenty of home cooked meals and long walks. Oscar was only eight months old when lockdown hit. He had only just started to get to grips with eating, he wasn’t even sitting unassisted and we were still fully breast feeding and sleeping in the same room. But now we’re out of lock down and my little man has hit his one year milestone birthday and absolutely thriving with a whole new set of skills.

Meeting Milestones 

There are many things that I wasn’t aware of in regards to parenthood until I had a baby myself. One of which is milestone anxiety… basically the worry that your baby isn’t reaching milestones at the right time – which is particularly compounded by the fact all their baby friends seem far ahead of them. I remember when milestone anxiety first hit when Oscar was eight months old – a friend in a what’s app group sent a picture of their baby trying to climb out their cot, another sent one of their child standing up in their highchair and not long after someone’s baby whizzing down the corridor after learning to crawl. I honestly felt a lump in my throat as little O had only just master sitting up for longer than 30 seconds there was no way he was anywhere close to climbing or crawling. Was my baby delayed? Was there something wrong with him? Cue much Googling and scouring of Facebook groups which for once reassured me…every baby is different and does everything in their own time (yes we know this lol) and it was not unusual to not start crawling by eight months.
But still I couldn’t help but feel bad as videos flooded in of people’s babies pulling to stand, speed crawling and even walking when it got to ten months and O still wasn’t crawling. Of course I heard the usual reassurances of every baby does things in their own time but honestly I was still worried as Oscar wasn’t even trying to move he would sit in one position happily playing with his toys, smiling and laughing. One thing that everyone agreed on is that Oscar is the smilest and happiest baby! He was also very good at small motor skills such as gripping, self-feeding, banging toys together and waving bye bye. He’d also said ‘Mumma’ much to me great pride.

Again Google and the health visitor reassured me that O was fine and after he turned ten months he started gearing up for his big more… he began rolling over more, doing planks and getting into yoga positions. Like a runner warming up for a race, Oscar was getting ready to make a move. At 10 and a half months, Oscar started doing an inch worm crawl and would pull himself along, lift his bum in the air and then pull his legs along. It was a super cute wavy crawl and he could finally get himself from place to place. At exactly eleven months Oscar started doing a proper crawl moving one arm and the opposite leg at the same time. I was of course very relieved but still waiting for him to pull to stand which many of his friends had also been doing since eight months. He finally started doing this at about 11 and a half months and now he absolutely loves pulling to stand!!
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Of course, he still can’t walk but my milestone anxiety has very much dissipated as though he’s taken his time, he’s mastered everything perfectly eventually! He is able to cruise around furniture and walk using his walker so I think the first unassisted steps will be coming soon. Anyone else suffering from this form of anxiety, just know that there is a wide range of average and though Oscar was at the later of the scale, he was still well within normal parameters.
In terms of eating Oscar is doing so well. He’s fiercely independent and will not be spoon fed by me. He either eats with his hands or uses his own little spoon or fork. He loves all food and will pretty much eat everything we eat! I just love cooking for him and feeding him is so much fun, we’re really enjoying being able to take him to restaurants now and him being able to try new things. For example he loved duck and pancakes at Hutong!
He’s so cute in restaurants, always trying to get the attention of waiters and waitresses so he can smile at them! We really love taking him out! He’s also become chatty and as well as mumma, he now says ‘dadda’ and ‘hi.’

Sadly at nine months our breastfeeding journey came to an end. Oscar started to refuse to take milk, we had gone into lockdown and the whole experience was very draining but after a few weeks we got him taking formula from bottles. I think a woman’s feeding journey is very personal and I’m not sure I’m ready to go into detail about what happened but maybe I will one day on this blog. I will say that after it finished, I felt very sad partly due to hormonal changes but there was a certain amount of relief that he had made the choice and it wasn’t something I’d forced him into. After a few weeks I felt back to normal and just happy that my little man was taking in enough milk.

Physical Development

At nine months we finally saw the appearance of two little teeth!!

The two at the bottom which are commonly the first to appear. Now at 13 months he’s starting to get the top two … yes the teeth took a while too! To celebrate the teeth we had our first trip to the dentist which was actually really fun, hopefully setting us up well for the future

I’m super proud of O’s curly mop of hair!! People always comment how lovely his hair, at the moment I can’t bear to get it cut! But in the future we’ll take him for his first hair cut and keep one of those little curls for ever.

Otherwise, he has the perfect bagel thighs which I just adore and the most chubby cheeks!!

Social Life

Both Oscar and I were super sad that lockdown meant we were unable to meet up with the new friends that we’ve made… but now we’re out of lockdown it’s all go again. We’ve started returning to some of our baby groups and having playdates with friends. Oscar couldn’t even sit up when went into lockdown but now he’s crawling he can do so much more. We’ve been loving being able to visit playgrounds and we’ve been on trips to the zoo and to some of the beautiful London gardens. I’m planning a blog post on all the great things you can do with kids in London while socially distancing!

Travel 

While I’m a little sad Oscar didn’t get a summer holiday, I’m so grateful that we had the best time on our Dubai and Oman trip in February. In a couple of weeks I have UK breaks coming up and I can’t wait for my little man to enjoy a spot of the English countryside!

 

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