pre-crawling and standing status

Baby will be 9 months in 5 days.

He has his 9 month appointment on Wednesday!

Crawling progress:

In the past week I've really been pushing him to make progress with crawling or any type of locomotion and I've seen some changes.  He is taking his time rocking on one knee on all fours and won't rock far enough forward to propel him but that will probably be coming pretty soon!  He rocks to go from sitting to tummy usually, but I can tell he's always hesitant to rock too far.  I can't blame him - he usually faceplants before he rights himself on his stomach.

Pulling up on objects:

He started really trying to pull himself up on a table this week as well - he had never put any arm muscle into it before and would just look at me and whine for help, but tonight he was grunting and really trying.  He got his butt up off the floor but didn't use his legs in a way that could make him stand up.

Tummy time:

He still doesn't enjoy tummy time but there have been a few days where I caught him at the right time and he played and played for at least 30-60 minutes on his own.  He'd start out on one side of the basement and I'd look over and he'd be about 4 feet in a different spot.  He pushes himself backwards with his arms and can't go forward yet.

I've been leaving him alone more to play because he relies on me less.  If I'm sitting right next to him he will just try to climb on me and won't do anything for himself.  It's nice and gives me some extra "free" time.  This morning I sat in bed an extra hour while he played on the floor and got into mischief.

Possibly as a result of this increased physical activity, and just because we're getting into our most recent routine changes, he has been taking longer naps.  1.5-2 hours, twice a day.  He wakes at 730, is up for 3 hours, takes a nap, is up for another 3 hours, takes a nap, and is up until bed.  I think it is a good schedule and it lets us go out and do errands without a meltdown.  Today we went to the Optometrist and grocery shopping and he did great!  It helps to be able to put him on the floor to play which is what I did at the eye doctor when he got sick of being in his stroller (ok, so maybe it's dirty, but if I have to choose between dirty and happy I'll take happy!)

And we end with some videos from this week