The second half of Nolan´s first year was full of changes. If the first half of the year he mostly laid still and looked around, then the second half he became more mobile and started showing his real personality. The biggest change for me was that I started working again after being away from work 9 months. Nolan was then 7,5 years old and started with daycare. Kevin also took a paternity leave for 3 months, so he was the one who started taking Nolan to daycare. Below some highlights.
1. DEVELOMPENT
Nolan started crawling around 7,5 months. I call it level 1 crawling since it is by pushing himself through the floor with hands 😀 The real crowling on his fours started a bit after he started in daycare, he was around 8,5 months old. I think the other children who already walked in the vuggestue had a positive impact on that. At the same time he also started going to sitting position independently. He could already sit without support when he was 7 month old, but we did not force that. We quite long joked that Nolan will start flying before walking since for many months he just layed on her belly hand up on the side. 😁But I guess it was needed for training his back muscles.
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| Nolan 8 months, still looks a bit like skinhead 😀 |
I really did not catch when he started pulling himself to standing position but I think it was around the same time as sitting, 8-9 months. He started taking first steps independantly around 11 months old. We had a toy car that he liked to push around and I think that helped here. We did not force his walking skills at all since he did not like when we hold his hands. And by now I see that he is mostly walking but sometimes also crawling since I think he thinks that he is faster when crawling. Especially when we have left the door out from "his cage" open. 😂 He is 13 months old now. At the same time we just bought him his first fitting shoes but since the weather is cold outside we have not trained him yet to use his shoes, but will start now. To be honest we thought he will start walking earlier since he went from laying still to crawling super fast but I guess everybody has their own development curv.
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| Nolan 9 months, last month when we could get him sit still for a picture |
Before having a child myself I thought that 1 year old baby is already like normal child already - walking, talking, eating properly. 😀 But I was so wrong, I mean Nolan looks now more like a toddler than a baby, but I think the brain is still totally baby, everything goes into his mouth and he needs to touch everything. I have not yet catch any human word either, I have not forced/teached either. From the studies and my own experience Danish language is super hard to learn and in comparison with other children around the world, Danish children start to speak at least 1 year later than usually. Plus Nolan hears Estonian and English at home, so will see what languages in the end he catches. But I try not to give up with Estonian skills for that I guess I need to send him to Estonia as much as possible. 😇 At least he speaks his own language and when he wants food he says mamm-mamm. He also says lela-lela, but only when he can imitate us.
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| 10 months, he really liked that balloon |
He has also started waving that is supe cute, however it is not always easy to get him to do it. I have only caught him twize waving me back when I drop him off to daycare. Usually he does not show any emotions when I leave and Kevin says that it is the same when he picks him up. I guess this is his Estonian personality speaking. 😀
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| In snowy Estonia with granny |
2. MEASUREMENT
After returning back to work I have not been so good at tracking his measurements. Usually has Nolan been quite average in his hight but below average in his weight. But now in 1 year doctor´s visit his weight was quite fine. So the height was 76 cm and weight 9.1 kg. If the first half a year I had to change to bigger clothes every other month then now he still fits to some clothes that he was wearing 6 months ago. At the beginning they were ofc bit big and baby they have also loosened up with washing. But I guess it is good for my wallet even though the granny has been the main contributor to his lovely wardrobe. 😊 And Nolan´s head is huge, I think it is even bigger than mine now. But I think he has inherited that from Keving since Kevin´s head is also big. Let´s hope that quantity and quality to hand by hand here.
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| 1y B-day gift from us, a bit big so his legs barely reach the floor |
Teeth statistics is at the moment 8 - 4 down and 4 up. He started getting his first 2 down teeth when he was 6 months old. Luckily the theeth growing time has gone smoothly for us.
3. FOOD
I started introducing him solid food already when he was 4 months old. Mainly because he was not good at gaining weight so my breast milk was not that fat. But I was also interested in getting him eat solids better earlier than later since I know that I had to go back to work. Nolan did not take a bottle so this made the switching to formula impossible. Luckily he was good at accepting solids even though we had to trick him a lot and we still do that. Finger foods still are on his menu in daycare but at home we have mainly spoonfed him mainly because we want to make sure that he gains weight.
Just before I went back to work we finally found out what has coused his bad itchy skin. We already know that he has milk protein allergy, but then he had even worse egg allery, plus mild wheat, soya and nuts allergy. Luckily it has got better but we still need to avoid these things in his diet. There is a hope that he will grow out of these allergies so fingers grossed. 💪
I reduced trastically breast feeding before going back to work and when I was working I breastfed him in the morning, evening and at night. Morning and evening feedings disappeared quite fast since he was full from other food. And then I also dropped the night feeding by 9 months old. I hoped that he will then also start sleeping better but it actually went worse since he got a mental leap. I actually felt sorry for Kevin since he had to take care of him at night since he was on a paternity leave at that point of time. 😃
4. SLEEP
The only thing about his sleep development is that we do not need to rock him sleep anymore with the baby carrier and he will fall a sleep himself in his grip if we just pat his head a bit. Generally with all this sleep training part we have been not so good meaning that he still wakes up many times per night so at on point we just put a mattras in his room so we just go and lay down there with him and when he falls a sleep them we sneak out. 😀 Just this past week we had a night where he slept all night in his grip so it is doable but maybe just once a year 😀.
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| Autumn leaves in Frederiksberg park |
Every time after hard night I say that enough, we will sleeptrain him but then some equeses come or he just sleeps so much better the night after. The worst is that when he wakes up at night and does not want to fall a sleep so it can take up to 3 hours him tossing around next to me, sometimes pulling my hair or climbing on me. From the cute part I always try to fall a sleep and when I open my eyes then I see him staring at me and smiling, so I guess in these nights it is him to looks after our sleep. 😀
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| Halloween - Night Fury costume |
Luckily daynaps have been easy. He went to one daynap quite early, I think he was around 10 months. Otherwise we would get him to night sleep at 23 and then he is so tired at the morning. So now he naps from 12-13:30 in daycare or on a weekends 13:30 - 15:00 since then he wakes up later in the morning (8:30), thank god! And then to night sleep he goes 20:00. I must say that it really makes the difference in my sleep quality if I do not need to go pick him up at night. At the moment Kevin takes care of his awakings by 2am and I from 2am to 7am. I usually need to wake him up 7:30 to get him ready to daycare. So you must know how happy I am if he wakes up before 2 am and I do not need to deal with it. 😀
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| This is how Kevin picks him up from daycare |
5. TOYS
When he became more mobile he started liking his red car that he could drive around the floor. Also toys that make noice interest him. We also have the blue tower that he can but colorful doughnuts around. But generally still all the toys go into his mouth. We have also big panda bear that he sometimes hugs. He has not yet found his favourit teddy bear to hug and I am not sure if he will ever find, will see. 😊 There is also one green plastic telefon than he likes to carry around and ofc put into his mouth.
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| For quite many months he liked to sit in his push car and suck his finger there 😅 |
He can also find joy from non toys. For instance when I take him to our bedroom then he straight goes after Kevin´s socks and starts pulling them out from the shelf and then carring around the apartment. 😅 He is also very good at climbing. It all started from learning how to climb up to the couch. After he mastered that skill we could not anymore hide to the couch from him. 😁 And after that he climbed to the shelves and table, so a real human monkey.
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| Not quite sure how he can fit there |
6. DAYCARE
The transition to daycare went very smoothly. He actually started 1 month before we planned since they had a place available earlier. We had to pay 1 month more but at the same time we could take the transition very slowly. We did not get a spot near our new home so this place is about 15 minutes biking. Exactly where we used to live 👽 It is a privat institution so we pay about 11000 dkk and then we get some money back from the government so in total we pay 4600dkk. I am pretty happy with the institution. There is about 10 children from 8 to 3y and 3 teachers. Nolan has so far been happy about staying there. He also tends to behave there also better than at home.
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| B-day celebration with Danish flag |
He usually naps there outside in the wagon once he gets tired, so they are really flexible with children´s sleeping schedule. And he can play with other kids and they also do some activitis. For Xmas we got a painting that he made. I actually fist thought that the teachers had made it. 😀 The only sad thing is that sometimes the clothes get missing even though I have a nametag on. So I am the annoying parent who always reports what clothes are missing. They usually tend to come out somehow. 😅 I am the one who takes him to daycare around 8:30 in the morning and Kevin picks him up at 15:10. Kevin goes to work at 7:00 so that is why he can leave earlier. The daycare is open until 16:30 but parents tend to pick their kids way before. Daycare has been also good in the corona times, they clean a lot and Nolan can have some social life since mingling with other families with kids is or my moms group is more complicated.
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| Little Picasso 😀 |
So far he has also stayed quite healthy. Once he had a fever but then Kevin still had paternity leave. Otherwise he just gets runny nose about once a month,
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| Christmas costume |
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| Christmas in Estonia |
7. ENTERTAINMENT
In the summer time we were in Estonia as I wrote before. Luckily we also had an opportunity to go to Estonia for a week during Christmas. Nolan was very difficult there but otherwise it was nice to see my family and spend time with them. Flying with 1y old is also not so fun. My mom also came to visit us in October so we actually also had an opportunity go our with Kevin alone.
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| Nolan with his nephew Rasmus enjoying snow in Estonia 💗 |
Social life has not been so busy, but we had Kevin´s family over for his first birthday and some of Kevin´s friends who have small children have also been visiting us. We also went to one baptism in September. Otherwise it has been maily walking dates with other mommies and few playdates. And a lot of time at home.
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| Nolan with his uncles |
8. WORK
Transition from maternity leave to work was actually smoother than I thought. I started in a new position but in the same team. However most of the team was new. It was end of July so still slow in a work wise. Luckily everybody were allowed to go to office. My motivation was to learn my new task ASAP since it was kind a matter of time when we need to start working from home again. And this happened from mid September. I still went to office about 1-2 times per week, but I have also quite good working conditions at home. It just took a while for me to get used to it. The nice thing is that Nolan comes home 15:30 so there is something for me to wait for. Then I can give him a kiss and hug him and then I continue working until about 17.
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| We also visited Tivoli couple of times |
Funny thing about going pack to work is that now I feel that work time is like vacation and after that the real work begins. 😀 So in the end it is actually much easier to go to work that stay home with baby, so I am happy that in Denmark they have good institutions for small children. And I still get enough time to spend with Nolan. Only the mornings can be hard if Nolan does not sleep well at night. At first I thought that I will miss out some important moments in Nolan´s life since I went back to work quite early but actually we still spend plenty of time together. 😊
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| New Year´s Eve - he fell a sleep 23:45 😅 |
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