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8th Month Guide
8th Month Guide
 The
eight month of babyhood can bring with it many new changes. You
may have noticed by now that this seems to be a pattern. Every month
has something new, you’re your baby learns a lot. This is
what makes this first year so precious.
You are probably even busier this month than you
were before, especially if your baby has become mobile in some way
or another. Since all babies are different in their timing, you
may sleep at night or you may still get woken up once or twice a
night. Your baby may still take a pacifier, or he may have ditched
it a long time ago.
Some babies are crawling and pulling up in the
eighth month, while others barely scoot and don’t really have
any desire to crawl.
Your little one could already have as many as
four teeth, or he could still be a smile full of gums. Most likely,
your baby is perfectly normal for his age no matter what he is doing.
Comparing your baby to other children can usually only cause unnecessary
worry, and as long as you take your baby to the doctor for regular
check-ups as required, you should use these check-ups to determine
how your baby is doing developmentally.
Physical Development and Appearance
While you may not be able to see much of a difference
in your baby’s size over the last month, you can look at photographs
of your baby a couple of months ago and these will reveal how much
your baby actually is growing every month. Your baby is probably
wearing the same size diapers as when he was in the seventh month,
but if you ever see any red marks around your baby’s waist
or thighs, you will know it is definitely time to move up a size.
Your baby can possibly say a few recognizable
words, along with many that aren’t recognizable. He may be
crawling or not, but whatever he can do, he probably doesn’t
like to be stuck in one place.
Your baby’s weight probably hasn’t
increased much over the last month, particularly if he is breastfed.
This is because most breastfed babies don’t gain as much weight
during the last six months of the first year as formula fed babies.
Care for Baby
- Skin
care—you may still apply lotion to your baby on
a regular basis, usually after showers. While your baby’s
skin is much more resilient than it was earlier, you may want
to protect it, especially the skin that stays under a diaper.
You can protect most of your baby’s skin by applying lotion
after baths, and the skin that is kept under a diaper can be protected
with Vaseline or a medicated ointment. Applying this even when
it isn’t necessary can keep your baby from developing a
diaper rash.
- Teething—if
your baby has already cut his first couple of teeth, you may feel
like you don’t have to worry about teething for a while.
But there is no determining in advance when your baby will cut
his next tooth or teeth. It is always best to be prepared for
that next tooth. At least this time you will know what to expect
when it happens, and it is possible you can determine that this
is what is causing your baby’s crankiness even earlier.
This is good because the earlier you figure out what is causing
your baby’s agony, the more quickly you will be able to
relieve that pain.
If your baby has yet to cut any teeth, you should expect it to
happen any day at this point, and you will want to be prepared.
You can do this by following the advice below (and if your baby
has already cut teeth, you can still expect it to happen again
soon, so you may still want to follow the advice below):
You will usually know that your baby is teething because he will
begin to drool more than usual, he will chew on things even more
than usual (even though you may not have thought this was possible),
he will be very cranky, he will possibly be running a low-grade
fever, and he might have diarrhea. If your baby displays all of
the symptoms above, you should check his gums. If they are red,
swollen, and he cries more than usual when you touch them, or
if you can see or feel a tooth coming in, then you will know that
he is teething. If, however, this isn’t the case, you need
to call his doctor just to be sure that he doesn’t have
some kind of illness.
If you can tell that your baby is definitely cutting teeth, there
are a few ways to you’re your little one with the pain:
give him cold or frozen teethers, apply a topical numbing cream
or lotion (or you can use teething tablets—some parents
say these are better than traditional ointments). In the place
of a teether, you can use a frozen waffle (take care to make sure
that your baby doesn’t bite any of the pieces off and take
it away before it gets soggy) or a frozen popsicle that is unwrapped
(this, of course, only applies to those kind in the plastic wrappers).
If your baby is going through the painful experience of teething,
it can seem like the crying and sleeplessness will go on forever,
but have hope. Usually, although every baby is different, the
severe pain will only last two or three days. Then, once the tooth
has broken the skin, while your baby may still be feeling some
discomfort, he will likely feel a lot better than before.
If your baby has already grown a tooth or two, there may be a
new problem that you have not yet experienced: biting. Babies
will bite their own tongue and lips, may hurt their gums with
their new tooth or teeth, and may bite you. If you stick your
finger in your baby’s mouth to feel around for the tooth,
to clean your baby’s gums, or for any other reason, you
might want to be prepared to be bitten. Since babies are very
experienced in sucking, this means they may have extremely strong
jaws, which can lead to quite a bit of surprising pain if your
baby does bite you.
Another problem with biting is one that only breastfeeding mothers
have to deal with: your baby may begin to bite your nipples while
drinking. If this happens to you, parents tend to report that
the best way to deal with it is to lightly take the breast away.
At this age, most babies have already learned what the word “no”
means. Tell him “no” and take the breast away for
a few minutes. It won’t take too many times before your
baby will connect biting with the breast being taken away, and
he will likely stop. If this doesn’t work, you can lightly
thump your baby on the nose when he bites you. This isn’t
painful for the baby (you should only do it hard enough to get
his attention), but is just irritating enough that it makes the
baby want to stop biting.
- Bathing—bath
time for an eight month old can be a lot of fun. At this point,
many parents will buy their baby bath toys such as a rubber ducky
or one of the many bath toys available for babies at this age.
These toys include a variety of choices, including such things
as dolls whose hair changes color in the water, boats and animals
that can be big fun in the water, as well as toys that have large
and little parts. Some of these are like little playhouses that
are suctioned onto the bath wall, and there may be little people
or animals that are meant to play in the little playhouse. Some
of these toys create bubbles, which can make bath time even more
fun than before.
You probably use a bath ring at this point, and you need to be
sure to not feel too secure while using it. Babies are not completely
safe in a bath ring because the suction cups can come loose. When
this happens, the bath ring will often tip over, causing the baby
to be stuck sideways, possibly under water. It is nearly impossible
for a baby to turn it back upright at this point. So, while bath
rings work great for keeping baby from slipping over while under
supervision by an adult, they are not safe at all if there is
no supervision.
You should continue using baby shampoos and soaps to prevent his
eyes from burning. Since babies don’t understand that they
need to be still while you are washing them, you can easily get
soap or shampoo in his eyes no matter how hard you try not to.
If you use a baby version, you can keep this painless.
- Diapers—your
baby is probably in the same size diapers as last month, and the
daily changes probably haven’t changed much within the last
month. You can probably know what to expect on a regular basis
at this point. If your baby seems to be constipated, you should
add apple juice into his diet and you can give him baby medication
to relieve the pain. For diarrhea it is best to give him a nourishing
drink such as Pedialite and some medication as well. If your baby
goes through constipation or diarrhea for more than a few days,
you may need to call his doctor for more advice or possibly a
visit. If your baby has any other symptoms, such as a fever, you
should call his doctor without waiting a few days.
- Gum
care and tooth care—once your baby has grown a
few teeth, you may forget about gum care, but you should try to
not let this happen. Until your baby has a mouth full of teeth,
you should continue to clean his gums. And, once your baby has
even one tooth, you should begin regular tooth brushing. This
can help develop early habits that can last for life, plus it
can help prevent cavities and other tooth problems.
Another preventative measure that should be taken is to not let
your baby to go to bed with a bottle, especially juice.
- Sleep—your
baby probably sleeps all night at this point, with a couple of
long naps per day. The earlier your baby takes the naps, the better
he will sleep at night. You should also feed him food at his last
meal of the night instead of formula or breast milk. If you still
give your baby a bottle or breast in the middle of the night,
you can at least count on your baby to stop waking up once that
has been taken away. While that may not help you now, it can at
least provide some sort of end in sight.
- Eating—there
will not be a very big difference from the seventh month to the
eighth month when it comes to eating. The time that there will
be the next big leap with food is if your baby was not sitting
up or crawling yet and begins to do this. Similarly, if your baby
had not cut any teeth yet, when he does it will provide new abilities
when it comes to eating.
Experiences
- Toys
for this age—just like many other activities, this
may not have changed a whole lot since the previous month. This
is true unless your baby has learned some new ability, such as
sitting up better, crawling, pulling up or standing. What type
of toys your baby can actually play with and enjoy will depend
so much on what he is capable of doing that it only makes sense
that the toy preferences may change once your baby learns new
things.
Your baby may like any type of toy that lights up and makes noise,
but it is almost certain that your baby’s favorite toys
will be those things that aren’t really toys. The top two
things that babies tend to love that weren’t meant to really
be played with are remote controls and car keys.
- Parents—the
eighth month is one that parents are able to see even more happen
in than before. Some babies are able to crawl, pull up to standing,
sit up, say words that are actually comprehensible, and more.
Your baby may have a mouth full of teeth at this point (although
many babies of this age have yet to cut a tooth) and he might
be able to do a variety of other things.
This is a time when it is very important to continue reading and
talking to your baby as much as possible—and possibly even
take it up a notch—because your baby really is learning
from everything you do. You should count and sing the alphabet
even you’re your baby is this young, because it sets up
a great learning base for later.
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