Your Eight Month Old Baby and Their Physical and Behavioral

Your eight-month-old baby should have recently begun eating a diet of solid foods.  This change in diet can be most readily validated by the contents of his or her diapers.  Even though your baby may seem to struggle with bowel movements, even going red in the face at times. An eight-month-old baby will have a soft stool. If your baby’s diaper contents are hard and he or she seems to be in pain when making potty, try a little prune juice.  You should mix one part prune juice with three parts boiled water.  If your baby’s stool is not better in a day or so, consult your doctor.  On the other hand, a single loose bowel movement dose not mean trouble, but diarrhea in an eight-month-old baby can be quite serious.  So, keep a close eye on baby’s diapers.

By eight months, your baby may be getting teeth and teething.  Usually, the top teeth appear in the middle of the gums first and are quickly followed by the two bottom teeth. Some babies are quite disturbed by teething and need a lot of soothing via teething rings, etc.  Teething does not cause loose bowels, vomiting, fever, rash, or earaches.  If your baby suffers from any of these symptoms during teething, contact your doctor to determine the actual cause.

Many eight-month-old babies begin to find their mobility at this age.  They might do some funny kinds of crawling, crab walking, or sliding on their butt.  Other babies will not begin trying to crawl until a few months down the line.  Your baby chooses his or her own time and there is nothing to suggest that a late crawler is at any disadvantage.

Certainly, before baby crawls, baby needs to learn sitting.  Once sitting is achieved, your baby will attempt to take their weight on their forearms and his or her hands.  Then, your baby will try getting his or her legs under them and rising to their knees.  Once your child can get to their knees, they will rock back and forth until, one day, they are off doing their own little crawl.

You can help your baby to learn to crawl by giving them plenty of time every day on an unobstructed floor, dressing them in practical clothes that will not restrict movement, and providing them with a soft pale to land like a baby mat or clean carpet.

All this excitement, coupled with the pain of teething is going to upset your baby’s sleeping routine.  By this time, you have probably worked hard to develop a sleeping routine for baby, along with a nighttime ritual for settling.  You will have to reinforce the nighttime ritual and make certain that your baby gets a mid-morning and mid-afternoon nap.  Naps must be a priority for baby at this stage in life and you might try grabbing a few yourself.  Caring for an eight-month-old baby can be extremely rewarding, and also extremely tiring.