McKenna Pre-Toddler Summary: 14 Months Old

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A full summary of life for this 14 month old. Find out what daily life was like and find a 14 month old sample schedule to follow.

McKenna at 14 months old

Any of you who are following this series whose oldest child is 14 months probably think your child is really old.

My husband and I were talking about this; we thought Brayden was so old at 14 months. When we think back to what he was doing and what we did with him at this age, he seemed old! We treated him like he was old.

When Kaitlyn was this age, she seemed younger than Brayden did at this age. Kaitlyn seemed older because she was such a talker. SUCH a talker. She was literally almost saying full sentences at this age. Crazy.

But McKenna…she still seems like a baby to us! I can’t even believe that Brayden was this age when I look at pictures of him at this age.

My point? If you are reading along for your oldest, you might be having higher expectations than I am, and that is totally normal. I am still thinking baby and you are thinking toddler.

And it makes sense. When Brayden was this age, he was my oldest so he seemed old. When Kaitlyn was this age, my oldest was barely three, so she seemed younger, but a 3 year old and 1 year old are actually quite close in size. But a 1 year old compared to a 5 year old…that is a huge difference.

EATING

McKenna’s eating has lessened overall, but still isn’t at a that point that you start to worry your child is going to shrivel up. Maybe she will never get there? Who knows. She is eating a lot less, but still eats a lot.

Purees

I still usually feed her pureed veggies but chunks of fruit. I am making her pureed veggies more chunky all the time. We are still slowly transitioning. I don’t mind doing the pureed veggies. An interesting thing is that she won’t eat whole peas very well but loves them pureed. I am interested to see if she will like eating our peas from our garden when they come on.

PLAYING

McKenna is not messy much at all. In fact, she is at that point where she loves to clean up, so any mess she makes she cleans up, so it is fine.

Independent play is still great.

Blanket time is suffering. When I stay consistent with it, she does well, but after a missed day, it is a struggle. Admittedly, the struggle is probably worse in my head than in reality. One day, she was having blanket time while Brayden and I made a cake. She got off a couple of times, which I didn’t like. But Brayden was super impressed with her. He kept commenting on how well she was doing (and yes, he uses the word “well”–that’s my boy!). It was a good reminder to me that she is doing well and to not expect perfection, especially when we aren’t super consistent.

A difficulty I am finding is that there isn’t a time of day I can count on each day. To me, independent play is far more important than blanket time, so that has the time slot in the day that I know I can be consistent about. Blanket time is at a time of day that often sees disruptions. There is always at the very least Sunday she won’t get it. Then with the nice weather, we often go outside at that time of day, and I would rather spend time outside than time inside on the blanket. I think time outside is important. But the thought just struck me I could move it outside….that might be a battle 🙂 I don’t know. I am still mulling this over.

The big playtime event that happened during these two weeks was that she suddenly started to really play with her siblings. She played with them before, but over this last two weeks, she really hit a point where she really enjoyed it and can even play a bit with them, not just tandemly. She loves it. It has been so strange. It gives me a little bit of extra time each day to get things done.

Typically, this is the age when I get pregnant with my next child. I am not, so I have the child getting easier to take care of plus I am not throwing up and sleeping all day, so I am getting a lot done!

SICKNESS

Speaking of sick, we had a 12 hour flu run through our house. McKenna got it first, but hers was the most mild of them all, thank goodness. She threw up one time and that was it.

We also had a cold come through. She didn’t get it too bad. She had a mildly runny nose for a few days.

SLEEPING

Everything is still going well with sleeping.

But some sleeping related news is that she can now reach her video monitor camera. She likes to play with it and often turns it so I can’t see much, if anything, in her crib.

At the very end of this period, right when she turned 14 months old, McKenna woke early in the morning. She was crying off and on for a couple of minutes. It was 5:30. I watched her on the video monitor (she hadn’t moved it yet 🙂 ) and she was tossing and turning like she couldn’t get comfortable. She fell asleep, only to wake up again at 6:30. I decided to go check on her in case she had a poopy diaper or something.

Everything looked fine, but she was uncomfortable. I decided to give her some Tylenol. I then held her in the rocking chair for about 20 minutes. By the end of this 20 minutes, she started babbling and talking and grabbing at my face, so I knew she was feeling okay. I held her and sang her lullaby so she knew it was time for bed. I put her in bed and she went peacefully back to sleep. I let her sleep in until 9 that morning. We haven’t had an issue since.

>>>Read: Dropping the Morning Nap Transition Time

COMMUNICATION

McKenna is continually adding new words to her vocabulary. It is so fun to watch her continue to learn and understand what we are saying.

MINI-FITS

Still no real mini-fits. McKenna currently growls when she is unhappy with a situation. If she is upset, she growls at you, but no crying. Except, of course, in church. Her worst behavior is in church, but that still isn’t bad, so I am not complaining.

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t really turn out to be a bit fit thrower. She is quite a “go with the flow” type, so she might not get bothered enough to throw a fit. She also doesn’t necessarily consider no to mean no, so to her, she will explore other options. I am very interested to see her personality bloom even more over the years.

>>>Read: The Mini-Fit

GROWTH

McKenna grew a ton over the last couple of weeks. A couple of weeks ago, she stood at our piano on her tip-toes trying to see the keys as she barely touched them with her fingers. Now she sands and watches her fingers play the notes.

FEARLESS

Something that is typically not a trait of an oldest child is what I would call kamikaze behavior. McKenna isn’t overly concerned for her personal safety. She will do things like climb up onto Kaitlyn’s bed, get her sippy of water, throw it on the floor, then throw herself on the floor after it. It is just a toddler bed, so it isn’t a long drop, but I certainly don’t understand it :).

14 month old schedule pinnable image

SCHEDULE

8:30 AM–wake, eat (fruit mixed with yogurt, oatmeal, milk). This is when we do a bath (four days a week) and independent playtime.
10:30 AM–nap.
12:30 PM–wake, lunch. She then “helps” me put Brayden in rest time (which just means telling him to go) and Kaitlyn down for her nap. We then do blanket time followed by free play with me in the same room and/or outside play.
2:30 PM–nap
4:30-5:00 PM–wake, play until dinner time.
5:30ish PM–dinner with family. Finger foods and what we are having. She also has milk. Then time with family.
7:30 PM–PJs, story, prayers, bed.

GOOD BOOKS/WEBSITES

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