McKenna Pre-Toddler Summary: 13 Months Old

A full summary of life for this 13 month old. Find out what daily life was like and find a 13 month old sample schedule to follow.

McKenna at 13 months old

Just to keep those following up to speed, I am writing this summary on the day McKenna turns 13 months old, so it is similar to what I would have previously posted as a 12 months 4 week type of post.

EATING

Things are great here. McKenna still eats a whole lot. Around one year old, pre-toddlers have a significant drop in their food intake. She hasn’t quite hit that.

She does stop eating now as opposed to the past when I just had to decide she was done because that seemed like a sufficient amount of food, but she still doesn’t eat so little that I start to worry.

>>>Read: Correct Food Portions for Kids from Baby-8 Years

I am really glad she likes to eat so much because she will sit and eat dinner or lunch during Brayden’s soccer games, which recently started up. It makes it much easier to watch the game since she just sits in her stroller eating food and watching along. She cheers every time I cheer. She is so funny.

So far as the drinking milk goes, she is doing great! I don’t even worry in the least about it now. She doesn’t drink as much as Brayden and Kaitlyn did, but I have come to terms with the fact that she will get what she needs if I offer it to her.

She is still enjoying trying new foods, especially at this time of year with so many new fruits and veggies coming in season. Canteloup, pineapple, watermelon…it is all very exciting for her.

Purees

She still eats some purees each day. I definitely add it to her yogurt and cereal each morning for flavor sake. Then some days that is the only pureed food she has, others she has additional.

Yogurt

Remember when I said her yogurt was quite sour? Well, a reader commented that it shouldn’t be sour. It was really as sour as sour cream, even though it was a couple of weeks from its expiration date.

So, I decided to switch brands, and this one is good enough I would eat it if I had to (I don’t like yogurt). It is still made from cream and organic, although it isn’t quite as simple in the ingrediants, which is why I went with brand A in the first place. But brand A just wasn’t working. I would rather fewer fat calories than sour yogurt.

>>>Read: Pre-Toddler Mealtime Milestones

PLAYING

Everything is still going well in this area so far as her regularly scheduled playtimes go.

She is turning into a tornado, as my husband called it last night. She whips through and makes as large of a mess as she can.

This is all normal. She is very curious, so we have new things that we have to tell her she can’t touch. She is starting to learn to clean stuff up, in a simple, 13 month old way 🙂

Outdoors

McKenna just loves to be outside. She would spend the entire day out there if she could. Brayden was also that way, but Kaitlyn was not.

Screaming

McKenna started a unique way of playing with Brayden a couple of days ago. She will scream if he has something she wants. He immediately gives up what he has.

The interesting thing is that she doesn’t try this with anyone else in the family. It isn’t like Brayden takes stuff from her…she just knows. Girls are born knowing that if they want to make a male move, they just need to scream 🙂

Kaitlyn did the same thing to Brayden. Our neighbor’s daughter does the same thing to all five of her brothers…they just know.

>>>Read: The Screaming Non-Verbal Baby/Toddler

SLEEPING

We have no sleep issues going on. Everything is going well.

STRANGERS

McKenna is very much warming up to “strangers.” You might remember her idea of a stranger is any adult who is not my husband or me.

She has initiated and allowed a few different adults hold her over the last few days, one of them even being someone at church she rarely sees.

DENTIST

McKenna had her first visit to the dentist last week. She was happy and joyful until the hygienist put her in her lap to clean her teeth. That whole stranger thing and all.

Then she cried, which is actually a helpful thing for the one year old because you can’t tell a one year old to open her mouth.

Once she was done getting her teeth cleaned, she was very charming for the dentist. She also hugged me and snuggled me.

She had the office all laughing and oohing and awing over how cute she is. Now, I agree, she is cute, but she definitely has this magic way of eliciting compliments and admiration from people around her. She can work a crowd.

>>>Read: Dentist Tips for Kids

PRETODDLER COMMUNICATION

She continues to add to her list of words she can say. She also speaks sentences…just not any that are understandable to anyone but her.

It is cute, yet strange, to hear from a child her age. She looks at you and babbles a sentence then pauses and waits for a reply. She really thinks she is speaking clearly. It is so funny.

Neither Brayden nor Kaitlyn were that way, so don’t worry if your 13 month old isn’t either. They were the type who only said words they could say. She just seems to believe she can say whatever she wants to.

13 month old pretoddler daily routine pinnable image

13 MONTH OLD DAILY SCHEDULE

It hasn’t really changed. Yay for things not changing much!

8:30 AM–wake, eat (prunes or peaches/apricots 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, milk, solids (yellow veggie and bananas or pears). Then time with Daddy.
5:30ish PM–dinner with family. Finger foods and what we are having. Then time with family, which is typically outside these days.
7:30 PM–PJs, story, prayers, bed.

GOOD BOOKS/WEBSITES

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8 thoughts on “McKenna Pre-Toddler Summary: 13 Months Old”

  1. My daughter (exactly one month behind Mckenna) babbles sentences, too 🙂 We all find it very amusing! She doesnt, however, speak very clearly consistently for the words she can say. She'll babble dadadada or mamama or bybybyby, but not at the right time typically. Would you say this is normal? I do feel we should work with her more on this. She can, however point to my (not her) "hair", "nose" and "eyes" as well as "clean up" after a bath, play time or a meal (meaning she puts things in a basket or in a bowl) which i'm told is a little early? Or is someone being nice?! haha… So cognitively she's doing well, but how much should we work on the speech thing?

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  2. My DD only has 4 teeth at 15 months old. So, I am definitely waiting! Not much reason to clean 4 front teeth. I can do those myself really well at home!My sister is a dental hygienist and she agrees that around 1 year of age it is good to bring them in, just to get them familiar with a dentist office. They may or may not get their teeth actually "cleaned" :-)But it is good to go. I will probably wait until my DD is around 2 years old.

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  3. my girl at 17mth still babbles and i agree, it's v funny. :)so i get into a conversation with her. when she babbles and pauses, i would reply, pretending i've understood her. and she would babble back. :)so very funny and enjoyable 🙂

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  4. Kelly, at this age, speech is a tricky thing. I think they are supposed to be able to say 2-4 words at this age? Brayden and Kaitlyn both said A LOT more words than McKenna.I think the most important sign at this age is language comprehension. She obviously understands what you are saying to her. Some children just suddenly start talking a lot much later in life. I believe you want to watch for comprehension, and then around 18 months, you want to be more aware of number of words.

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  5. Natalie, Some dentists/doctors say you don't need to until 3 years old. My dentist doesn't do children for realy until age 3 but will have them come in to get used to it before then.But pediatric dentits recommend starting at 12 months old. I take my children to one of those. Some moms don't start until later, some start at one. It is one of those things for you to decide 🙂 We have dental insurance for the family, so there is no reason for me not to take them. And I am glad with McKenna I did because she has some sort of thing (I can't remember what it is called) where the skin attaching the upper lip to the gum line is very low and almost between her front teeth. So he pointed that out to me and talked about how to watch it and also at what point we might need to do something about it.

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  6. Grace, that is absolutely perfect to talk to her back and pause and wait for her to respond. Good job 🙂

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  7. Hello! I have a 13 month old girl and we have been loosely following baby wise since she was born. Right now her schedule is :
    6:30am wake up, breakfast and play
    9:30am nap
    10:30am wake, lunch at 11ish, play
    2pm nap
    3:30pm wake, snack, play
    5:30pm dinner,
    7pm bedtime

    She started waking up earlier than 6:30 so we cut her morning nap shorter and that helped (this was a few months ago). Recently she has been asking up earlier (6, sometimes 5:30am), and has started waking early from her afternoon nap (only napping 45mins).

    Any ideas of how to fix this? I would also love for her to wakeup at 7-7:30 instead of 6:30 but don’t know where to start. She usually wakes up crying in the morning so that’s when we go get her.

    Thanks!

    Reply

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