McKenna Pre-Toddler Summary: 14 Months Old

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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12 thoughts on “McKenna Pre-Toddler Summary: 14 Months Old”

  1. I totally loved your post of today about how your baby is 14 months old and you feel like he is old, lol. I enjoyed it immensely. It reminded me of when my kids was 14 months old that seems to many moons away. My son is now 13 and my daughter is 8. We as parents have to cherish every moment we have with our children, because they grow up too fast.

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  2. I loved your use of the word 'kamikaze'. That perfectly describes my 14-month old son who also seems to have no personal concern for his own safety.

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  3. Hi, wow I never thought of that Alicia. Great comment! Kamikaze is a word that I would also use to describe my kids at that age. When my kids was that age I was such a worry ward thinking they would hurt themselves, but just like you said they was kamikazes so they didn't have any concern for their own safety, lol.

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  4. My daughter is 10.5 months and loves to eat finger foods. I've been giving her quite a bit since she does have 8 teeth. But my daughter and yours are on the exact same schedule except my daughter goes to bed at 8:30. I feed her the same as you do at breakfast, fruit, yogurt, oatmeal and her formula. But what are you doing for lunch and dinner and do you change it up or always feed her the same thing? That's been my biggest problem is going to the grocery and buying tons of stuff for her to eat when I don't feel she cares too much about variety. What do yo suggest I do about lunch and dinner?

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  5. Valarie,I just wanted to jump in and say that my 15 month old does GREAT at blanket time outside. There's so much to look at, even if I haven't switched the toys in a long time. It's easier than inside for us. Maybe McKenna would like it too?Melissahttp://www.findsforfamilies.com

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  6. Off the subject but how often do you all buy your children toys? My 16 month old's birthday is in Jan so she gets a lot of toys at once. I'd like to update them but don't want to "spoil" her. Any thoughts?

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  7. Wow, blanket time I haven't heard that saying in so long, because my kids are bigger now. That saying brought back a lot of great memories. Thank you!

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  8. First Time Mom,This is what I did. And pretty much do. At lunch, I did a green veggie, so at that age it was either green beans or peas. She also got either applesauce or some sort of blue/red fruit. At dinner, she got a yellow veggie (squash, sweet potatoes, carrots) and usually bananas. Then, at lunch I also gave her some finger foods. I would give her some cheese, maybe some bread, maybe some fresh fruit in chunks…At dinner, we would again give her finger foods, and we always feed her what we are having for dinner, also.At 10.5 months, that is an age when they seem to start to kind of want more variety. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, you are likely seeing lots of variety in fresh fruits available to you. Melons, berries…There are lots of yummy possibilities that are soft enough for a baby to gum.

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  9. Thanks Melissa! I will have to give that a try. Of course, after I typed out my complaint on blanket time she has been 100% perfect ever since. Maybe I will complain more often 🙂

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  10. Roberjen,My kids basically get toys at Christmas and Birthdays, but their birthdays are much more spread out from Christmas. I have a good friend whose son's birthday is in January. She would always save either money or the toys themselves to allocate in the summer, too. I think it is good to have some toys coming in every 6ish months. I like it that way because you hit more milestones that way. Plus, you can get things based on different seasons. Brayden's birthday is in May, and I love it being that far from Christmas. McKenna's is in March, and I think that will be a little close.For now, I would probably do some at the birthday, but set aside money you would spend and buy something every so often or do a half-birthday party. The tricky thing will really be figuring out what to do if you have more kids and if their birthdays aren't close to Christmas 🙂

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  11. Hello! I have a question about the transition to one nap a day. My 14 month old is sleeping 11.5-12 hours a night, then taking a 2 hour nap in the morning, but lately has been taking shorter and shorter afternoon naps (or playing/crying the whole nap!). Is he transitioning to one nap a day, or did we get in a bad habit? He is very tired and ready for a nap in the morning, but does not act tired in the afternoon when I try to put him down. I tried to wait longer in between naps, but that has not helped. Thank you!

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