McKenna Pre-Toddler Summary: 15.5 Months Old

A full summary of life for this 15.5 month old. Find out what daily life was like and find a 15.5 month old sample schedule to follow.

More goodness going on. Things are still crazy with summer activities, but McKenna is great through it all.

EATING

Have I ever mentioned that McKenna eats a lot of food? Okay, people, for real. She eats a LOT. We went camping for several days with friends, and they all were shocked at how much she ate. She really can pack it in there.

One thing, though, to take note of is that she doesn’t drink a lot of milk. She drinks 8 ounces a day. I put 3 ounces in her cereal. Then I am sure to give her yogurt and cheese each day, but since she drinks so little, she has a lot of calories to make up for in her food intake.

Purees

We really don’t eat purees much anymore other than applesauce. She likes garden-fresh peas, so we are good there.

PLAYING

Summer activities have still been so busy that independent play is a trick to work in. I am looking forward to some more quiet time so I can add in other activities, but for now, we will take what we can get.

I really have independent play if I can help it at all. I make a valiant effort. But it doesn’t happen every day.

SLEEPING

She is still sleeping like a champ. She slept perfectly while we were on vacation. I had to wake her up every morning. One morning, she woke early. My husband told her to go back to sleep and she did.

One crazy story, when we arrived at our campsite the first day, it was between 9:30 and 10:00 PM. We meant to leave earlier, but you might know how that goes…

So we got there, then had to set up camp and get ready for bed. So McKenna got to bed very late. By then, she had reached her 6th or so wind and didn’t fall asleep until close to midnight! I can’t even believe it. She didn’t cry. She and Kaitlyn just sat and giggled (which I am sure had something to do with the “winds”).

We found that while camping, we had to put Kaitlyn to bed first. She and McKenna are on the same bed. But McKenna wouldn’t fall asleep before Kaitlyn got in there, in which case they would stay up playing. But if Kaitlyn went to bed first, she fell asleep within minutes and was out. By the last day, we had it worked out perfectly 🙂

COMMUNICATION

She is adding more and more words and becoming more and more precise in her sign language.

>>>Read: How to Teach Your Baby Sign Language

TEETHING

One day, I decided for fun to inspect McKenna’s mouth carefully. She still hasn’t gotten any new teeth since turning one, and I thought an inspection was in order.

Upon inspection, I found two new molars on her top! I was quite excited. McKenna was my worst teether for her first teeth, so I thought molars would be a pure nightmare, but they obviously weren’t. She was more clingly for a bit.

She usually loves to wander off on her own with no care as to where her parents are (not a great trait really). There are perks to it, like that she will sit happily in the sandbox while I weed the garden.

Not the last couple of weeks. She would say, in a pitiful way, “Mama! mama! mama!” over and over again. So I found myself pushing her in the swing, which she wasn’t happy about, then trying different outside activities, still not happy. I should have suspected, but I thought she was just being finicky 🙂

MINI-FITS

McKenna discovered her yelling ability over the last couple of weeks. I miss the growling days. But still no full-on fits yet.

Read all about mini-fits with this age group here.

STRANGERS

McKenna is warming up more and more to strangers. In a crowd, she now moves around the room, visiting each person.

ANTAGONIST

McKenna is an antagonist. Kaitlyn is also an antagonist but in a different way. I don’t really know how exactly to describe Kaitlyn’s motivations. I think she likes to see if she can. She is testing her power.

But with McKenna, it is very different. She does it purely to entertain herself. On our long drive to our camp site, McKenna would just poke Kaitlyn, and she found it so funny. This characteristic is also present in my father, who is the youngest of 7.

PRAYERS

McKenna will fold her arms on her own for prayers oftentimes now. The other night for family prayer, she even got on her knees, “walked” on her knees to the family circle, and folded her arms for the prayer. It was truly a precious moment.

15.5 Month Old SCHEDULE

Our schedule is different than usual right now. I have changed it to accomodate the hot summer. I usually do outside play after lunch, but in the heat of the summer, that is too hot. So we do it in the morning:

8:30 AM–wake, eat (fruit mixed with yogurt, oatmeal, milk).

9:00-9:30ish AM–play outside. 10:20 AM–Come in and quick bath
10:30 AM–nap. 
12:30 PM–wake, lunch, sibling playtime. Independent playtime for one hour.
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–Bath, PJs, story, prayers, bed.

GOOD BOOKS/WEBSITES

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5 thoughts on “McKenna Pre-Toddler Summary: 15.5 Months Old”

  1. Val, how do you teach your kids to fold their arms, etc, and be reverent for prayers? Do you fold their arms for them and try to hold them still, or do you just do the right things yourself and eventually they follow your example?

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  2. I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciate your blog. My now 10 week old baby was so fussy starting at 3 weeks. I had read many sleep books and had been praying about how best to help my baby boy. When I came across Babywise I felt like it was the perfect fit for both he and I. I had already implemented a aspects of Baby Whisperer and Healthy Sleep Habits but they weren't as concrete for me as Babywise. When I came across your blog it was the icing on the cake! Your blog has helped answer so many of my questions and I continue to reference it as new ones surface. Thank you for helping Moms like me. Also, I think you should write a book. You have a wonderful ability to describe things in very understandable, applicable ways. Thanks! Aubrey McLaughlin

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  3. Melissa, when they are young, I will bring their arms together for them. But as they get older, I start folding my arms instead so they can watch me (probably somewhere around 9-10 months or so I would guess). Then they start to follow examples.It is great, and easy :)Then they hit a two year old and you have to work through the "sillies"…so it won't be perfect throughout their lives, but I think it is a great start.

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  4. Thank you Aubrey! I am planning on writing a book (and have written one), but I am not sure which topic I want to do first. Thanks for your kind words!

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  5. My son is 16 months old and has been taking one nap a day for 3 months or so . He wakes up at 7:30 AM and takes a nap at 12:30 p.m until about 245 or 3, until lately where he goes down for the nap but wakes up at 150 pm every single time. This has lasted for 2 weeks, same time every day. I have tried letting him cry for 30-45 min but he never falls back to sleep and is very tired and cranky by. 4 because he is still tired. I have let him cry for two weeks now and nothing is working. Do I need to move the nap back?

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