Tristan 8 months

Tristan turned 8 months today, and we thought it'd be an excellent opportunity for an update on how he is doing. At the last check about two weeks ago, he weighed about 10 kg, which is no wonder considering his mighty appetite. He eats four "real" meals a day now, plus three times breast milk. He has two teeth in his lower jaw, and at least two more well on the way. On the whole, his development in most areas seem to be slightly ahead of average, especially where motor and cognitive skills are concerned. He can track partially hidden objects, and is quite good at both judging distance and picking up things. A couple of weeks ago he began to imitate sounds and movements more consciously, in particular when someone waves at him.
Apart from these, he can also:

• sit without support
• crawl (kind of), covering considerable distances and overcoming various obstacles along the way
• support his own weight when standing upright with help
• drink from a cup with help
• feed himself finger food
  
• respond to his name
• respond to 'no', mainly by doing even more of what he shouldn't

As for his language development, it appears to be about average, which is what we find in most bilingual babies. For some time now he has been producing those sweet consonant chains (ba-ba-ba, da-da-da) typical of this age, and is increasingly able to express his emotions through "speech". He takes more interest and pleasure in listening to people, watching their mouths move, and clearly takes notice when Ane or I speak English instead of our respective mother tongue.

Tristan has been a very happy child right from the start. He´s almost constantly in a good mood, and very glad to be together with other people. Lately, though, he has started to get somewhat anxious with strangers - a very normal reaction which is likely to get stronger in the next period. The only problem right now is his somewhat erratic sleeping pattern. He goes to bed between 7 and 8 pm, and falls asleep without problem after a short bedtime ritual, but then wakes up several times during the night. Of course it is rather demanding of us. It can also be that we just had it way too easy in the beginning, when he'd only be up a couple of times during the night, and only to feed.

All pictures from today. See also the attached videos.