Emily at 4 months
Today is Emily's 4-month birthday! She's officially 1/3 year old!
She's been holding her hands together quite a bit, and when we change her nappy, she holds her feet (when she isn't trying to dip her fingers in the mess, that is! Giving her a wipe/cottonball to hold(1) helps mitigate that, and if nothing else, she winds up "helping" me wipe her). She also has a habit of sucking on one hand and holding it with the other-- it's very cute! And she talks with her mouth full (ususally just of fingers/binky(2) but sometimes of boob. Or she'll slip off the boob to tell me something very important.)
Yesterday she hit one of the BIG milestones: she rolled over! She's been going from back to side and back again (and can "breakdance" if left without her nappy for a while(4)!) for about a month now, and yesterday morning she went from back to her right side, hung out there, kept tipping... going.... and managed to land on her tummy with her right arm trapped beneith her. I had to rescue it as she was NOT comfortable like that :-) Yesterday afternoon, she did the same thing, but managed to wiggle her right arm free and push herself up! That's my big little girl!
With this new development, she's officially having to move out of the moses basket and into her cotbed. :-( Rocking her to sleep when I don't want to nurse her to sleep is our standby "come on kid, it's time for you to sleep!" trick. More importantly, there isn't enough room in our room for the cotbed, so she has to be in her own room. I found myself nerotically checking on her in the evening, but slept reasonably well once I actually went to bed. It helps that she "sleeps" thorough the night(5), so I don't need to worry about/fear "what if she wakes up and is unhappy and I don't hear her!one!!". She did make a few noises while we were watching "The Fossil Dectectives" on iPlayer, but that might have just been her tossing and turning a bit, as the baby monitor just crackled and didn't emit any noise.
This morning, I woke about 6:30 with my left breast telling me it was feeding time(6). Just as I was getting ready to get up, I hear Emily cooing over the baby monitor. So I guess this "sleeping in 2 rooms" thing will work. My baby's growing up! *sniff, sniff*
**
(1)We had been following the standard Brittish advice of using cottonballs and warm water to wipe her backside, then I decided that we didn't need to spend all that money since we're using real nappies anyway, and bought some washable wipes, so we're basically washing her bum with water and a washcloth.
(2)binky's rare, thanks to the Great Pacifier Debate that periodically errupts in my household. We are not sure if it's better to let her become depenedant on an inaminant object (that we can sterilize, take away when she's really a bit too big for it(3), and is shaped in a way to not mess up her teeth) or if it's better to let her just use her fingers (which will get into grot quite a bit more but which she has more control over, as I can't exactly remove them! though I guess footnote (3) also applies here...) Guess which side I'm on? ;-)
(3)though if it's a comfort item in the privacy of her own room, who's too say if she's using it or not? So who's gonna know?
(4)She'll go from back to side, but move her legs more than her upper body (usually cuz she's busy sucking on her fingers when she does this), and then flop back to her back, repeting and rotating herself in a circle with her shoulders at the centre. I think it takes about 20 or 30 min for her to get all the way around, but I've not timed it. Yet.
(5)I had to put some laundry away in her room at 9 last night. Her little eyes were open and she watched me do it. No crys, whimpers, or, indeed, sounds of any kind, so I pretended that she was asleep. Quite frankly, if she's awake and happy enough to just stare at things in her room instaid of needing feeding/a nappy change/a cuddle and the giant fireball in the sky is pestering the OTHER half of the world, I'm happy enough to leave her to it. If she had been taking a nap, I prob would have picked her up but... Nightime is for sleeping, unless something's wrong (eg hungry, nappy's bugging her). And without her telling me that something's wrong, I'm gonna assume she's fine. I've suspected for a while now that she doesn't actually sleep all night long but wakes periodically then falls asleep again. This just confirms that and, frankly, if she lets me sleep I don't care if she's asleep, awake or whatever.
(6)I now know why cows hang out at a gate, lowing to be milked. ouch.
She's been holding her hands together quite a bit, and when we change her nappy, she holds her feet (when she isn't trying to dip her fingers in the mess, that is! Giving her a wipe/cottonball to hold(1) helps mitigate that, and if nothing else, she winds up "helping" me wipe her). She also has a habit of sucking on one hand and holding it with the other-- it's very cute! And she talks with her mouth full (ususally just of fingers/binky(2) but sometimes of boob. Or she'll slip off the boob to tell me something very important.)
Yesterday she hit one of the BIG milestones: she rolled over! She's been going from back to side and back again (and can "breakdance" if left without her nappy for a while(4)!) for about a month now, and yesterday morning she went from back to her right side, hung out there, kept tipping... going.... and managed to land on her tummy with her right arm trapped beneith her. I had to rescue it as she was NOT comfortable like that :-) Yesterday afternoon, she did the same thing, but managed to wiggle her right arm free and push herself up! That's my big little girl!
With this new development, she's officially having to move out of the moses basket and into her cotbed. :-( Rocking her to sleep when I don't want to nurse her to sleep is our standby "come on kid, it's time for you to sleep!" trick. More importantly, there isn't enough room in our room for the cotbed, so she has to be in her own room. I found myself nerotically checking on her in the evening, but slept reasonably well once I actually went to bed. It helps that she "sleeps" thorough the night(5), so I don't need to worry about/fear "what if she wakes up and is unhappy and I don't hear her!one!!". She did make a few noises while we were watching "The Fossil Dectectives" on iPlayer, but that might have just been her tossing and turning a bit, as the baby monitor just crackled and didn't emit any noise.
This morning, I woke about 6:30 with my left breast telling me it was feeding time(6). Just as I was getting ready to get up, I hear Emily cooing over the baby monitor. So I guess this "sleeping in 2 rooms" thing will work. My baby's growing up! *sniff, sniff*
**
(1)We had been following the standard Brittish advice of using cottonballs and warm water to wipe her backside, then I decided that we didn't need to spend all that money since we're using real nappies anyway, and bought some washable wipes, so we're basically washing her bum with water and a washcloth.
(2)binky's rare, thanks to the Great Pacifier Debate that periodically errupts in my household. We are not sure if it's better to let her become depenedant on an inaminant object (that we can sterilize, take away when she's really a bit too big for it(3), and is shaped in a way to not mess up her teeth) or if it's better to let her just use her fingers (which will get into grot quite a bit more but which she has more control over, as I can't exactly remove them! though I guess footnote (3) also applies here...) Guess which side I'm on? ;-)
(3)though if it's a comfort item in the privacy of her own room, who's too say if she's using it or not? So who's gonna know?
(4)She'll go from back to side, but move her legs more than her upper body (usually cuz she's busy sucking on her fingers when she does this), and then flop back to her back, repeting and rotating herself in a circle with her shoulders at the centre. I think it takes about 20 or 30 min for her to get all the way around, but I've not timed it. Yet.
(5)I had to put some laundry away in her room at 9 last night. Her little eyes were open and she watched me do it. No crys, whimpers, or, indeed, sounds of any kind, so I pretended that she was asleep. Quite frankly, if she's awake and happy enough to just stare at things in her room instaid of needing feeding/a nappy change/a cuddle and the giant fireball in the sky is pestering the OTHER half of the world, I'm happy enough to leave her to it. If she had been taking a nap, I prob would have picked her up but... Nightime is for sleeping, unless something's wrong (eg hungry, nappy's bugging her). And without her telling me that something's wrong, I'm gonna assume she's fine. I've suspected for a while now that she doesn't actually sleep all night long but wakes periodically then falls asleep again. This just confirms that and, frankly, if she lets me sleep I don't care if she's asleep, awake or whatever.
(6)I now know why cows hang out at a gate, lowing to be milked. ouch.