8 Month update!

I have a terrible habit of writing these just as baby is about to reach the next monthly milestone!

This month has been a tough one for out little squish.  She's been teething almost constantly, with her bottom two teeth coming through first and now it look like all four at the top are going to come one after another!

She's still not crawling (forwards at least!) in the traditional sense, but she's mastered her army crawl. She loves standing and will scoot along furniture with ease. She can pull herself up on things that are just a little above her head height, using her legs to push up rather than using her arms to pull.

Eating has been a little on and off with the teething. When it is really bad she loses her appetite completely and just wants to nurse, which we do a lot! At her 8 month check up I was asked if I was feeding her three times a day! More like 6-8!! Or even more on some extra fussy days.

We've been trying lots of new tastes and textures, but her favourites are still potatoes in any form and avocado. It was really been helping me to think more carefully about what I eat, now that I am sharing three meals a day with her. She also enjoyed her first free fruit from Woolies, chomping on an apple while I tried to shop with one hand and protect the apple from falling with the other.

Her sleep is all over the place. Some nights she'll sleep right through, maybe waking once to feed. Other nights she wakes every hour or two. Some nights we still have the 2 hour middle of the night party when she just wont go back to sleep. I don't know how I would be able to cope if I was working. As it is, it can be incredibly exhausting, I just try to remind myself that she must be having a much harder time of it than I am.


We went to the museum for the first time which was amazing. She loved the new Children's Gallery and the outdoor area was a big hit. We still love story time and playgroup, and we are spending much more time playing outside now that the weather is starting to warm up and she's becoming more mobile. We have some rosellas that visit our little courtyard and she loves to sit and watch them. Sometimes the little babbles she makes sounds like she is trying to mimic them!

I can't believe in less than 90 days it will be baby's first Christmas!

6 Month update

Our little girl is six months old. I can't believe it. I think back to the anxiety I was suffering this time last year and I just can't believe how much our lives have changed. The time has gone so quickly, but it truly feels like she has always been a part of our lives.

She loves sitting up and playing with her toys, tummy time is still a hassle. She just rolls over immediately any time I try to put her down on her tummy! She rolls side to side on her back, she actually sleeps on her side, but she has yet to roll all the way over.

We've been out and about so much. Story time at the local library is a huge hit, and it's probably nice for her to hear someone else reading besides us. We've been out walking a lot, although that is hard as it gets colder. We ventured out on a train trip to a local shopping centre with a mum and bub from our Playgroup. Playgroup has been hit and miss as it is such a small group there often ends up being only 2 or 3 of us.

One not-so-great milestone I guess we had to hit eventually was that she picked up her first virus. We had visited Nan Nan and my cousin was there with her bub who is 3 weeks older. They shared toys and drool. He fell ill the following day and our little one followed soon after. The first day that she was full coughs and snotty nose she just looked at me and I felt so helpless. I didn't know how to make her feel any better and it really shook me up. I got over it soon enough, but it was a terrible feeling to be so helpless to give her any kind of relief. I did the next best thing and gave her the comfort she needed.

Unfortunately, this virus threw her new found sleep routine out of whack. She had JUST started two day naps of about 2 hrs each, and only waking once each night to feed. Bliss! Then she fell ill and was waking every hour, sometimes hysterical at being unable to breathe through her nose.

So she's turned 6 months, had her check up and has more than doubled her birth weight. So proud of her (and have to say, myself!) for getting past the initial setbacks when she was born and fighting on with breastfeeding. We have just started solids (for a post another day) and I can't wait to see what she shows me next!

Time flies!

Dad is at work, the baby is asleep and I thought I would take the chance to try to gather some of my thoughts about the past seven weeks. Instead, I just spent ages looking at the hundreds of photos we have of our little one, trying to find one to use of this post. I don't know if it is the sleep deprivation or the fact that she's so cute, but i just couldn't stop myself from looking at one more, then one more, just one more...

To say the last seven weeks have gone quickly is an understatement. Of course, in the middle of the night when baby wont settle each minute seems an eternity, but on the whole, I can't believe that next weekend she'll be two months old!

I will hopefully have a chance to go into things in more detail in the future, but a quick overview is about all I can manage now.

The birth itself went really well, after an awful time trying to set the spinal block in during which time the repeatedly poked my bones and I ended up with a spectacular bruise. The moment she was born and they held her up for us to see, it seemed an eternity waiting for that first cry but in reality it was just moments. She was perfect and we were able to keep her with us right from the start, no need for special care.

We spent 4 nights in the hospital and they were willing to let us stay another night, but having shared a room with a terribly noisy family for two days, and another couple arriving, we decided that we would be better off at home. Baby had lost a lot of weight and we were sent home with a feeding plan which included regular formula top ups.

The first two weeks home are a blur of bottles, breastfeeding and pumping, interspersed with moments of sheer panic that I had only an hour at most before baby would wake and what should I do in that time? Eat? Sleep? Shower? Return any number of calls or texts? Sit and stare at my baby in wonder? (I did that more times than I can count!!) Try to have a conversation with hubby that didn't involve the content of baby's nappy or the state of my nipples?

After that, baby started to get the hang of feeding and we were able to drop the formula top ups and feed on demand. We started to settle into a bit of a routine feeding every three to four hours and introducing play time and story time. We experimented (and continue to) with different ways to settle our little one and get her to sleep. On the whole, she's been fantastic and will sleep in her moses basket by our bed for most of her naps, only needing to be held for maybe one nap each day.

The only real trouble recently was following her 6 week vaccinations. The first two days she was just sleepy and vomited a couple of times, then she developed diarrhea and was in terrible pain when using her bowels. We ended up at the hospital as the nurse had told us to watch out for unusual crying and bowel pain as intussusception can be a side effect of the rotavirus vax. After a night in for observation, they concluded that she was just having a hard time with the pain of diarrhea cramps, as she is still so little and getting used to all these new sensations. I just have to keep a eye out for dehydration and make sure that she feeds as often as she needs to. We're going on 5 days now, so hopefully she gets some relief soon.

It is so amazing watching this little personality grow and develop. I can't wait to see what happens next!