8mths Sitting and Sleeping

Dear Samantha

After 7mths I finally leave you with your God Mother (while your brother was with his) while your Dad and I go out to dinner, just a shame it was with his work colleagues. However we enjoyed a night out and you were a star; entertaining the her boys and also taking the bottle of milk that we left. And you were even missed in the morning by the boys when you weren’t in your bed. 

While I never allowed you to sit up by yourself last month I was pretty confident that you could. So early in the month I admitted to myself that you were clearly growing and I couldn’t keep you my baby anymore and starting sitting you up. First the shopping trolley, then the bath ring and then finally sitting on the floor by yourself. You were so ready to sit that within a week or two you had even worked out how to get down, and by the end of the month trying to get yourself back up. And now that you have started sitting we now pop you in the little trike set of to the park and you just love your trike ride, swing your legs all the way.

Your still not saying anything that could be related to objects or people but you do have one reaction that is generally the same every time. And that is a little squeal of delight every time you see Eddie (our cat) which is especially loud when your Dad holds Eddie up and you both check each other out and your faces are millimetres from each other. Or he comes up the stairs and you to start chasing him.

While you’re getting up on all fours and start to rock you just can’t get the arms to move and the legs to hold up all at the same time. But you don’t let this stop you as your commando crawling gets you to where you want to go. Weather that is too a favourite toy, one of William’s that takes your fancy or to and follow me. A few times you have crawled your way over (it does take you a little while) from the toy area to under the table were I’m working; it’s very cute.

Compared to your brother you were fast to cut your first and second tooth. And because I wasn’t expecting it I didn’t realise it was happening until you decided to bite down on my finger one day. While you may look a female version of your brother you certainly are very much two different little people who clearly develop in very different ways (even taking into account male v’s female), have two very different personalities and not to mention already showing different interests (apart from Eddie who you are both besotted in).

Your still taking things slowly on the eating front but by the end of the month your eating 3 meals a day and most times happy to eat from a spoon. However when you get a cold you only want to eat from a sucking pack but at least your still eating! So far your pretty happy eating anything I give you, whether it’s purée or a little chunky. However sometimes I do find that you prefer creamy textures or taste, so I often add yogurt or a cream cheese.

The highlight of this month by far was your Christening. You were perfectly well behaved and looked just divine in your little dress. Your dress was altered by a lovely friend of mine Charlene from a dress that once was mine.  My dress was in a casual fabric and was rather short so Charlene replaced the skirt, sleeves and buttons and added a pink ribbon to match the embroidery in the yoke turning it into the sweetest little dress that wasn’t over the top. I then finished off the look by making a little flower headband from the left over fabric.

 

 

By the end of the month getting up to you 2-3 times a night I had enough and invoiced self settling. About a week before I enforced the overnight self settling I enforced the self settling yourself to sleep through the day. It was hard but I had to do it as you no longer allowed me to partially get you to sleep in my arms and transfer. The first night I enforced the self settle overnight was after your Christening and your father was shocked that I chose that night to start it after you were such a dream through the day considering you were so tired. But I had to chose a day to start and some would say it might have worked in my favour as you would have been excused after such a big day. Either way you did wake 1 or 2 times and it didn’t take long for you to cry yourself back to sleep. And by the end of the month you no longer woke in the middle of the night and most times you slept through to 6-6:30. Ahhh I’m loving my sleep.

Below are some things we got up to this month.
• 31 weeks – Sitting up unaided. Also starting waving but not on queue but by 32 weeks we sometimes could get you to wave back. However you stopped waving after a few weeks
• 31.5 weeks – Cut first tooth
• 32.5 weeks – Meet and had a hug of your first TV show character; no tears just wasn’t 100% sure what to make of  Iggle Piggle
• 33 weeks – Cut your 2^nd tooth
• 33.5 weeks – Christening
• 34.5 weeks  / 8mths – Sleeping through the night

HAPPY 8mth BIRTHDAY GORGEOUS GIRL