Little Miss at 9 Months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Wow so our little lady turns 9 months old this week! Which means she has been in the world for as long as she was growing in my tummy! Her development seems to be coming on leaps and bounds all the time now and for the most part she is a joy to be around. She just beams with happiness when she smiles and melts our heart on a daily basis.

She is keeping us on our toes though. For a while we have been convinced she was going to be a crawler.. And she can do it… Or could if she wanted to. But she doesn’t want to. Nope, like her big brother she would prefer to walk, thank you very much!

So though she can crawl she more often is trying to stand and falls flat bless her… Unless there is something or someone to grab onto. We still had her on the highest cot level until this week but had to lower her after I came in to see her after her nap and found her on her knees, holding the side and about to stand. If she had stood up she basically would have gone head first out of the cot! Eek!

As she wants to walk around that also means we are walking around with her a lot. Not great for our backs unfortunately but I know it will only be in the short term as we did the same with Monkey and he walked pretty early.

Her sleep regression troubles have eased off a little thankfully. My Mum’s tip of rubbing her back helps if she is struggling to settle herself but for the most part she does get herself off to sleep quite quickly again. Phew! Less screaming does make the house feel a lot calmer.

She seems to have settled into a little bit of a routine for the time being… Where she sleeps from 10-1130/12 in the morning,3-4 in the afternoon and then 730pm-6am overnight. It is nice knowing a little bit what to expect but I doubt this routine will last long and, well, I know she can change at any given moment! She does so like keeping me on my toes!!

She is a chatty little thing and been saying dada or jaja indiscriminately for a while and it has been lovely to hear mama or maba come out recently too. I know she doesn’t know what it means but it is still lovely. She is getting more giggly as well and loves being tickled, which is obviously great fun.

She loves people, adores her daddy and still worships her big brother, smiling the second she sees him. She also likes grabbing him, which he takes in good spirits for the most part bless him.

This week we have had a some waving at people which has been lovely and is just another example of how we are entering what I see as the fun stage. Yes it is still hard work, but a little less so and with all of the learning and developments comes a lot of fun for all of us.

Stealth Shuffling & Sleep Regression at 8mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We have been having a bit of an interesting time with our Little Miss of late. In many ways she has settled down, her teething and reflux aren’t bothering her quite so much and on the whole she is a very happy, sunny, smily baby and she can be a joy to be around. But she has reached a point where she very much wants to be on the move and that is making things interesting.

For quite a while now she has been really content to sit and play with toys. Honestly it has been amazing as Monkey never really did this. She focuses so intently on toys and can sit for ages and entertain herself while I play or craft something with Monkey or potter about with some jobs.

Now though, she so wants to explore wider surroundings. She is desperate to crawl and making slow progress towards being able to, with lots of rolling onto her tummy and pushing up. She also has quite an amazing skill, the stealth shuffle.

I mentioned a while ago that she liked to bum shuffle in the bath and she now does that in front of her eyes. But the interesting thing is that it is very difficult to detect her movement. She leans forward and sits back up and twists and turns around but seems to be in the same spot… but then all of a sudden she is on the over side of the room and we weren’t really aware of the move happening!

Nanny & Pops looked after her today and even they remarked on it. Our little stealth shuffler!

It won’t be long until she crawls either so we need to be even more vigilant about what is on the floor or within reach of little arms. A whole new world 🙂

Blurry shot… but you get the idea!

She is also moving around in bed a lot too and as a result we are struggling a little at nap times and bedtime which, to be honest, is driving us potty. We sleep trained quite young and she has been a fantastic sleeper, as long as she is tired and nothing else is bothering her. But lately even when she is tired and we can find nothing else to be the matter she is miserable about going to sleep and gets very very unhappy.

She also moves herself all over the cot and we come to check on her and find her rolled over, turned sideways, back to front, legs stuck through bars and all over the place. I won’t go into details but it has been stressful and there has been lots of rocking to sleep at a loss of what else to do sometimes.

I’ve read that 8 month sleep regression is common, though again it wasn’t something we experienced with Monkey,and are hoping it is just a phase! Anyone else been through this?

Once she is asleep she still sleeps well and wakes up very happy… we are just at a bit of a loss as to how we can help her remember how to fall asleep in her bed again!

LM’s hairstyles at 8 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Our Little Miss’s hair is growing thick and fast these days but it is still wispy baby hair and is at that real in-between length where it is something and nothing. Hubs and I have slight disagreements over how we should “style” her hair (I use that term in the loosest possible sense – i.e. brush it or not!) so just for a bit of fun I thought I would share some of my hair styling experiments.

Hubs says some of them are plain mean (ahem the centre parting one) but I think she looks gorgeous in all of them 🙂

Rough towel dried & unbrushed/Messy vs Cute side parting (the way it naturally goes)

Brushed centre parting/ Brushed forwards (though it doesn’t stay that way and ends up messy)

What do you think?

I’ve also had a try with a girly bow – I am not girly at all so wasn’t sure about this. Of course, she looks gorgeous, but I am not sure exactly where it is meant to go or how to keep it on! What a cutie though eh?

Little Miss at 8 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Another month has flown by and our little girly really isn’t so little anymore, she is getting bigger by the day and her little personality is really starting to shine too. This has turned out to be quite a long update actually because she is doing more and more all the time!

Our Little Miss is very stable sitting up – when she wants to be. I say that because she quite often dives forward or off to the side to get something (if she sees something, she has to have it, and probably gum it to death) and though she will sometimes right herself, there is sometimes some amusing (naughty mummy) topples and comedy rolls in a fraction of a second. Which do come as a bit of a shock to her, poor thing! She loves standing too and is getting more stable all the time.

She has started moving a little… she was bum shuffling backwards a little bit, especially in the bath and kept moving herself into one of the corners, not sure why? But now she seems to be more focussed on throwing herself forward (thankfully not in the bath) and spending more time on her tummy. Which is a good thing, who knows, maybe we will have a crawler this time? Though so far if she does move on her tummy she also only moves backwards… or round in circles so far!

She loves the mobility she gets in her walker (and it’s always proof to me how much babies are capable of learning) as she goes forward, backwards, sideways and can get herself to any part of the downstairs she wants to, with no input from us anymore. Sometimes she’ll go off down the hall and I think to myself “ooh best go turn her round, just finish this” only to then see her come whizzing back towards me again having performed some multi-point turn at the end of the hall! Genius! She does get frustrated though because she can get to where toys are but can’t pick them up off the floor or wherever and just runs them over… and this makes her grumpy.

In fact we are entering a bit of an age of frustration as she does get quite annoyed with things. For the most part she is very intent with toys and when she is in the right mood she will sit for ages exploring and fiddling with toys and things. But sometimes she gets over excited and really frustrated! Sometimes this manifests itself with loud shouting but a warning sign that she is getting annoyed is a lot of ooh-ing, as she is a real ooh-er which makes me chuckle! Here’s a little video of her chatting and then ooh-ing if you fancy watching some cuteness 🙂

Another thing that has been making her frustrated is her teeth as her 3rd top has now popped through and the 4th is well on it’s way so she now has a little toothy grin with 2 at the bottom and the top 2 starting to show. Very cute but teething seems so cruel on little babies! Far from over yet either :/

We’ve also had more trouble with her reflux this month which is annoying as we had hoped the medicine would be working. Turns out though that we should be giving it 30mins to an hr before food, but neither the Dr or pharmacist told us this, in fact the pharmacist said with meals. Thank goodness for the internet and we are now giving it to her at the right times and have seen a bit of an improvement. Fingers crossed it continues as it’s horrible seeing her in pain!

LM eating She loves her food and loves feeding herself so the BLW is going well, but we are still combination feeding as it definitely helps her to get some food in fast while she is exploring and then she doesn’t get quite so frustrated while she figures out how to eat the finger foods!

Moving on from foods, another interesting development this month, is that she has suddenly decided to poo and wee in her nappy. For the first 7 months of life this was not the case as she has always done it when we have changed her but now she is doing it every time in her nappy which is good but has been an adjustment, and we are having to develop our “poo nose” as we don;t always realise when she has pooed yet lol! Sorry if TMI 🙂

In general, when she isn’t in pain or frustrated, she is such a happy and smily little soul and very chatty too which is adorable. She loves people and is a little charmer, grinning and chuckling and reaching for any strangers who happen to be nearby! Love her to bits and hope we settle her reflux down a bit as it’s been affecting her daytime naps a bit too and I could really do with her settling down a little again!

Little Miss at 7 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Another month has gone by, it is amazing how quick they are flying, and how big LM is getting now! She is so lively and inquisitive and though still hard work at times, we are getting to the fun stage of playing and her being able to entertain herself a little, even briefly! I’m obviously biased but she is just gorgeous too 🙂

The biggest development this month has to be that she is now sitting and is much more stable. She still topples occasionally (as she did a couple of days ago, boinking her head on the floor, making me feel like a terrible mummy) but for the most part we surround her with cushions to help her and then she can sit happily for ages. It makes her feel much less like a tiny ‘baby’ it really does.

She is so fascinated by the world around her and while most things still end up in her mouth, she will sit and inspect things too. Anything within reach, even a pack of baby wipes, is intriguing to her! She was sat in the conservatory the other day and she was absolutely mesmerised by the trees outside, and when we got caught in the rain on a playgroup run she was absolutely fascinated by the water droplets on the rain cover on the buggy.

The less positive big change this month is the return of her reflux which regular readers will know has been causing me some problems. The gaviscon we had left over from the last time helped the reflux but made her horribly constipated, poor thing, but the Dr really didn’t want to try anything else. Giving us the ‘they’re not constipated unless they haven’t pooed for 3 days’ line and telling us to give her plenty of fluids. A bit of pushy parent persuasion later and she finally agreed to trying ranitidine (she insisted that the side effects are the same but I thought it was surely worth a try). And whaddaya know, no reflux and no constipation (touch wood)!

So we shall see what happens with that. We are moving forward with her weaning and doing a combined purée and baby-led approach. I know many BL weaners will argue that it isn’t babyled if you are doing it this way, but as with anything I think different things work for different babies and parents and this seems to work for us. She is hungry so often needs some purée in her tummy so she doesn’t get frustrated but then loves picking up the finger food and figuring out how to eat it, and she is so good at chewing already too.

She still adores her brother and beams as soon as she sees him. He makes her laugh much more than we do and he doesn’t even have to try!

She loves being in her walker, scooting about the house, following her big brother and just having a bit of freedom to move I think. Plus I’m convinced that it is helping her tummy s she has even pooed in her nappy a few times now, which is very unusual for us (yes, odd I know, she prefers to do it with her nappy off!).

She’s awake for longer and longer periods now and I am hoping she will settle into a two nap routine with the way things are going at the moment… but it is too soon to tell and she has a bit of a cold at the mo which is affecting her sleep too.. so we shall see I think! Fingers crossed though as that would be amazing!

A few other random bits, her second tooth is well on the way now, she hates having her feet touch grass (and lifts her legs if you try and put her feet down which I think is really amusing), and I swear she is the loudest baby on the planet when she starts chatting away or moaning. Honestly, she likes to make herself heard! I carry her around on my hip a lot and sounds weird but I almost forget she is there if I am talking to someone else, so she has learnt to make her presence felt by joining in with the conversation!

I think that is about everything I cna think of.. I havent had her weighed yet this month, I was going to go on Thurs but Monkey was so so poorly it wasn’t an option!

Little Miss at 6 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I’m a little late with Little Miss’s 6 month update as we were away on holiday when she turned 6 months, but here she is on the day she turned 6mths old. Our little beauty! I can’t believe we made her, I just can’t!

I got her weighed this week at 6mths 1 wk and she is doing really well. Despite losing a little weight when she had Bronchiolitis and didn’t want to eat, her love of solids and her milk has meant she has put the weight back on and more, which is obviously is wonderful news and she is now 15lb8oz

So yes the weaning is going really well, for the most part. We have gone for the traditional puree style weaning as we started at a little younger than 6 mths, and because we found it worked well with Monkey. (I will go into more of this in a future post). Initially I made purees for her and just had jars on days out but while we were on holiday, jars were the easiest thing as I didn’t fancy making purees on my holidays! The problem being that now she mainly wants to just eat the jars and won;t touch any of the lovely healthy purees I am making at home. Which is really frustrating! So, for the sake of less stress, while we will keep trying her on homemade purees, we are using a lot of jars… so bring on the orange food I guess!

Meanwhile she is the oddest child when it comes to drinking her milk. She hates being held to feed and is much happier lying down while drinking (?) where she can wriggle around to her hearts content and have a good nosey at what is going on around her. Seriously, we get into the oddest positions while feeding her!

She also has a serious aversion to socks and they get pulled off all the time. We tried sock-ons but she pulls those off too and shoves them (and the sock) in her mouth and well the sock-ons felt like more of a choking hazard than anything so they have gone by the wayside now 😕

So what else is she doing? Chatting. Lots and lots of chatting which is adorable. It stopped for a bit but has come back with a vengeance again and is adorable. Here is a little clip of her chatting away in the bathy 🙂

She’s laughing a lot more now too and we have a gorgeous video of that but it has been vetoed as we make her laugh by saying her name over and over!

She’s not sitting unsupported yet, which is totally normal, but we had hoped she would be by now. Monkey was very stable sitting by 6 months and it is difficult not to compare… although he was a tummy sleeper from a few mths old so I guess he built up his muscles sooner than she has. We are eager for her to be able to sit properly though!

She still loves grabbing and Daddy’s ear is very much a target for her little hands at any opportunity. She also likes grabbing anything and everything that is in reach too, so we are having to be careful about where her little arms are heading! SHe is so inquisitive though and just loves grabbing and eating anything she is able to get her hands on!

Still no real routine in sight and actually it was ok while we were away as she was flexible and fit in to our plans easily. Now we are home it would be lovely if she settled down, but so far she is more up and down than ever and one day she barely slept at all! She is so good at night though (apart from the 530am starts some days) so we can’t really complain

Another exciting little development is that we have discovered today that our little lady has her first tooth! Very exciting. Not sure why I feel so proud of her about it… but I do 🙂

She also loves her walker now and is starting to scoot about in it, especially when trying to reach a toy she can gum (now semi-chew) to death!

So there we have it, our little lady at just over 6 mths old – how the time flies eh?

A few fun (and not so fun) firsts for LM at 5 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

This was originally going to be an entirely happy post celebrating some of LM’s lovely firsts this week… and I am going to include those but I can’t not mention another first which is less happy.

LM had her first trip to A&E :(. She has had a horrible cold all week and Saturday afternoon she seemed to get worse and was not feeding well at all. Sunday morning her breathing was a little laboured and we noticed a distinct wheeze. She was also hardly eating at all, barely drinking 40ml (about 1 oz) of her milk compared to the 140 ish she usually has in the morning. Being the bank holiday weekend we didn’t want to wait until Tuesday so called the out of ours GP service who wanted to see her because of her age and let’s face it, you don’t mess around with breathing! We wondered if it was a chest infection and assumed we may be home with antibiotics or something.

Continue reading →

Little Miss at 5 Months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

5 Months? Where does the time go? The weeks and months really are flying by and I can’t believe we are nearly at the end of March and that my baby girl is now 5 months old. Nearly half a year already!

I have to admit I am glad that it is going so quickly though.. Does that sound awful? I adore my baby girl, she is beautiful and lovely and wonderful…. but man is she hard work. I guess I am just not a baby person. I am looking forward to a few months time, when she can sit up by herself, is eating some normal food, starts to get around by herself and starts getting cheekier, actually.

In the meantime though, I will stop wishing away the months and focus on what she is up to at the moment. I’m not sure how much she weighs, I meant to take her on Thurs… but I forgot, lol! She is starting to move into 6-9 mth clothes though. Mainly because she has a long body and a big head so some are getting tight. Her legs aren’t fully out of the 3-6 mths trousers, and honestly we joke that she has short t-rex arms as even with some tops that no longer fit her body, we still have to roll the cuffs up on her sleeves so she can access her hands! On the subject of clothes … she loves being naked. She loves it when we take her clothes off in the morning or at bathtime, she gets so happy and wriggly! In complete contrast to Monkey who has never liked being naked at all.

One of my favourite things about our gorgeous girl is the beuatiful look of undisguised joy when she sees her Mummy and Daddy. It melts our hearts every time and makes all of the hard work so worthwhile. When we go into her in the morning or after a nap and she sees us, she just beams. If I am carrying her up to her Daddy she gives him the biggest grins when she sees him, and she does the same to me when someone else is holding her. It really is wonderful.

Her hair cracks me up to, it is currently growing straight up as like a fluffy mohican… which is so cute!

In general she is a pretty smiley baba and loves being with people. She gives so many of her family the beautiful smiles too and adores her big brother. She watches him constantly and actually it is really frustrating trying to feed her when he is around as she wants to be looking at him as soon as she hears him, even if that then makes her grumpy because she is hungry!

She is so alert and fascinated by everything in the world that it isn’t just her brother that distracts her. She is always looking around at everything and is really grabbing onto toys and things now. She is fascinated by the remote control for the TV and adores some of her toys cooing and chuckling at them. She also loves grabbing on to us. It is lovely when she clutches at our clothing and sometimes when feeding her, a little hand will start pulling at your lips and cheek. Or sometimes when Daddy is holding her she will grab onto his ear or beard which is very cute but not so comfy for him.

She likes to be propped up into a sitting position but still can’t support herself yet and flops forward if unsupported. After rolling once at about 3 months, she is yet to do it again!She’ll get there though I’m sure. She loves her feet and plays with them whenever she can – lying down, in the bath and she is constantly kicking them and sort of rubbing them together. We noticed this habit when she was tiny and it is even more pronounced now, she loves sort of rubbing her ankles together, crossed and uncrossing them. Basically she is a fidget pants!

So where is the hard work? Well we don’t know if she is teething or just poorly or what but she is so grumpy lately. There are times when we literally don’t know what to do other than give her calpol or baby ibuprofen. I hate feeling like I am dosing her up, so it is a last resort but it is happening fairly frequently lately because it does help her and we figure that it’s not happy pills, it is pain relief, so if she wasn’t in pain it wouldnt help, if that makes sense?

Now she is on normal formula and we don’t have to worry about Lactose free so much I tried her on Ashton & Parsons Powders, as they helped Monkey at this age, but they seemed to give her quite a bad tummy still. She has an amber anklet, which we lost for a while and honestly didn’t see any difference in her, though we have found it and it is back on in case it is helping in any way! we have anbesol teething gel which seems to take the edge off for her sometimes but is only ever a brief relief and sometimes makes no difference.

It’s just really hard trying everything and putting all of your energy into trying to help her but generally feeling completely useless as nothing seems to work. I don’t want to resort to pain meds but she is inconsolable sometimes and won’t sleep or eat and has to be attached to me constantly. Which is exhausting, mentally and physically when she is also writhing and fidgeting in my arms. It also feels unfair to Monkey when he is left to fend for himself in front of the TV and with toys strewn everywhere as I can’t give my attention to both at the same time while she is in that mood.

All of this is not helping us with her routine. On good days she does seem to be adjusting herself into a routine, that is earlier than we like, but it is still a routine, so we go with it! Awake around 530am until about 730. Sleeps until around 930 then is awake until around 12. wakes up 130/2 ish and then has a short nap around 4, which can be anywhere between 30 mins to an hour and a half. days like this i love as it allows time with Monkey, time for jobs and quality time with her. But when she is in a mess she will only sleep for about 30 mins at a time and so has 5 short naps a day and is still grouchy and miserable which makes the whole day bitty and it is hard to accomplish anything than get her through to the next nap and then grab a little sit down!

LM’s Chart of randomness

The amount of food she eats over the course of the day is about the same but the amount she eats at each feed varies massively, which isn’t great with formula as you either waste loads or don’t have enough. So we have come up with a system, we make all the bottles in advance in the morning, bottles with varying amounts in. So when it is time to feed we try and work out based on length of time since last feed (In the morning she will sometimes go from a feed at 530am until 930/10ish, but then she will want another feed around 1130, and sometimes drinks loads at that feed!) but basically end up heating up more and more until she’s finished. It makes it really difficult when planning to go out anywhere and is really frustratig if she hasn’t eaten for hours, and is frantically hungry, but then doesn’t want more than 100ml!

Speaking of food we are obviously thinking of weaning and had started Monkey by this point, but she doesn’t seem ready. She has had a couple of mouthfuls of baby rice but wasn’t enamoured. I started to worry slightly, I think as I was just comparing her with Monkey and what worked with him, but after a conversation with hubs I realised it’s ok. When we try and give medicine or herbal remedies orally, she automatically pushes it out of her mouth with her tongue. (Which, by the way, is hugely frustrating at times) Hubs reminded me that this is actually a sign that she probably isn’t devleopmentally ready for food yet, so I am relaxing a little. We had got the highchair down and she has sat in it a few times which is good prep but I am not going to rush her.

Wow this feels like a huge update but I guess there is just a lot going on with our little girly. I have to say I have loved writing this update. Sometimes, when she is unhappy and writhing or won’t eat or won’t sleep, I feel as if I don’t know her at all and am a useless Mummy as I have no idea what she wants. Writing this has reminded me how much I do know her, and I am really glad I have started writing these posts so I can look back on them one day.

Little Miss is 4 Months old!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

After the difficult early weeks the time really does fly with babies! We are at 4 months already and they grow and change so much in these first months don’t they? She is 13lb 1oz, still on the 25th precentile line for weight, but she is tall/long and at 36cm she is on I think the 91st percentile line for height! She is a gorgeous little girl but is still quite challenging at times.

So what is she up to?

Feeding and Pooing

We are still using the lactose free formula at the moment and for a while after we stopped the gaviscon, all seemed well and her movements got a bit easier. Lately though she has been constipated again a few times and we are at a bit of a loss as to why really. The other thing is that she doesn’t poo in her nappy. Ever. She will only poo with her nappy off and generally with a bit of help – bicycle legs and lifting of legs. It is a situation which started out of necessity and then became normal and now we are remembering that it isn’t normal, and we certainly weren’t expecting to be doing it at this point. We had thought that by removing the gaviscon her movements would be better and we wouldn;t need to do it anymore, but it hasn’t happened the way we thought it would.

As she is 4 months she should be growing out of her lactose intolerance in theory so we have just bought some normal formula and are going to try her on that. the Lactose free formula can cause constipation so we are hoping that a change in formula will solve all of our problems. FIngers crossed she doesn’t still have a problem with lactose and it works, otherwise we will be of the the GP again! Sorry if TMI about her bowels but it takes up a lot of our attention at the moment!

Sleeping

She still sleeps really well after her sleep training a couple of months ago, which is brilliant. Her little body clock is pretty rigid at night and she goes down at 7 almost every night, regardless of what has happened! Whether she wakes up in the night is more variable, sometimes she lulls us into a false sense of security, sleeping through til anywhere between 530 and 630am or about a week, and then suddenly waking up famished at anywhere between midnight and 3 am for a few days. Because of the varing sleep patterns we still have no daytime routine to speak of (aaaah) though I am very much hoping that a pattern may settle too. We are very much baby led on routine fronts because I just don;t understand how you can force a baby to sleep at certain times or wake up at certain times. I just don’t get it. I wish I did but I don’t. Monkey’s routine fell into place around 4 1/2 mths and I am hoping hers will too. Because she sleeps in her cot we rarely see her asleep but a couple of times this month she has dozed off on me after a difficult afternoon (and once after her jabs :() so we have some shots of sleeping so peacefully!

For the most part we get it right and we put her down at the right level of tired and she goes off to sleep without a peep. other times we get it wrong and I hate it as I am convinced she is tired, only for her to ball. Sometimes she wants to go to sleep after being awake for an hour and a half, other times she will be awake for a good few hours, fussing intermittently but definitely not ready to sleep. I don’t cope well with the sound of babies crying, makes me feel like an abject failure to be perfectly honest so I really look forward to the day when we have a routine so it is a bit less guess work! Teething is playing a role in this but more on that below.

Playing

She loves lying on her playmat and batting at her toys. Her favourite is a pink Jellycat Octopus which we were sent to review before she was born. Monkey was too big to get much enjoyment out of it at the time, but she loves it! She loves her playmat more now too and chuckles away at the flashing lights and dangling butterflies above her head.

She also has a slightly random sense of humour. One thing guaranteed to make her chuckle is Bing Bunny. It is one of her big brother’s favourite TV programmes so it is on pretty regularly, anf well, she loves it, chuckles away at it. Makes me feel like a terrible mother introducing her to TV so young but , ah well I suppose!

chuckling away at Bing Bunny

So far not so random I know, but the other thing almost guaranteed to make her laugh is the pink soap standing on the bathroom sink. Every night after her bath, Monkey has his and often she and I will come and stand in the bathroom to chat to Daddy & Monkey. I stand opposite the sink and she chuckles away for ages. At first we thought it was the taps, being all shiny and sparkly, but nope. Turns out it is the pink soap that makes her chuckle away! See, random eh?

Giggling at her favourite soap bottle!!

Other Development

She is so strong now and still loves sitting up though can’t hold herself up at the moment (she falls forward) she loves being propped up by pillows and surveying the scene.

She is getting happier on her tummy sometimes and she has rolled from her tummy to her back. She did it, just once, nearly a month ago, seemed to scare the heck out of herself and hasn’t quite managed it again since lol! She lifts her head beautifully when she is on her tummy though.

Teeth

We have been convinced she was starting to teethe for a while because of all the dribbling and because of the general fussiness that has become common, and well we are now ever more certain that we are right as there is the little speck of white on her lower gum of a tooth about to pop through! I know it is early but Monkey cut his first tooth at 4 months so it doesn’t come as too great a surprise. Her upper canines also seem to bother her a lot and seem quite close to the surface so maybe they won’t be too far behind either. We shall have to see I guess.

I hate teething though. I hate it. We have an amber anklet which despite high hopes and reading success stories from other bloggers, I am just not convinced I’m afraid. She is still uber grumbly and obviously in pain a lot (I daren;t take it off though in case she is worse without it!!). We also use teething granules, teething gel and have been sent some teethers to review that so far she won’t have anything to do with. Despite all of this though there are days when she will only sleep, or just generally stop whinging and crying, when she has had calpol or baby nurofen. I hate having to give these to her, especially as she doesn’t have a fever or anything, but she is so much better when I do and it is survival as much as anything. I just hate to see her in pain and she can just be so miserable sometimes at the moment which I find really quite exhausting 🙁 Poor thing.

When she is not in pain she is generally a smily little girl and I hope that once these first teeth make an appearance that things will start to improve and we will see more smiles, and less medicine!

Little Miss at 3 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

It is different for everyone but for me the first few months with a baby are the hardest. We felt it with Monkey and it has been the same with LM, the first weeks seem to last forever, and yet looking back it feels like the blink of an eye.

Because here we are, we made it, our Little Miss is 3 months old, 11lb 10oz and life is definitely getting easier, albeit gradually!

So what is she up to at the moment?

Feeding and Pooing

It might seem weird to have these under the same heading but lets face it they are very much linked! It’s over a month since we moved from breastfeeding onto a Lactose Free formula and it has definitely been a much easier month feeds wise. The colic has gone completely and the reflux has been under control with Gaviscon.

The only problem we have had is that the combination of Gaviscon with the lactose free formula has made LM quite constipated at times. We started giving her additional cool boiled water but that didn’t help much so we started giving her sugar water a couple of times a day (mixing a teeny bit of sugar into the boiled water) as I read that it was a traditional remedy and worth trying. It helped loads and for a while she was much less uncomfortable.

Then our HV actually advised that it wasn’t an ideal solution as it can make their kidneys work harder, so we went back to just water. She really didn’t want to drink much and pretty soon was struggling again. We tried the sugar water again but the cheeky minx decided she wasn’t keen on it anymore. She then got really badly constipated and it was horrible seeing her in pain as it took her a long time to do her business. Because the root of the problem was the Gaviscon we decided it would be worth phasing it out, to see how she got on and how bad her reflux is now, as she has been having the Gaviscon at every feed for the last 2 months.

The good news is that she is fine without the Gaviscon. I think there are the odd times at feeds where her reflux bothers her as she has been a little fussier sometimes since we stopped it… But it is not at every feed and there have been no nighttime screaming sessions so she is doing well. The result is much better movements too which is a huge relief!

Sleeping

I wrote previously about how we were helping LM learn to sleep better by herself and she is doing amazingly well. She had a few days of sleeping 10-11 hours through the night, though she has decided that she doesn’t want to do that anymore 🙁 It was amazing for those few days and we know she can do it! Daytimes are still all over the place, when I started writing this I thought we may have a vague routine, but she has thrown that out of the window again now so re-writing! She has actually decided she wants to be awake for about 31/2 hours at a time now, which is fine by me as long as she is happy.

And she is. The result of the good sleep and being in less pain from colic and reflux is that she is a gorgeously happy girl now. She smiles and coos all the time and is just a joy to be around. A complete contrast to the screaming of the early days poor thing! Yes she still cry’s and fusses and late afternoons can be fun, but it is all so much easier than before. I hate the lack of routine though and am praying that some kind of pattern forms if she is going to be awake a bit longer now. I know, she’s just a baby but I feel so out of control and like a hermit because I struggle to arrange to see anyone because I don’t know what she will be doing and staying home is just less stressful.

Playtime

Ok so there’s not much playtime going on with a 3 month old but it is starting. She adores the monkey and lion faces on her bouncer and sits giggling, grinning and cooing at them for ages which is just lovely! She also bats at the dangly toys and is really enjoying the ones attached to her car seat. I was really impressed that she grabbed onto one of them the other day and held onto it for ages! Monkey was totally uninterested in any toys like this until he was quite a bit older!!

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While she loves lying on her back and kicking her legs, she still doesn’t very much enjoy tummy time. That being said though she is so strong and easily pushes herself up to have a look around and has lifted her legs like she is trying to roll so I am sure in time she will get there!

Her favourite thing is sitting up, she just loves looking around. She sits on my lap and if I lay her on my knees she is always lifting her head and trying to pull forward. We sit and sing “If you’re happy and you know it” and “heads, shoulders, knees and toes” and ‘row row row” is great for strengthening her “sit up” muscles! Because she loves sitting up so much we have just got out Monkey’s Jumperoo and she sat in it today for the first time. She can’t bounce yet and I have a cushion under her to support her but she definitely likes being in there!

She is fascinated by mirrors and stares at herself in it, mesmerised! When she saw Daddy in the mirror the other day she could not stop smiling, though she wasn’t interested in seeing the real Daddy, standing right next to her! I think she is a bit of a Daddy’s girl already as she always has smiles for Daddy, even when she is tired!

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Little Miss baby updates

Little Miss at 9 Months

Stealth Shuffling & Sleep Regression at 8mths

LM’s hairstyles at 8 mths

Little Miss at 8 months

Little Miss at 7 months

Little Miss at 6 mths

A few fun (and not so fun) firsts for LM at 5 mths

Little Miss at 5 Months

Little Miss is 4 Months old!

Feeding and Pooing

Sleeping

Playing

Other Development

Teeth

Little Miss at 3 months

Feeding and Pooing

Sleeping

Playtime