Polly is teething

Polly is teething at the moment – it’s the worst teething I think I’ve witnessed since becoming a mum (unless I’ve totally blocked out Tabitha’s worst moments!). On Saturday night Polly was awake ALL night. She first stirred around 8pm and just did not re-settle. Typically, Tom was out at a wedding reception, so I was flying solo, doing everything in my power to get her back to sleep (milk, teething granules, Calpol). At times she’d go quiet for 20 mins or so, but then start up screaming again. She wouldn’t even be cuddled – if I tried to hold or rock her she’d wriggle and writhe and get crosser and crosser. 

When Tom got home (drunk as a skunk) in the early hours, Polly was still at it and Tom even took her out in the pram to try and settle her. Needless to say, once home, she woke up screaming again after about 20 minutes, by which point Tom had passed out on the sofa. So I took Polly back into bed with me and she finally fell asleep and slept for about an hour, waking up just before 7am.

In a cruel twist of fate, Tom had to work on Sunday (he NEVER works on a Sunday normally), so I was flying solo once again looking after two kids (one a total grump) on about one-hour’s sleep. Not fun at all. I thought Polly might have an extended nap, but alas, she managed about an hour all day.

I feared last night was going to be another all-nighter, but after being unsettled until just after midnight, Polly crashed out until 7.30am. She must have been exhausted, bless her.

I hope this bout of teething finishes soon as I really hate seeing poor Polly so uncomfortable. She has puffy cheeks, is drooling like a tap, nappy rash, and won’t take her dummy, which she usually loves.

Polly turns ONE!

I cannot quite believe that I am writing this already, but our baby girl is one today! The past year has flown by in a sleep-deprived haze, and somehow in just twelve months Polly has transformed from a tiny newborn to a robust almost-toddler in the blink of an eye. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a baby changes in the first year of their life.

This past month has been a particularly exceptional one in terms of milestones for Polly. On May 19th she walked across the room using her walker for the very first time, and then on June 2nd she stood unaided for a few seconds for the first time. She’s now often found cruising round the room using the furniture, or anything that can be pushed along! She has also added nananana and mamamama to her babbles.

What she still does not do is sleep through for us, and wakes at least once, without exception, every single night for a feed. There has, however, been a bit of an improvement in the self-settling department, and occassionally if she wakes for a second time we can leave her to cry for a minute or two and she will put herself back to sleep. Some nights it doesn’t work like that and we’re up with her for a while, whereas other nights she doesn’t even stir again until morning. There has also been a slight improvement when she first goes down for the night; Polly no longer needs rocking every evening (although she seems to have regressed again on this over the past week).The recent hot weather and the fact that Polly’s top teeth have FINALLY cut through her gum do not help with the sleeping either. And with her new top teeth comes the teeth grinding which she’s already discovered!

Polly is still predominantly on two naps a day, although more and more it’s just the one, which works so much better in terms of her being tired enough to go down at a decent time for the night.

She LOVES her food and will happily sit for ages picking her way through a plate-full of finger food. She’s mostly doing baby led weaning, because a) she seems happy with that and b) it means I can get on with other things rather than sit and feed her. Even things like yoghurt and porridge she tackles herself; using a spoon which she is very good at or – her prefered method – her hands! We’ve been gradually weaning Polly off Aptamil and onto cows milk over the past couple of weeks, and as soon as the current tub of formula runs out that will be it. We’ve also stopped sterilising too.

One of the funny things Polly likes getting up to is emptying the laundry bin and sorting through the dirty washing. She enjoys draping items of clothing over herself, and on more than one occassion I have found her crawling round with a pair of knickers round her neck! She also likes clapping – especially when she hears music – doing row-row-row your boat, and doing walkie-round-the-garden (which she attempts to do the actions for).

It has become apparent how much Tabitha keeps Polly entertained, as on the couple of mornings Tabitha is at pre-school Polly is a lot harder-work and much clingier. I actually manage to get more done when I have both of them here, although I do relish the mornings where I only have one child to look after; it’s a lot quieter!

This past year has been fun at times, not-so-fun at other times, monotonous and  repetitive much of the time, and exhausting and tiring all of the time. However, it is an honour and a blessing to share these formative years with my two girls and I know I will never regret doing so (no matter how stressful it can get!).

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY POLP!

 

 

Polly at 11 months old

I can’t believe our baby girl turns one next month!

Polly has been pulling herself up to standing for a full month now (she first did it on April 16th). However, she does not cruise or make any attempt to take steps yet, so she’s still a way off walking – at least three months I’d say. She does push the wheelie panda along walking on her knees and she can now crawl up steps, having finally mastered the ones in our hallway at the end of April. Now that the weather has warmed up, she’s been coming out of the pram at the park a bit more, which of course she loves. It won’t be long before we have to get her first shoes!

Polly loves waving and responds whenever she hears someone say hello or goodbye. She also recognises Buddy’s name and turns her head to look for Bud when she hears us say it.

We’re still waiting for Polly’s next lot of teeth – she only has two bottom ones at the moment, but you can see a whole row at the top waiting to cut through. Her sleeping is still very up and down. Quite a few nights this month she has been up for hours at a time overnight, whereas other nights she sleeps pretty well after waking for her milk (I’m still not sure when or how we’ll tackle this late feed situation, and despite the annoyance of it, one of my favourite moments of the day is how sleepy, cuddly and calm Polly is when she has finished that cheeky late feed). During the day she is still having two naps in her pram, and largely still needs rocking to sleep for bedtime, although I am starting to see a small improvement in the self-settling department.

Just like her sister before her, Polly has a fascination with the bathroom and I often find her stood up against the bath dropping things in (usually toys and torn up toilet tissue!). She also loves playing with Tabitha’s new kitchen and emptying the DVD cupboard on the occasions when the door’s been left open.

With the sudden arrival of the summer season, I once again find myself extremely grateful that, not only have we had a second girl, but that they were also both born in the same season, meaning Polly suddenly has an extensive new summer wardrobe that didn’t cost us a thing!

So, only four or so more weeks until we have a one year old and we can stop sterilising bottles and stop using formula. Now that’s a milestone I’m looking forward to! 

Sixteen months!

It’s just occurred to me that Tabitha is 16 months old today, so I thought it’d be rude not to do a quick update! In just two months time she will be a year-and-a-half old which is hard to believe really. Also, it’ll be mid-October… I know I’ve said it before, but time just flies by.

So, this past week Tabitha has been teething like a good’un. It all began last Thursday when Tom and I went out for dinner to the Olympic in Barnes and my mum babysat. Tabitha had gone to bed unusually early (she’d woken up too quickly from her daytime nap and just couldn’t stay awake any longer than 6pm). We thought she’d be out for the count, but by about 9.30, my mum called to say that she hadn’t really slept. Luckily, we were on the way back, so came home and managed to settle a very-sweaty Tabitha. I thought it was an unfortunate one-off, but the following night it took THREE hours to get Tabitha to sleep – she finally gave in at 9.45pm, and that night and for the next couple she was really unsettled. Whenever she awoke, I had to dose her up with Calpol or Nurofen, and then cuddle her back to sleep. She was also drooling like a gushing tap. She’s been much better the past few days, although still no sign of those dreaded incisors – her gums are really red though, so they must be imminent.

We’ve been taking full advantage of the Children’s Centre’s summer programme over the past couple of weeks, with lots of visits to ‘Stay & Play’, as well as ‘Messy Play’ and ‘Bounce’, plus a fun day to go to tomorrow morning. It’s been a Godsend as barely anything else is running over summer, plus it’s all totally free, which is amazing. Magda and Mackenzie have been coming along too, which is nice as I haven’t seen much of the other mums lately – Sarah has moved to Nottingham now, so we did have a Mortlake mums dinner a couple of Thursdays ago, but that’s it. The weather has taken a turn for the worst, and it has been quite rainy – we had to miss bumps and babies this afternoon as it was throwing it down – although it’s nice that it has cooled down a bit as it was far too hot.

Other than that, not much else to report really, so I’ll leave you with a recent photo of my gorgeous girl (her hair’s finally growing!):

Tabitha’s unconventional pastimes

Tabitha has lots of toys to play with – a big, blue bucketful infact – yet her greatest pleasures typically come from doing things she shouldn’t! Here are a few of her favourite things to do:

1. Climbing into the shower cubicle and pulling down all the shampoo bottles etc. and/or pulling gunk out of the plug hole.

2. Standing up beside her pram and examining in great detail the strap fastener (the same goes for her highchair). The dirty pram wheels are rather fabulous too.

3. Crawling up to the front door and putting her finger into the lower keyhole.

4. Pulling fake coal out of our fake fire.

5. Watching the washing machine go round, aswell as pulling down the clothes-airer, and its contents!

6. Terrorising Buddy!

7. Playing with shoes, the muddier the better.

8. Playing around the bottom of the bin. And if there’s a carrier bag of recycling within reach…

9. Playing with the expensive iPad, SLR camera, laptop, remote control, mobile phone etc. If they can be dropped on the floor from a great height, that’s especially good fun.

10. Playing with our expensive, easy-to-break mugs. And no, her plastic replicas will not do!

In other news, Tabitha has got a bit of a cold so we’ve had to give bumps and babies a miss today. Tom reckons he can see more teeth coming through at the bottom, so the two could be connected. There’s no indication that the elusive ‘sleeping-through-the-night’ might happen anytime soon either, I’ve given up hoping for it now. One day it’ll happen.

One step forward, two steps back

Just as Tabitha’s nighttime sleeping has improved, she has typically now become very difficult to put down in the daytime.

She is still waking once or twice during the night, however it is so much better than it was and she doesn’t have any milk overnight at all now. The downside of this is that she is waking for the day much earlier, at 6am, because she’s ravenous (and usually always has filled her nappy). So, even though we’re getting more sleep overnight (she actually slept all the way through til 5:50am one night), the early starts are knackering. It’s still pitch black at 6am!

Over the past few days Tabitha has completely resisted daytime naps – arching her back, thrusting and screaming as soon as I put her in the pram. We’d got to the point where I literally put her in, left the room and she’d nod off on her own with no tears. So I can’t believe how suddenly it has all changed.

I think it is safe to say she’s down to two naps in the day now, as it’s been a while since she’s squeezed in three, and therefore she staying awake for much longer periods. I’m finding it hard to judge when to put her down to nap; too early and she’s having none of it, too late and she’s over tired and fractious. I try to follow her cues of rubbing eyes, yawning etc, but even then she still screams when I lay her down. Yesterday we had to resort to going for a walk to get her to nod off (she then slept for almost 2 hours), and today I’ve had to rock the pram again, so a complete U-turn in terms of progress. I also think we’re in the early stages of teething again as Tabitha gets very grumpy at times.

As I’m slowly learning, we just overcome one challenge and immediately a new one arises, so I have to accept it’s never going to be all plain sailing. I just have to try my best to stay patient and level headed, which is hard when I’m so tired. Unfortunately Tom often has to bear the brunt of my frustration, which I must make a concious effort to not do, as we are on the same team, not opposing ones.

Anyway, we’ve only got a few more days to get through until the Christmas break, when inevitably Tabitha’s routine is going to be thrown into disarray, so it’s not worth worrying too much about it. Then, by the time the new year starts and we’re back to normal again, it will probably be a different set of challenges once more.

This has gone on long enough…

…over six weeks to be precise. I’m talking about Tabitha’s sleeping – or lack of – during the night. A couple of months back I was one of those smug mothers who could boast that her baby, for the majority of the time, slept through most of the night. But then, something happened and it all went wrong. There was a cold, and then another cold, then the introduction of solids, and then some teething. One thing after another to blame her constant waking on, and always with the thought that, once the cold, or tummy ache, or teething was over, things would go back to how they were. But they haven’t: Tabitha is still waking up throughout the night, sometimes as often as every 1-2 hours, and I think it’s finally time to admit that she, through no fault of her own, has gotten into bad sleeping habits. I know I’m to blame for this, and so I need to take action to get her sleeping back on track.

Firstly, Tabitha has forgotten (or maybe she never really knew) how to put herself to sleep without help: rocking, having her dummy put back in, having a sip of water or having some comfort milk. Over the past few weeks I’ve used her various ailments as an excuse to rock her to sleep, or feed her to sleep; basically pandering to her every cry, reacting to every whimper. But now, inevitably she expects it. Whereas before if she stirred in the night, I could get away with just putting her dummy back in, or at worst, giving her a sip of water; now every time she wakes up she cries and cries until she gets milk and/or rocked. The dummy and a sip of water rarely works anymore. I’m not sure how I’m going to resolve this, as in the middle of the night, when she is screaming so loudly that the whole building has most certainly woken up, the simplest and easiest thing is to shove a bottle of milk in her mouth and/or rock her.

I think I’m going to have to start by addressing her day time sleeping. For the past few weeks I haven’t even attempted to get Tabitha to sleep in her cot during the day as I was getting so stressed out with the whole process. At the moment she only ever naps in her pram after being walked around the living room, or the streets, for a substantial amount of time. She usually always wakes up after her first sleep cycle (40 mins), unless the pram is in motion. I’m going to have to persevere with the cot, I can’t put it off any longer. Again, I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle this, as every time I put her in her cot she rolls over onto her tummy, but I just need to be patient I suppose. Urgh even the thought of it stresses me out. Wish me luck!

 

 

The six-month milestone

We’ve done it – Tabitha has reached half a year old and what a six months it’s been! In her very short life we’ve moved home, made lots of new mum friends, been to various mother & baby groups and survived the hottest summer in years. Tabitha has gone from a tiny newborn who does very little, to a small person with bucketloads of energy and a great personality, and to celebrate we’ve bought her her first pair of Ugg boots!

Tabitha’s current favourite things include Huey her comforter bear, her dum-dum, Sophie the Giraffe, her disco ball, watching the tv (or any screen for that matter), giggling at silly noises, and her bed-time book (called What a Busy Baby).

She loves nothing more than rolling over onto her tummy, and will spend ages playing with all her toys in that position. She’s not quite crawling yet, but she can get herself around the floor by dragging herself on her tummy, so I can’t leave the room for very long anymore! She can push up on all fours but can’t quite muster the energy to move forward, so she slumps back down and resumes her tried-and-tested belly shuffle! There’s always a lot of huffing and puffing, and I don’t know how she keeps going sometimes, but she does! She heads straight for everything she shouldn’t too – our floor plants being a good example – we’re going to have to do some serious baby-proofing very soon! Tabitha’s so much more mobile than all the other babies we know her age, but yet she’s totally not bothered about sitting up for very long.

She has also started to make some very cute ‘aaah’ noises, which do quickly turn into a squawk if there’s something she’s not happy about!

The other big news this week is that I can feel Tabitha’s first tooth pushing through her bottom gum. I really hope this explains all the sleepless nights we’ve been having recently, as it has been horrendous. Sometimes she’ll wake-up 4 or 5 times in a night and this has been going on for over a month now. It’s no longer a case of just putting her dummy back in either, she often has to be fed some milk now before she’ll settle back down and there’s a lot of loud crying until she gets it. Our poor neighbours. The only consolation is that a lot of other mums that I speak to are going through the same thing, where their baby slept through the night for a while, but have now completely regressed. She is also staying awake a lot longer during the day now too.

I was hoping that the introduction of solids would help with the sleeping through, but this so-far only seems to have made things worse. The first stage of weaning is going well though, and Tabitha has so far munched her way through the various fruits and veg that I’ve offered her. I’m giving her a small amount of food three times a day now and I can’t believe how many dirty nappies she’s producing! Her digestive system is definitley working overtime! Her milk feeds are a bit all over the place though so I really need to work out a new routine for those. She’s definitely consuming less milk at the moment, but still feeding as regularly as before, well even more so now with the cheeky night feeds!

So, it’s on to the second half of Tabitha’s first year. I’m looking forward to seeing what she gets up to next!

Four months old (tomorrow)

My little baby is not so little anymore – in fact at her last weigh-in a week ago, she weighed 16lb 12oz which has sent her soaring into the 91st centile! She’s a chunky monkey that’s for sure! At four months old, Tabitha is very-nearly-but-not-quite rolling over yet and enjoying pushing up more on her arms during tummy time. She now sleeps in her new cot in her newly-carpeted bedroom, after having spent 16 weeks in her Moses basket. She sleeps well – occasionally going 12 hours, through until almost 7am, without a peep – although more often than not I have to do at least a couple of dummy re-insertions during the night. I am hoping she will grow out of this soon when she learns to settle herself back to sleep without crying out. This past week she’s been being sick a lot more than she’s ever been. As a newborn baby, Tabitha was barely sick at all, but at the moment it seems to be gushing out daily and it’s mostly all down me or Tom! Feeding is quite hard work at the moment too, as she gets so easily distracted and wriggles all over the place – which probably explains the vomiting??

 

Tabitha looks tiny in her big cot!

 

Tabitha is mostly a very contented baby, although of course she does have her moments. I certainly know when she’s not impressed about something that’s for sure! She’s at her happiest when we’re on on own – when there are a lot of other people about she sometimes seems to get a bit overwhelmed, but I do try to keep us fairly busy. As well as our regular weekly meet-up with the Mortlake mums, I’ve recently been to a couple of ‘Bumps & Babies’ events in Richmond with Magda and Mackenzie, and today we’ve been to ‘Hart Beeps’ in Kew, which is a baby sensory class. Tabitha seemed to quite enjoy it!

 

Tabitha enjoying the disco ball at Hart Beeps

 

Now she’s hit the four-month milestone, it won’t be long before Tabitha starts trying her first proper foods, which will be an exciting journey for both of us. But, I’m sure the dreaded teething is fairly imminent too, which is not quite as exciting.