Jessica’s blog.

There seems to be a while now in-between each post, which hasn’t been intentional. Last weekend Jessica’s morfar (maternal granddad) came over from Sweden to visit and before then I was busy trying to get Jessica’s room reasonably ready, so that she could move in there and Ian could move back into the bedroom (now minus noisy baby), thus leaving the living room floor for my Dad to sleep on. I’m pleased to announce that the walls in Jessica’s room are now a nice matte, soft and grey-ish purple, instead of the glossy and slightly garish blue they were before, and that she has moved in and successfully slept in there every night for a week now. If she wakes up during the night she resettles herself most of the time – I can still hear her cry from our room but if she’s just making little sleepy noises or chat to herself I don’t.

Shelves, curtains and all sorts of other bits and pieces still need to be sorted, which might take a little while, but I’ll post some piccies of Jessica’s room when it’s more or less ready.

Some mornings she has woken up as early as 4am, though, so I’ve changed her nappy, given her a bit of formula, kissed her and put her back in bed. She’s complained but gone back to sleep after about 20 minutes or so. I don’t want her to get in the habit of expecting to get up and play at 4am (even though that seems to be what she wants to do…!), as it would very likely drive me mad in the long run…

She does get me out of bed at 5.30 – 6am, when she starts to cry (quite possibly from having laid there awake for a while and got bored) and I fish her out and bring her downstairs. If she can tolerate it, I change her nappy and clothes and give her a wash before breakfast. Breakfast is still formula and not solids – I haven’t got that far yet. Firstly, I decided to defer it until after my Dad’s visit. When I did get up slightly earlier than Jessica to make oat porridge a few mornings ago, I foolishly decided to give Jessica a change and a wash before food, at which point she was too hungry to have the patience to eat from a bowl and spoon… This morning I was slow off the mark and didn’t get up until 6am, so resorted to the bottle again. Did make her porridge with cooked apple for second breakfast, though, so at least I’m introducing the idea of having cereals at the beginning of the day rather than the end of it. (Thought I’d try to give her some dinner-style food instead of porridge early evening instead.)

I’m happy to report that Jessica’s sleeping during the day has notably improved since I started putting her in her cot for her morning nap. When I took her for a walk in the morning her nap got shorter and shorter, until it was only 20 minutes. It was just a case of facing the fact that she wouldn’t get properly rested this way. What happens now is that most mornings I still put Jessica in her push chair but we only walk Ian to the station and then walk back home – at least we get a bit of fresh air almost first thing, but I’ve stopped expecting her to sleep. When we come back we play for a while before second breakfast, which is around 9am, and then she starts rubbing her eyes and/or getting cranky again around 10am, when I put her in bed again. She sleeps 1-2 hours there, which is great, as it gets her nicely in the mood for proper lunch at around 12. She usually has a nice nap in the afternoon too: 1.5-2 hours (in her cot again).

She still doesn’t like having her naps, but the association between cot and sleep seems pretty well established, so that even if she cries when I close the door around her she’s usually asleep within 2-3 minutes. If she isn’t, I go back at five minute intervals, pick her up and hold her until she calms down, give her a kiss and put her back down. I’ve never had to do that more than twice.

Jessica trying to walk is really exciting! She wants to stand up almost all the time, grabbing hold on our fingers to support her, but she’s started to walk between pieces of furniture now, relying on us to keep her steady by one hand or both, but more often letting go of us completely to grab hold on to the sofa, a chair, her control panel toy or even us. She can support herself holding on the above for a fair while now, without wobbling too much, and does adjust her grip to steady herself successfully more and more. Sometimes she’ll bend down to reach for toys or muslins on the floor to try to pick them up without holding on to anything and then she wants to straighten herself up with the toy in her hand (or mouth), which means a steady grip around her waist is needed… Generally, she’s pretty fearless: if she sees something she wants to reach she sometimes just lets go of both hands and launches herself forward, so we have to keep on our toes to keep her from falling flat on her face…!

We haven’t got her a walker, as we have carpeted floors and not enough floor space, which means she wouldn’t get very far in it… Also, I read somewhere that walkers where the baby sit and walk don’t tend to strengthen their ankles enough, which doesn’t sound too good, if that is the case. This obviously means that until she’s a bit more steady on her feet, we (and especially I) have to spend that bit more time with her to give her opportunity to practice. I’m already looking around our house with a slight feeling of dread thinking of all those things we’ll have to move or make baby-proof for when she’s properly mobile…!

Going back to my Dad’s visit, which is where this post started, Jessica really enjoyed herself having him around and was in a extra-special cheerful mood all weekend. Must have been getting all that attention…! Especially as her farmor, farfar and faster Wendy (the latter bearing gifts, a fantastically fun set of stacking cups!) came over for coffee and cake on the Sunday afternoon (23rd Sep) and played with Jessica for hours. We took a few photos, of course:

Gabriella

We’ve all been down with a cold: Jessica first, then me and now Ian. Jessica is better now, only an occasional cough and a few sneezes now and then. But she’s not coughing or sneezing in the night anymore and is sleeping much better – while she had a cold she woke up a few times in the night and cry, needing a cuddle and a lullaby to go back to sleep. Last night she stirred a couple of times but it was normal stuff and she resettled herself fairly quickly each time and slept until just after 6am.

Apart from extra grisliness, due to being extra tired and waking up in the night, Jessica didn’t seem troubled by her cold at all. She was her usual cheerful self: giggling, smiling and being very active. (I guess she didn’t know she had a cold and was supposed to be ill…!) She is incredibly keen to stand up now and wants to do it all the time. She reaches her arms up as a signal for us to offer her our hands and then she grabs our hands and pulls herself up to standing. She sways a bit but is getting increasingly steadier on her feet. She’s quite brave too, often lets go of one of our hands to reach down to the floor for a toy and then stand up again holding the toy – something she doesn’t yet have the balance for, so we have to provide a bit extra support there…

She’s also started putting a foot in front of the other to move herself about and has walked the entire length of our living room, holding Ian’s hands! We can temporarily let go of her hands now for her to support herself against the seat on the sofa, a chair or her ‘control panel’-style toy, only for a few seconds but it’s great to see. She’ll grab our trouser legs and the bottom of the sofa, etc., but hasn’t actually yet tried to pull herself up using anything other than our hands for support. You can tell how chuffed she is about standing up when you see the look on her face: big wide-open mouth, eyes squinting with excitement and happy shrieks…!

Jessica’s eating has been a bit so-so the last week. I’m sure she’s had enough to eat – when she’s been too tired for solids we’ve given her formula instead. Some meals she’s had plenty of solids and other not very much, but fruit usually finds its way down into her tummy either way.

You may remember me mentioning at the beginning of weaning Jessica that she kept grabbing the spoon trying to feed herself. This stopped happening after a while – whenever I’d offer her to take the spoon she’d just launch her head forward to get the spoon in her mouth and didn’t seem interested in taking charge herself. Now she’s started reaching for the spoon again, often smearing food about her face before what’s left on the spoon reaches its destination… She’ll often drop the spoon once she’s done with it and she likes to dive into the bowl and grab a handful of food. Occasionally she gets distracted by the sight of her feet and takes a break to grab them for a bit. Needless to say, mealtimes can get very messy nowadays… When she grabs food with her hands, though, I should add, it’s to try and put it in her mouth, something that is less successful with all things puréed. But it was great to see her grab a small piece of bread only a few days ago and put it in her mouth, holding it very carefully between thumb and index finger, no less…

I’m hoping to introduce a breakfast meal soon. Was going to try oat porridge to see how well that goes down. (As Jessica is a vegetarian baby, I’m extra keen to see to it that she gets as many different types of nutrients in her diet as soon as possible.) Then the mid-morning meal can be a formula meal. Lunch will remain lunch, but I’d like to introduce dinner too, which is a bit tricky as Jessica gets tired fairly early in the evenings. She still ‘hits a wall’ at 6.30pm (6pm during her cold), when she starts rubbing her eyes, cries at the slightest thing and nothing can distract her from being grizzly. (She doesn’t have a very loud cry, but if it ever does get loud it’s at this time of day…) At that point all we can do is change her nappy and clothes for the night, give her her evening feed and put her to bed. Beyond 5.30pm there’s usually no point trying to offer her solids, as she’ll just start to cry at the sight of them. So we’ll have to try to squeeze in dinner as a meal halfway between the 3/4pm and 6.30/7pm formula feeds. It’s a lot of meals in a few hours but I don’t know how else to make sure that she has enough. So far we’ve given her baby rice with fruit or berries at 5/5.30pm and if I’ve ever skipped that, she’s woken up hungry early morning. All suggested baby menus I’ve seen include 6 meals (3 formula and 3 solids) for this age group but I guess her day just isn’t long enough.

Another solution is of course to bring all meals slightly closer together, but then it’d feel like there wasn’t time for much else but meals in the day. The main problem is that she doesn’t nap well during the day. She just doesn’t sleep for long enough – some days it has been as bad as 20 minutes in the morning and 20 early afternoon! As a result, Ian and I have unfortunately gradually gone from the ‘no tiptoeing around baby, it’s better that she learns to sleep anywhere with any noise going on’-approach to a much more cautious one, involving a partly closed door around Jessica if she’s in her cot and us being very careful about making any loud or sudden noises in the house while she’s napping.

We just have to face it that she’s one of those babies who won’t easily sleep wherever, whenever, and that she needs a bit of extra help to make sure she gets some decent daytime sleep. Even when she’s just about to nod off she won’t relax and go with it, but forces her eyes open or jerks herself awake… It’s lovely to have a curious and sociable baby, who wants to take part and know what’s going on, but unfortunately – those days when she doesn’t get enough sleep – this makes her a bit of a cranky baby, who isn’t enjoying herself as much as she could.

As it happens, she’s having a long, nice afternoon nap as I write this: she’s clocking up two hours so far… The swimming lesson must have really taken it out of her again this morning. She had about 20-25 minutes sleep afterwards in the pushchair as I was walking through Redhill and that was it until 1.30pm when I put her in her cot.

I fear that our barefoot days in the garden will be over very soon. September has been lovely – hot and sunny: summer came late this year. The hot and sticky nights I feared with a sleepless baby as a result didn’t happen, as nights have been cool for a while now. I’m sure we’ll go for a wander in the garden still but we’ll spend less time there and I’m sure we’ll all miss that.

Just wanted to say before I sign off that yesterday evening I finally finished the second coat of paint on the walls in Jessica’s room…! So as soon as the paint’s dry and Jessica’s furniture and other bits and pieces are in place she’ll be moving out of our bedroom. Hopefully this will improve sleep in general for all of us, as neither she nor we will be disturbed by the others in the room stirring.

Gabriella

The night before last, Jessica was really unsettled, waking up every hour to hour and a half crying. I picked her up and rocked her to calm her down, then sang to her to get her to go back to sleep and it helped each time, but both her and mine sleep turned out very broken… As it was Tuesday, I’d packed our bags for Jessica’s swimming lesson the night before and fretted a bit about what food to bring and how to organise things. I’d decided to feed her as soon as she woke up at 6am, so that her next meal then could be at 9am, which I hoped would be in good time for us to get ready for the lesson start at 9.30.

But – completely out of character but as the obvious result of her lack of sleep – Jessica decided to have a lie-in! After her last awakening at 4.30am she carried on sleeping through to 6.30, then 7, then 7.30… She hadn’t been hot during the night but I’d still been hesitant about whether she’d be okay to go swimming. I didn’t want her to miss out, though, as she’d enjoyed it so much last time, so I’d decided to carry on as if we were going – I could always decide not to catch that bus to Redhill at the last minute. When she finally woke up at 7.50am I fed her straight away, then changed her nappy and clothes and off we went. In a way, that worked out better than I’d planned it, as Jessica was nicely rested and comfortably full for her lesson.

She really enjoyed herself again, splashing away in the pool and looking excitedly at the other babies. The half-hour took a lot out of her, though. She didn’t complain much, but when we had our shower and then changed her eyes were getting heavier and heavier. I fed her before we left the sports centre and halfway through her fruit purée dessert she nodded off in-between a couple of mouthfuls…

On Monday (10th September) Jessica started to cry only a few spoonfuls into her first solid meal for the day and then didn’t want any more. After a little while I gave up and warmed her some formula instead. It was the same situation at lunch-time. I felt disheartened: was the ‘honeymoon’ over now and she’d start being fussy about food and not like anything instead of everything? Ian suggested that if she’d had a cold at the weekend perhaps she had a sore throat, which could be why eating solids wasn’t her idea of fun at the mo. I didn’t think she was having any more trouble from her teeth at the time, but thought that could also have been a possibility. On the Tuesday (11th September) Jessica happily ate all the purée as per her usual self and I was reassured. But today she didn’t want her second breakfast or lunch again. I don’t push for very long and I always give her formula instead. She’s been coughing a bit today, though, so she’s probably still got part of a cold lingering. Maybe we shouldn’t have gone swimming after all…

Gabriella

(Entry written Monday 10th September:)

It’s been a little while again and it feels like so many things have happened. Wednesday (4th), when Jessica and I were over in Redhill seeing some of the mums and babies from the post-natal group, she seemed to be teething properly: her cheeks were flushed and hot, when she grizzled she whined (a new thing for her) and she dribbled excessively (she looked like I’ve felt after I’ve been to the dentist and had a jab…). I kept giving her Calpol (baby paracetamol in liquid form) and teething gel, hoping that it would help in some way. The afternoon didn’t turn out all bad though; in fact Jessica was really enjoying herself shrieking happily at the other babies, trying to steal their toys and pull their socks off… She hadn’t had much of a nap in the morning, though – which increasingly is the case nowadays, unfortunately – and come mid-afternoon she was really unhappy. I tried to settle her in her pushchair, which had been tucked away in our hostess’ dining room, but Jessica wouldn’t have it, so after a while I decided to call it a day and we took our leave. As I’d expected, we weren’t too far down the road before Jessica had fallen soundly asleep…

The following day Jessica was a bit the same – hot, flushed cheeks and extra grizzly – but the experience still didn’t seem too bad for her farmor, who came over to spend a couple of hours with Jessica in the morning, while I went out for a jog. (This is a weekly arrangement between me and Diana, though the day varies to suit.) The Friday was better, with Jessica more chirpy, but then at the weekend things were a bit funny again. Jessica was tired but found it hard to sleep, her cheeks weren’t flushed but come Sunday evening she was hot all over: her hands and feet are usually a bit cold but were warm and when I touched her head it felt hot. The thermometer showed 37.7 degrees – not sure if I held it in the best spot under her arm, but it did confirm a bit of a fever. She drank her supper slowly and didn’t want to finish her bottle (something she otherwise always does at her last feed for the day), but there weren’t any other causes for alarm, so I put her to bed as usual.

She took ages settling – not being upset, but just moving around in her cot. In the last week or so, Jessica has started to roll up on her right side during or before going to sleep. Sometimes in the night I hear her crying in her sleep and find her struggling against gravity to stay up on her side while her hips and legs want to roll back. (I usually try to ease her legs in a better position for her, though I’m not always able to – anything for a better night’s sleep, for the both of us…) She’s never been keen to have a blanket on, either in her bed or in her pram/pushchair, and promptly kicks it off if she’s awake and one of us put it over her. Now that she’s stronger, this pushing action shifts her in her cot, so that she moves further and further up during the night. She’ll also tug at the bumper guard (and has managed to tug at it so that it has untied in a few places), grab the bars and shake them, as well as sticking her feet and legs out through the bars. Sometimes it’s mayhem in her cot if she’s put in it wide awake. A couple of evenings ago I found her fast asleep lying across the cot with her legs crossed, her feet sticking out through the bars on the outer side and her fingers in a grip around two of the bars by her head…

Something I don’t think we’ve mentioned before, or at least mentioned enough, is Jessica’s keeness to use her legs and feet. She’ll grab for toys and things with her feet quite often, when I lean over her in the pushchair or when changing her nappy she’ll grab my arm very confidently with her legs and she likes to brush her lower leg across the surface she is sitting on, presumably just to see how it feels against her skin. For quite a while now, she’s got the habit of raising her leg slightly and then rotating her foot at the ankle – always her right foot and always clockwise…. Sometimes she’ll pull her trouser leg up a bit before the spinning starts. She likes watching her foot as she does this. Sometimes when in her highchair eating she’ll stop to look at her feet for a while. I don’t know whether this is a typical baby thing – I’ve certainly seen lots of babies put their feet in their mouth like Jessica also does – but it’s interesting to watch her fascination with her feet. I hope she keeps using them.

Thursday (6th September) Jessica and I were out in the garden in the afternoon. Jessica wanted to stand up, as she’s done a lot the last week or so – she reaches out and if we offer her our hands she’ll grab them and pull herself up to standing. This happened out in the garden this time too, but one of the garden chairs was not far from Jessica and she decided to take a few steps towards it to reach it, still holding my hands for support. In front of the chair, though, she let go of my hands and grabbed on to the seat. And then she took a few gingerly steps to the side, whilst holding on to the seat, until she reached the arm of the chair…! She couldn’t support herself for long once there (well, the garden chair was too light to provide any counter balance, at any rate), so I reached out and supported her again, at which she promptly put her face against the arm of the garden chair; she had wanted to put it in her mouth, so no surprises there, then… I was quite amazed, though, when the realisation that I’d just witnessed Jessica’s first steps without the support of another human being sunk in.

Jessica still hasn’t shown any inclination towards wanting to crawl. I’m starting to wonder whether perhaps Ian is right and she’ll skip that stage, perhaps do a bit of bum-shuffling to get places, like Ian and his sister did. This morning, when I came back in the living room again after having sorted myself some breakfast, she was still sitting on the floor among her toys but she was facing a different direction to how I’d put her. Ian assured me he hadn’t moved her. So I’ll be keeping a close eye on her to work out how that happened…

Gabriella

Many apologies for not writing for a while now. It’s important for us that we keep posting regularly on this blog but the last week and a bit has been busy and, apart from those chores that one cannot escape, we’ve prioritised spending time together.

Feels like so much has happened since last. Jessica is sitting very confidently now, reaching for toys, plastic bags, cables and all sorts of thing that we may or may not want her to play with…! With accessibility comes choice – something that she doesn’t seem completely sure on how too deal with. I’ve watched her several times pick one toy up, to then spot another toy and drop the first in order to pick up the second instead, then spotting a third toy and dropping the second one, only to spot the first toy again and decide that that one is the one she really wants – and so it goes on…

When it comes to weaning, we’ve moved a step further. My sister advised me on the recommended menu for 6-month-old babies in Sweden, so I’ve tried to follow that. Jessica has formula first thing in the morning and last thing before bed plus mid-afternoon. For second breakfast (10am) she now has fruit purée and white bread with unsalted butter cut into little pieces and without crust. Eating bread is still work in progress – she’s not refused it but eats with a slight amount of hesitation and over the last 4-5 days we’ve been building up from 2-3 little pieces to about the same amount as half a slice of bread.

For lunch she has a food purée followed by fruit purée as dessert. To make the food purée I pick one item from the potato/bread/rice/pasta food group and one from the beans/lentils/pulses group (being a veggie I don’t cook meat or fish for her) and the 2-3 veg. So far I’ve made Jessica a mix of red lentils, quinoa, broccoli, sweet potato and rosemary, a mix of pasta, courgette, carrot, green and yellow pepper and cheddar cheese and, today, a mix of couscous, celery, cauliflower and a variety of beans. I’m glad to say she has happily eaten them all. It takes a while to prepare, cook and blend but I’ve done biggish batches, so that I’m able to freeze 3-5 portions, which should nicely see us until the end of the month, if not further. At that stage, I was thinking, it might be time to try new things anyway…

About a week ago I started putting Jessica in our bath tub for her baths. I’m joining her in there and it’s great fun – she loves splashing about and doesn’t mind me shampooing her hair or water running down her face when I wash her. Ian got a bath toy for her back in December when he was in Barcelona for work one weekend and she loves it: it’s a furry and squidgy mum and baby crab attached together by a little cord and she loves splashing them about and sinking her gums into them. She has a couple of yellow bath ducks too that she really enjoys biting in the head. Most of all, though, she loves splashing and happily whacks her hands against the surface of the water, blinking a little bit when it splashes in her face. (She got so excited about it she tried ‘splashing’ my leg and the side of the bath too but that didn’t have quite the same effect…)

Last weekend we decided to make the most of what little summer there may or may not be left and drove over to Earlswood Lakes not too far from here to go for a little walk in the fresh air. Jessica saw swans for the first time and actually stopped to notice them – most birds and animals she still doesn’t seem to pay any attention too, but we were guessing these were too big and too many to ignore..! We hadn’t thought to bring any bread to lure swans and ducks over to us but luckily some other more experienced/better prepared parents nearby had, so we could watch the birds feeding for a fair while.

Jessica had her first swimming lesson Tuesday (4th September)! I had partly put her in the big tub the week before in preparation for that, so she wouldn’t go straight from tiny baby bath to huge pool. I’d been getting quite excited about the thought of her learning to swim and I wasn’t disappointed: she loved the experience. Other babies to look at, lots of water to splash and watch her own legs under water – brilliant fun. As you can understand, it was very much about fun and play in the pool for this age group and only very gradually leading to learning to swim. The lesson was 20 minutes with 10 minutes play time at the end, plastic duck and sailing boat for each baby provided… The lesson involved walking across from one end of the learner’s pool to the other, holding our babies first upright, bobbing up and down and then on their tummies, encouraging them to kick by repeating ‘kick, kick, kick’ to them (or ‘sparka, sparka, sparka’ in my case) and to stretch their arms forward by holding yellow bath ducks in front of them. When in the water at the side of the pool, us parents (yes, there was a dad there too and not just mums…!) should encourage our little ones to grab the edge with their hands – the intention being that later on, should the kids ever fall into a pool, they should instinctively turn around to grab hold of the side.

Jessica got very tired towards the end, rubbing her drooping eyes and her excited babble turning more quiet – she had missed out on her morning nap as she got too excited when we got on the bus when we would normally go on our morning walk. Together with the experience in the pool itself, she was absolutely shattered at the end of the half hour. In addition to this, I had misjudged the amount of time it would take to get the two of us to the Recreation Centre and getting ready for the pool, so I although the plan had been to give Jessica her second breakfast early, before the lesson, I had had to leave it until after, and by the time we had showered (another first for Jessica, which she seemed to enjoy – I washed her first holding her close to me with one hand and shampooing her with the other under the shower and when I had my wash she sat on the floor trying to grab the bouncing water drops with her hands) it was 10.30am and she was overdue her food by half an hour.
I fed her on the floor in the changing room as soon as I’d thrown some clothes on the both of us and when we retrieved the pushchair from the storage room at reception, it didn’t take long for me to calm her down enough so that she went to sleep in the pushchair. Next time we’ll take an earlier bus so that I can definitely feed her before the lesson. Then hopefully that’ll speed things up so that she can have her nap sooner too. I’m looking forward to the next time..!

Gabriella