I think Jessica discovered her right hand today. She stared at it for what seemed like ages before she carefully put it in her mouth. Lovely! (A mum’s proud sigh…!)
Our health visitor came past today on her – as it is now – monthly visit. We talked a bit more about feeding and I also took the opportunity to ask about settling at night, as Ian and I discussed only yesterday about starting to create routines around this. She said that 8 weeks is a good time to start working out routines for sleeping. If we wanted to, we could decide that Jessica’s bedtime is when she has finished a feed at 8 or 9 pm and then put her in her cot to sleep. We should, however, be aware that Jessica’s still young enough to want another evening feed at around 10 or 11 pm – our options are really to finally settle her for the night at the later time or to fish her out of the cot temporarily and treat the 10/11 pm feed as another night feed.
I have some reading to do on the topic still and Ian and I will of course discuss a joint ‘strategy’. But if anyone has any suggestions or tips on how you did it, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! (Something I’ve been wondering is: Do everyone bathe their babies before bedtime every evening…?) We know it’s not essential to establish a routine at this age, but figured we might as well get started so that we have something already in place for when Jessica is old enough for it to matter.
By the way, regarding the times for ‘last feeds’, etc., above: we’re still waiting for that regular feeding pattern to appear, so any regular times for evening feeds are still mainly theoretical…
The health visitor will also get me and Jessica signed on to a baby massage course, which sounded great! I’ll be getting a letter in the post about when and where it’s due to start.
Gabriella