You may have noticed there haven’t many photos lately – unfortunately the flash on Ian’s otherwise brilliant digital camera has stopped working, so not many photos are being taken at present. Will have to dig my own (slow) digital camera out to remedy the lack of imagery…
Since three days ago, Jessica turns over to her front to sleep, which isn’t going completely smoothly. I’m not sure why she does it, as it more often than not seems a source of frustration for her. She’s not confident at turning back over again, so it partly puzzles me why she voluntarily gets herself ‘stuck’ that way and partly it worries me that she’ll end up face down in the mattress and not be able to breathe properly. Unless she’s half asleep already, as soon as I put her in her cot she sticks her left leg out and uses it to pivot around to her front. After a while though she starts to cry. Before, I’ve been able to leave her to herself and after perhaps a bit of crying, some chatting and general noise, she’s nodded off to sleep. Half the time now the crying seems to go on and on (even though I have a peer through the door to check that she’s not stuck or in any pain) and she’s taking longer to settle.
I get up at regular intervals anyway (just don’t seem to be able to sleep properly anymore…) and peer in at her every time. She seems to stay pretty much in the same position all night, on her front, but she always has her face to the side. I guess this is just one of those developmental stages that she has to go through. So far she hasn’t shown much interest in rolling over, as she’s preferred not to be lying down at all in the first place, so I guess she hasn’t got much practice in moving around that way. Quite often now she grabs the bars in the cot and tugs at them. Perhaps this is part of her learning to get up from the floor herself: grabbing hold of things to pull herself up. For her walks about the house (still with our help) or along furniture (on her own with increasing confidence) she’s till relying on us to help her up to standing.
Monday Jessica stood by herself without support for a whole 9(!) seconds and since she has done it again a couple of times for a similar length of time. She was holding on to a toy with both ands each time (different toys) – perhaps she was just so focussed on the toy she forgot to wobble… She walks around a bit with the trolley every day now (she didn’t use to be very keen but has warmed to it a bit more now, realised it can take her across the floor to another ‘anchor point’) but she still needs us to put her at the handlebars. We don’t really have that much furniture or other things for her too pull herself up on, so I’m not sure how she’ll get sufficient opportunity to practice that (apart from maybe in her cot, if that is where that’s going..).
Jessica has noticed the fruit and veg on the corner shelf in the kitchen now and often stops there to grab a satsuma or occasionally a sweet potato. When she’s got hold of a satsuma, she likes to carry it with her as we continue walking, so I can only hold one of her hands – on the other side I have to support her under the arm while she proudly holds the satsuma high. Everything goes in her mouth still of course and so does the fruit and veg. I left her sitting on the floor in the bathroom one day, happily sucking a trophy satsuma. Only minutes later I heard her spitting and coughing and hurried back to take a look. She was sitting on the floor still, but with her face all screwed up and in her hands the satsuma was split almost in half…! I certainly hadn’t expected her to be able to break the skin, seeing as there’s no sign of any teeth yet. The experience didn’t put Jessica off satsumas, though – later the same day she was at the fruit and veg shelf again grabbing for another one.
Gabriella