I am really having to make an effort with Little on the food front. Some meals she eats lots, sometimes hardly any. What she will eat lots of at one meal she will throw on the floor next time she has it. I am trying to give her 3 meals plus snacks a day and it’s requiring a fair amount of planning to ensure I give her balanced enough meals. I want her to reduce her milk intake (particularly overnight) so I need to be confident that she is getting what she needs in the day and I’m not convinced she is most of the time. 

I have started to give her vitamins on the advice of the Health Visitor (well only Vitamin D was recommended, but it was easier to find a multivitamin), which she loves but it tastes like sweets!

I have given her food on a spoon a few more times, but unless the food is quite sticky a lot of it falls off before she gets the spoon to her mouth so we definitely need to practise a lot more over the next few months.

One month I’m going to write that she finally sleeps, but not this month. I gave up dairy and caffeine at the beginning of January to see if it made a difference to her sleep and we have definitely seen improvements. From 4 months the longest stretch she managed was 4 hours (and that was very rare), but in the last month we’ve had 4 hours, 5 hours and even the one 8 hour stretch! And then there have been nights which are just as bad as they ever were and she is on my boob most of the night. There has been enough of an improvement for me not to dive straight into a caffeinated and cows milk latte though. Illness and teething have had their impact and I’ll keep going for another month or so before reintroducing anything. One of the big differences has been that sometimes when she wakes I can pat her back to sleep instead of her crying inconsolably until she has milk. We still have times that only milk will do too. 

After about 8 hours sleep she struggles to get back to sleep and I stretch her out for another few hours on my boob in bed with us, before she wakes for the day sometime between 5.20 and 7.30.

Nap times are still a struggle and while we might manage two, one will only be half an hour. That’s when she manages to sleep longer than five minutes. When I really need her to nap I will resort to taking her out in the pushchair with our Snoozeshade.

The weight gain has slowed down since last month which I’m not worried about because she is so active. She’s just over 10kg. Little is now about 78cm long and in that in-between size where the 9 to 12 month clothes are a bit tight, but the 12 to 18 month ones look hilariously big. 

She currently still has just the 4 teeth, but more are on their way!

Oh what a little mover I have. She is super fast at crawling, but also likes to get up and take a couple of steps before falling down. She can happily walk around holding your hand for some time. There has been a very gradual improvement in the stability, but it’s taking a surprising length of time as she took her first few steps a couple of months ago.

Little loves to dance whenever she hears music and she has started to do some of the actions to nursery rhymes. She has climbed off the bed backwards a few times, but I think she’s just as likely to dive off head first if I don’t stop her.

She has started paying more attention to the television, especially animated programmes. She even regularly takes the remote, points it at the television and puts it on. How much this is luck versus intent I don’t know.

Little copies a lot of what she sees e.g. if she finds a hair brush she will pick it up and brush her hair, she opens the flaps in “Dear Zoo” and she knows where a number of things go meaning she will try and put them away. Generally she seems to be playing a lot more with toys rather than shaking or eating them eg putting figures in cars and pushing them around.

Little loves to get a reaction in others so she smiles at people, laughs, dances or anything to provoke a smile back. She doesn’t like negative responses though as we discovered when both her Dad and I frowned at her after she threw some food on the floor. She looked at both of our disapproving faces and burst into tears!

Little loves being around children her own age and bigger, but it’s been a quiet month with colds etc so she hasn’t had a huge amount of interaction recently.

She will follow instructions and respond appropriately. I’m really enjoying the conversations and games we are playing. Little’s sign language is becoming more refined too. She still opens and closes her hands to indicate she wants something, but she will point with one finger at a specific item to show you what she wants. 

There is also a greater attachment to her Daddy (possibly due to him being around for 2 weeks at Christmas) and she has been known to cling to his leg when he goes to work. She also expresses clearer excitement to see people (and the cat) when she hasn’t seen them for a short period.