My Baby At 13 Months

Last month Little achieved one of the biggest milestones: I can now say my baby is walking, although maybe I can’t actually call her a baby anymore. I quite like the term “boddler” because compared to the others at Toddler group she definitely isn’t a proper toddler yet. My little girl is on the move, very chatty (although I have no clue what she is saying) and she continues to show a lovely glint of cheekiness. The sleep continues to be awful.

A collage of 9 photographs showing a baby playing instruments, standing, feeling textures in a book, on a rocking horse, crawling through and tunnel and in a ball pool
Little months 12 to 13


Feeding

I have been lazy recently and not made as much effort with food as I should. I haven’t wanted a lot of mess so Little has had pouches (which she sucks out herself) and anything which isn’t too messy. She still isn’t having any dairy, but I have given her some coconut yoghurts which she has loved (I preload the spoon and pass it to her). 
A few weeks ago Little developed some angry eczema on her face. She has had a few patches before, but this was really red and made me sad when I looked at her. I’m still not sure what caused it, but I have been keeping a close eye on what she eats ever since. It might have been some baby wipes we were trying, or some tomato (which does make her skin come up red at times) or possibly some oranges. It calmed down after a few days and fingers crossed it won’t get as bad again.
There has been a lot of nursing this month due to us being home more (giving Little easy access) and 3 new teeth emerging which required comfort sucking (she now has 7 teeth). While breastfeeding with teeth isn’t painful, breastfeeding with a teething baby can be. They are more likely to bite and they often have a dodgy latch. This is quickly solved by removing her, unless I’m trying to nurse her to sleep when I tend to grit my teeth and deal with it until I can take her off.

Sleeping

It’s rubbish. It was improving, but the last month it has been awful. Many evenings have been spent with one of us trying to get her to sleep. G tries, but she normally wants me. I’m blaming this on those pesky teeth coming through and hoping that when the teething pain goes she will be back to normal. And then we can try for something resembling the normal sleep of a child half her age. I’m not asking for a lot am I?
I’m starting to attempt gentle night weaning. While I don’t mind feeding her to sleep and it’s definitely the easiest way to get her back to sleep at the moment, I need her to be less reliant on me so I am following the steps in Sarah Ockwell-Smith’s Gentle Night Weaning plan. I’ll report back next month to see if it has made any difference.

Growth

My baby seems bigger, but she is spending a lot of her time standing or sitting so she feels taller. She still has hardly any hair so people tend to think she is younger than she is (and they assume she is a boy, but let’s not go there). She weighs 10.8kg and measures 80cm. All of her 9 to 12 month clothes are in the loft now even though she could still fit in a few. 12 to 18 month sleepsuits and trousers are too long for her so I roll the trousers up to stop her falling over.

A baby sitting on her Dad's lap with a lady measuring the size of her foot in Clarks for First Shoes
First Shoes

Activity

I have a little walker! Just after Little turned one she decided that she was going to start walking. She would keep getting up, taking a few steps and falling down. She had the confidence, but not the skill, however the persistence paid off and now she has turned 13 month she can walk some distance unaided. I tend to hold her hand when she is walking outside to provide some direction and stop her getting a wet bum on the occasional fall downs, but inside she happily walks around everywhere. Her walk is that of a zombie or a drunk person with her hands out for balance and it is very cute especially as she normally has a big grin on her face.
Little is very fast at climbing stairs and as soon as she notices the door has been left open she charges over and heads up them. We live in fear of her falling down, but we are doing our best to keep the door shut. She also loves to climb on other things so we have to be careful with any boxes left around before she tests out how good they are to balance on.
Little has really taken to her ride on in the last few weeks. She now happily climbs on her elephant and ride ons at Toddler group and pushes her self around with her feet. Of course she loves to be pushed too.
Peekaboo continues to be a popular game and we currently have a big box in our front room because she loves to peek out from it so much.
Big sister’s toys seem to be more interesting than Little’s own with the dolls being a particular favourite. Princess Sofia was being showered with kisses the other day, which is less worrying than all the toys which are ending up in her mouth for her teething chewing needs. 
Little is loving books and can often be found flicking through them. When we read to her she often doesn’t wait until we’ve finished reading to turn the page, so I suspect I might have missed some key bits of the plot of Day Monkey Night Monkey.
Little continues to love to dance and can be happily entertained by putting music on. Her musical preferences are a little interesting with some of the most impressive dancing being to calypso type music. Unfortunately the interest in television continues and while we rely on it at times to achieve essentials (like a shower) I try to minimise it at other times. Unfortunately big sister loves television too so Little gets to watch a bit more when she is around.

Communication

Little loves giving kisses and cuddles. The kisses have become less slobbery which is great and she makes that kissing noise when she does it. There have been a number of hard days where the kisses and cuddles have got me through.
Pointing is now used a lot to communicate. Combined with the shaking her head I can usually establish what she wants. She will push you away if you get it wrong anyway. When she cries out in pain I ask her what’s hurting and she will indicate where she has been hurt e.g. holding out a finger if she caught it in a drawer.
Little laughs a lot and we have lots of fun doing repetitive games to make her smile and laugh.

Joined up to the What My Kid Did Linky on the lovely Amy's blog The Smallest Of Things

3 comments

  1. I love 'boddler' there is that in between stage isn't there. Looks like she is doing really well walking already! xx

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  2. Aww it looks like she is doing brilliantly. I was so proud of Olivia when she started walking as I'm sure you are of your daughter.

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  3. Yay well done Little on the walking front! So glad the kisses are less slobbery ;) Thank you for linking up with #WhatMyKidDid ox

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