ONE YEAR OLD

My little girl is one.

And to everyone that's said to me "Gosh, hasn't that gone quickly?". No, not really! There are times when I do think some of the months have sped by, but on the whole it does feel like a full year... at least!

Unfortunately Charlotte was really poorly for her birthday. She was up all the night before, and on the actual day, when she wasn't crying with a raging temperature and clearly in pain, she was cuddled into one family member or another just wanting to sleep. It was frankly heartbreaking.

We had a big BBQ with both sets of family (even my brother who came over from Australia and met his niece for the first time) and friends, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. But I could only concentrate on Charlotte and making sure she was comfortable. Thankfully my parents are always the hosts-with-the-most and took over sorting the food and drinks.

Took Charlotte to the doctors and it seems she'd had a virus, and has a chest infection for which she has anti-biotics. She's sowly getting better, but has been up every night for at least an hour crying and crying until her next dose of Nurofen kicks in - or she's too tired to fight her sleep anymore.

Sadly, we didn't get any good pictures from her first birthday, but here are a couple form when she wasn't too poorly:

having just moved into a new house, I think we're going to have to move into an even bigger one to accommodate all Charlotte's birthday presents!

(TOO) CLEVER (FOR HER OWN GOOD) MONKEY

Be warned - this post may well come across as a bit "isn't my daughter just the most wonderful, clever, bright little thing"...!

But Charlotte has been amazing me this week with quite how much an eight and a half month old can understand. If I put out a selection of half a dozen of her soft toys and ask her "Where's dog?" or "Where's Pennguin" or whichever random stuffed animal, nine times out of ten she'll pick the right one up.

And if I then say "Kiss dog/penguin/lion/Daddy/Mummy" she'll give the aforementioned a special Charlotte kiss - mouth wide open and placed over its face til it's all wet. I know she's been able to follow simple commands for a while because we do "kick, kick, kick", "splash" and "hold on" etc at her swimming lessons, but it's astounded me how much she's also picked up at home.

Her babbling contiunes to delight me, even if most of it is still 'dadada', 'bababa' and what sounds like 'baden-baden-baden'. And when I took her to a free Rhythm Time session this afternoon, the teachers were a bit taken back by how well she was joining in, playing with the instruments and reacting to what was going on.

So it seems any fears I had over her lack of daytime sleep affecting her development have been pretty much allayed.

ROUTINES, PATTERNS AND LAUGHTER

As Charlotte approaches 12 weeks, I've been really trying to see the patterns in her behaviour to see if it will help us with sticking to any form of routine. So far as I can tell, she can't go past two hours without needing a nap, or else overtiredness very quickly sets in and it's extremely difficult to put her down for a snooze.

That's particularly true when it comes to her nighttime sleep. She really needs a little nap sometime around 5pm to make sure she's not overtired by the time we put her down at around 1845. The last few nights we've made sure that's happened by taking her out for a walk, and she's gone down with barely a whimper.

She's also edging back to between three and three and a half hours between feeds, after last week's growth spurt and extra feeds. While we've been trying to do the EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You Time) routine, because she only catnaps, at least once a day it means Eat and Sleep fall at around the same time. That results in her falling asleep while feeding, or not sleeping well because she's hungry.

The first nap of the day is getting much easier to judge. It's usually around an hour and a half after she's got up, she's usually pretty easy to put down and she'll sleep for up to an hour. The only downside to that is that it falls at exactly the time I'd like to take her to a couple of sessions at the local Children's Centre (Baby Beethoven and Baby Stay and Play), which both start at 9am. So I'm giving those a miss for the time being, while we continue to establish a routine and pattern to Charlotte's day.


She also tends to be at her most alert and active in the afternoon. She's started grabbing toys that are put next to her and being much more co-ordinated with hitting objects. She did get a bit upset when she couldn't work out that she had to ungrip her fingers to let go of something, but I think she's worked that one out now!

The absolute best moment came on Tuesday evening - just as we were about to wind down from playtime to nighttime. Charlotte came out with two bouts of the most brilliant laughter. It was proper, full-on giggling that had me weeping with happiness! I hope to hear much more of that in the weeks and months to come...

Putting a label on it

When I originally started writing this latest blog in the middle of the night I had written: "Charlotte's been going a bit longer between feeds compared to the last couple of days - so perhaps this is her first growth spurt over...? Until the next one".

Famous last words - this morning she's been a nightmare. Absolutely nothing, apart from being on the breast for 55 minutes every hour, will settle her. We've tried making sure she's totally full by making sure she's not lazy snacking, we've made sure she's clean and dry, we've comforted her, left her to cry - everything.

It's got to the point where my OH has taken her out to scream the neighbourhood down to give me half an hour's break. The health visitor seemed to think we were doing well when she came this morning, and gave us more tips on feeding and trying to get her to sleep anywhere than on us. But even that reassurance isn't getting through to me at the moment.

I don't feel especially tired - just exasperated that we can't calm Charloltte and get her to sleep. EVERYONE keeps telling us it'll get easier in a week or two - but it's getting increasingly harder to believe and focus on.

The health visitor did suggest that as breastfeeding is going so well - too well, almost - I could try expressing already so my OH can help with at least one feed a day. I'm now worried Charlotte's become so attached to my breast, she might refuse a bottle. But we'll give it a go.

Life has become an endless game of second guessing her every need, her every cry and grizzle. And just when you think you've got it sussed, she changes the rules. But I think we are getting better at recognising her cues. I'm definitely recognising the hunger ones - rooting, hand in mouth, headbutting etc - more easily. And her uncomfortable "I'm trying to wee or poo" face.

The big problem comes when she's trying to tell us more than one thing at a time - I'm hungry and wet and overtired all at once. Then she'll come out with howling screams that cut right through us. My OH is amazing at calming her down though for which I'm hugely grateful.

I wasn't surprised that Charlotte got overtired yesterday afternoon though. We ended up having quite an ambitious walk around the local park, then the shops (including giving her a feed in Mothercare) and lunch at another pub, all with the other set of Grandparents this time. And she.was mostly as good as gold.

The funniest thing in her 9-day life happened too. Well it made me laugh lots. I know people always say kids are happier with the cardboard box than the toy that came in it. Well that was proved today. Forget expensive mobiles and toys to hang over her pram, Charlotte spent the best part of an hour this lunchtime utterly transfixed by the label on the sun parasol that we'd just bought. It was just in her eyeline within focus and she just stared and stared at it, keeping her totally occupied. I think we may be keeping that.

We had had a minor bit of progress with the Moses basket yesterday too. She managed an hour in it - albeit she'd already been asleep for an hour after being totally knackered from this morning's adventures. She had another 20 minutes in there last night too. But today we seem to have taken two steps backward on that issue as well.

I think the really tricky thing is to judge when to try to put her down. Too soon and she wakes herself really easily; too late and she's waking for a feed or change anyway.