FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I had been warned, and was expecting, Charlotte's weaning to take a few backwards steps every now and again, especially when she's teething. And she's certainly done that.

A couple of weeks ago, when she had a bad cough and cold, she went right back to easy stage one purees and a bit more milk, but she's back on stage 2 stuff now - except when it comes to my home cooking. A few weeks ago, she'd happily eat my fish kedgeree, lamb stew etc, which have a few more 'bits' in than the occaisional shop-bought jar I give her.

But now she'll barely touch my lovingly created meals which are filling our freezer, yet will wolf down half a jar of the Cow & Gate/Organix/Heinz/Ella's Kitchen equivalent. I think perhaps she's just lazy - as was evident at four and a half months when she realised it was easier to get her milk out of a bottle than out of Mummy. The jars are a bit smoother than my mashed meals; it's just frustrating because I know she can do it if she wants to.

She's the same with finger food. Most of it still ends up on the floor after she's played with it for a bit - but if it's something she really likes (namely bread and cheese) she'll make much more of a fist of it.

(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.

STANDING ROOM ONLY

Still reeeling from the horribly sad news of my pervious post, but just a few minutes with my incredible daughter guarantees to put a smile on my face.

Her grandparents came up to visit this weekend and hadn't seen her for five weeks, and it's then that we realise quite how much Charlotte is developing and coming along. Since they last saw her she will clap her hands when we say "clap, clap, clap"; she has a tooth (although it doesn't seem to have got any bigger in the past two weeks); and she's more interested in standing than sitting these days:

It suddenly occurred to us how strong her legs were when we were holding her up on our laps, so my OH decided to see how she got on holding onto furniture and things. Turns out she's really good at standing upright with very little support.

This makes us think that the chances are she'll be one of those babies that goes straight to walking and skips the crawling part - she hasn't shown any interest in crawling for about 2 months now and is happy just to roll and stretch to whatever toy (or remote control!) she's trying to get.

As one of my friends put it - where's Baby Charlotte gone? She's virtually a toddler now, albeit without the actual toddling... yet.

DESPERATELY SAD NEWS

Some very close friends of ours lost their baby son today. The horrendous news has left me feeling so numb, helpless and so so sad for them.

They had been trying a very long time to get pregnant and their little one had got to full term - in fact a week overdue. Don't know the details yet, but there's just the overwhelming question of 'why them?'. All we can do is give them time and space at the moment to grieve, and wait until they're ready to talk to or see us.

But I can't help thinking they might resent those friends that have happy, healthy babies and after they had tried so hard and got so far to have one of their own. I hope that's not the case, and we can do something to help them through the long, hard road ahead.

We are grieving for them too - and it puts all our trials and tribulations with Charlotte totally into perspective. We are so lucky to have such an amazing little girl.I really hope our friends eventually get the chance to have the family they want and deserve too. RIP baby boy. x

SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS

Well actually just swings. Charlotte had her first go in a swing on a beautiful sunny day this weekend, and she seemed to love it. Kicking her legs in excitement and making lovely noises.

Thankfully this park is very close to the new house we'll (hopefully) be moving into in the next few months, and there's another one not too far away either. So I can see us spending many an hour on the swings - and slides, roundabouts and see-saws in the coming years.

Charlotte will be eight months old at the end of the week - and finally we've seen the first tooth emerging. Or rather my OH felt it the other morning as she bit his finger. And today I can see the little white ridge pushing through the gum. She's been incredibly good so far - a tiny bit grouchy in the day, and one wake up on our one night out in ages when her Grandma was babysitting on Friday night, but so far we seem to be very lucky. 

I am expecting a couple of rough nights sometime this week as it pokes through further, but there are none of the usual signs that go with teething - her cheeks are no redder, she's not really drooling much more, and she's always got stuff in her mouth so that's not much different to usual. She just seems to be a little bit off her milk. Perhaps we'll be one of the very lucky few... or perhaps I'll be eating my words by tomorrow!

GOT A LOT OF BOTTLE

Grabbing a few minutes while Charlotte's napping to catch up on my blog. After several days of just two 25 minute naps all day, yesterday she threw me all off whack with a random hour and 20 minutes. No idea if it was her Daddy's tight swaddling or if I'm getting the timing right again, but I'll be very glad to see the back of those constant 25 minute power naps which run me ragged more than they make her overtired.

We've ditched her lunchtime milk, so now she's on just three bottles a day - with breakfast, mid-afternoon and before bed - usually totalling around 500ml. And while she's pretty good with the sippy cup taking water with her meals I'm not ready to attempt to give her her milk in it yet - for two reasons.

Firstly, she's forever throwing it on the floor, and secondly I'm enjoying hanging onto those last few months of her being a proper baby when I feed her from the bottle. It's a peaceful time when I get a bit of a cuddle and I'm not rushing Charlotte into doing 'grown up' things like eating food and drinking from a cup. She's not going to be a baby for very much longer.

And so, while she is, here are a few overindulgent cute photos:

wrapped up snug for the winter weather

that cheeky "am I going to get away with it?" face

I can glimpse the grown up girl that Charlotte will turn into here...

UP ALL NIGHT (part 2)

After the previous week's horrendous night, Charlotte treated us to another one last week. We were at my parents', and she was up every 25 minutes-2 hours, screaming and screaming and not going back to sleep without an awful lot of effort.

That meant absolutely no sleep for us, and put paid to my first totally baby-free day. I had planned a day out in London while Charlotte's Dad and/or grandparents looked after her for the day, but I couldn't face a day of anything after no sleep at all.

(Please don't let this next sentence jinx the next few nights...!) She's been very good since we've been back home though - sleeping right through without a peep. But her daytime sleeping's gone back to being a struggle and rather erratic. Back to the 25 minutes, and only after a bit of effort. But if it's between a good sleep in the day or night, I know which I'd rather take.

Weaning seems to be be progressing well. At just over seven months, Charlotte now has breakfast (usually porridge as she doesn't like the wheat biscuit things at all) followed by a bottle around half an hour after she's got up (so anything between 0715 and 0800); then a 2-course lunch between 1130-1200 of something consisting of meat and vegetables, some finger food to try, and then a dessert (often yoghurt with fruit). And she's just starting to lose interest in her lunchtime milk completely, so we may well be dropping that next week.

Her food's getting less and less pureed and more mashed and slightly lumpy - even though she's still not got any teeth. After a mid-afternoon bottle, she then has another two courses at 1730 (before Waybuloo!) of something fishy/vegetabley, another dessert and another offering of finger food. And her final bottle is just before bed.

We've also started putting Charlotte on a potty after tea, just so she gets used to it - not really potty training at this stage - and 9 times out of 10 she'll do exactly what she's supposed to on it!