2009

New regime

Sunday 8th March 2009Baggie

This week, Lucinda decided that it was time to try and develop more of a routine with Éowyn. For a while Lucinda has had Éowyn in the routine of having a bath in the early evening, before feeding and putting to bed for about 8pm. She would then wake her at 10.30pm to feed her, before putting her down for the night. However there were a couple of unresolved problems. The first was that Éowyn would wake around 5am for a feed, and quite often not go back down; and secondly that she was only rarely napping during the day. This meant that Lucinda was not getting any time for herself, or for us.

So, armed with a friend’s copy of ‘The Baby Whisperer’ Lucinda set about changing this. She is only a couple of days into the regime, but already Éowyn is going down for naps (with the pick up/ put down method) and sleeping a little longer in the morning. She has also instigated the dream feed, where instead of waking her at 1030pm to feed her, she feeds her from a bottle while she sleeps. Although it seems to defy logic that it is safe, surely she should choke?

Food is playing a large part in Éowyn‘s life at the moment. She has only been eating solids for a short time but she has already tried many different flavours. We want her to experience as many flavours as possible early on so, in theory she will not be as fussy when she is older. Well that’s the idea, we will have to let you know how that one pans out. So far she has had:

Banana – didn’t like it at first, but has grown to like it
Apple – didn’t really like it, but we will persevere with it
Pear – really enjoyed it
Sweet Potato – didn’t really like, again we will persevere with it
Carrot – really enjoyed it.

It is a learning process for all of us, but it seems that she prefers the fruit and vegetables when they have been watered down with milk (milked down?). This is probably two-fold: firstly the consistency is closer to that of milk and secondly that the flavour is not quite as strong.

Our friend Andrea came round on Thursday with her son, Jack. He is a couple of months older and so it is nice to know what we have in store as Éowyn follows him down the path of learning. It is also good for the girls to swap ideas and stories. It will also be good when Éowyn and Jack are older and can play together, and should they go to the same school he can look out for her, as he will be just that little bit older.

Enough of my babbling here are the latest photos:

I’m giving you a clue

OK, I’ll just eat my toes then

I ain’t doin’ anyfink

I’ve got your nose

Asleep

I ain’t doin’ nuffink

This is how you eat

Tired girl

Ok, I’m going home

The year marches on

Sunday 1st March 2009Tuesday 25th January 2011Baggie

Apologies for the first pun-use in a blog title on this website. I cannot promise that it will be the last. February has gone (not the best month for many of us) and spring approaches. Unless that is you are the Met Office that decrees that today is the first day of spring. I am of the traditional opinion that the first day of spring is the day following the Vernal Equinox (which is usually 20/21 March). Any day that you can balance an egg on its point has to be special.

Éowyn’s progress also marches on. We started her on solid food (well baby rice) last Saturday. She is definitely a product of her parents, as she loves to eat. As soon as the mouthful has been swallowed (and sometimes before) her mouth is opening for the next spoonful. It is taking her body a little longer to adjust to digesting more than just milk but that has settled down through the week. Today, she tried banana for the first time. However, judging by the faces that she was pulling I think that the flavours were a little too strong, nevertheless mixed with a little baby rice and mom’s milk she finished her bowl.

She has reached the stage where everything she touches she has to taste. Any toy, clock, book or hand has to be thoroughly investigated in case that it may be edible. She gets mightily frustrated should you interrupt this important analysis, and complains loudly. She has also found a renewed interest in her feet. For a while she has held her feet when lying on her back but now coupled with the above she has to taste them; nibbling her own toes. It seems an awfully long time since I could do that.

Éowyn’s curiosity is well developed too. She likes to know what is going on and is afraid to miss out. When there is a conversation she will follow the speakers intently. I wonder what processes are going on her head. What does she hear and what can she understand. This curiosity was evident last Tuesday. We had two other couples round for dinner and Éowyn would not settle. Lucinda and I tried on a number of occasions in a tag-team rally to placate her and she was not cooperating. Defeated we took her downstairs to meet the guests. After satisfying herself, on who was there and what they were doing and then managing to rub her hands in Lucinda’s curry, she was ready for bed and went to sleep until morning.

She still isn’t sleeping as much as one would expect a baby to sleep. Daytime naps are a rarity and although she used to sleep through the night, since her teeth have begun to move it is rare for her to sleep through to morning. Yesterday, however we drove to Nanny Fran’s for the day and I think that it wore her out. She usually sleeps in the car, and yesterday she slept on the way up and on the return journey. We arrived back home about 2230 and she woke, and seemed wide-awake and we feared the worse. We unpacked the car and got ourselves ready for bed. Lucinda fed her and put her to bed and she slept solidly for 8 hours. It was bliss. She has also had a little nap this morning. We both hope that this is the start of a new routine, if only for a couple of weeks or so.

Not the camera again

Time for close-up

Go away dad!

Éowyn, Daddy and Georgia

Georgia

Doing my exercises

Just eating my toes

Cheeky Grin

Eating at Nanny Fran’s

The Penguin

Ready to take over the world

Granddad and the Penguin

Becoming mobile

Thursday 19th February 2009Tuesday 25th January 2011Baggie

Out of respect for Eilidh, I have not updated the blog for a couple of weeks. If you have been directed here to read my tribute to Eilidh please click here, click on her name in the tag cloud or search for her in the Search bar both of which can be found in the right hand column.

We had a shock today, as our first born has reached the tender age of 18 weeks! We had somehow managed to mislay a couple of weeks and were working on the fact that she was approaching 16 or 17 weeks (we weren’t quite sure) but Friday marks the end of the 18th week since we became parents and as you can see from the photos below Éowyn’s development is still speeding along. It seems that you only have to leave her for five minutes and she is doing something new at the moment. She takes after her father in many ways, not all of them good, but one of the better ways is her love of laughing. She finds delight in most things, mainly her dad doing stupid things, making stupid noises and tickling her belly. It is without doubt the best noise in the world, it takes away all the world’s worries.

She also takes after her father in her new major achievement. She has been able to roll onto her belly now for many weeks, and she has been getting herself into the crawl stance for the last couple of weeks, but has not managed the next stage. Then last Saturday (14th February) she crawled for the first time! Not very far, half a body length or so, and not very quickly, but nonetheless she crawled. Only it was in reverse. Yes she went backwards backing away from the toy she was trying to reach but it was movement! Apparently I only ever learnt to crawl backwards before taking to two legs, it explains a lot. It reminds me of the Goofus bird of North American lumberjack tales, that only flies backwards, so that is can see where it has been! This is an extension of her recent trick of rolling on to her belly and then rotating her lower body round in a circle such that she is 180° to how you left her. So in her cot, she sleeps with her feet to the foot of the cot, but if she wakes and gets bored, she will kick the covers off, roll on to her belly and then rotate her body round, pivoting around her head and shoulders (see photos below). You have to be careful where you leave her now!

She is also currently fascinated by food. (yes, like her dad!) She loves to watch you eat. I think she is trying to work out why the thing that you have put into your mouth does come back out again. Anything that is within reach is currently forced into her mouth and chewed. Today, she tried to grab my coconut macaroon, it is a good job she is my daughter, many a person hasn’t lived to tell the tale of stealing a man’s macaroon! This is why we had to calculate how old she was. We were thinking that she had not yet reached her 4 month mark and hence no solids, but as she is passed that mark, we aim to introduce her to baby rice on Saturday. The current NHS guidelines say that you should not give a baby solids before they are 6 months old, but I think that tens of thousands of years of humans introducing solids to babies when they start showing an interest in food hasn’t done us much harm as a species… and she is a Bagnall!

Enjoy the photos below, there are some new ones on the Flickr site too.

Peace and Love

Baggie!