A little late this month. I blame her sisters and their 5 am wakeups.
Hair:
Same colour. Getting long enough to actually look scruffy. Sometimes it gets all frizzy at the back.
Eyes:
Same greeny brown.
Teeth:
She’s had all sorts of what I would call teething issues but still no 7th tooth.
Eating:
This month I daytime weaned her. With having visitors, and her sleep issues, and lack of appetite for solids, it just kind of happened. So far it has been a good choice as she now has a huge interest in solids and eats up at every meal - sometimes to the point where she’s too full for yogurt!
She’s still what one might call behind in her eating. This month she finally started eating the puffs and cheerios. She has yet to try to self feed anything else beyond bread and will just stubbornly stare at me when I put it on her tray. She will flat out refuse any chunks I offer her on a spoon.
She usually has 3-4 bottles during the day. She’s falling into a bit more of a food routine which is easier to manage. I still breastfeed her at night but even that is becoming more consistent since she is eating so much better during the day. Her latest groove is eating twice a night - around midnight and 4am.
Sleeping:
We were in a really bad place with sleeping last month. Thankfully things have really improved. As I mentioned, she is now eating so much more during the day and she is much more settled at night. With the cold weather we are nearly always home for her to have a morning nap and she is getting better at working out her catnaps to suit her sisters afternoon schedules.
She is usually in bed and asleep by 7:45pm. She will stir once or twice before we go to bed but goes back over with her soother. She is still in bed with us - I’m not willing to mess with somewhat regular sleep quite yet. It’s also really really cold in the night and I remember why we ended up with her in our bed in the first place!
All that being said we did have a few nights this month where she was up in the middle of the night ready to party. On those nights one of us ended up downstairs with her playing. I traced it back to the chocolate I ate before bed. Unfortunately enjoying a half size Burnt Almond is not worth two hours of lost sleep. My children - slowly taking away my pleasures one by one!
Getting Around:
Big changes this month. She started pulling up not long after I wrote the last update. She is now a pro and can get back down. She is pretty daring and her favourite thing to do is pull up on the tub to watch her sisters in the bath. She is very persistent and I should get a picture of me trying to wash two little heads while straddling a baby between my legs.
We found out Claire could walk assisted by accident. Claire was playing at her table and Emma started pulling it. Sure enough Claire walked along behind it. We took her down to the basement and got out the hippo walker. Sure enough she can walk behind that too. I’m not sure how long she’s had this ability (bad mother!).
She is also very quick at crawling now. When she sees one of the four of us coming to get some contraband off her she takes off. I’m not encouraging her to do stairs but she can get up on my treadmill no problem so I’m pretty sure she could climb them. I take no chances with stairs and the gate is now closed or I have my two little watchdogs on her.
Things she’s saying:
Moving on to ‘words’ this month! These are the things she says in context:
Mum mum - me!
ma ma ma ma ma - she says this when she sees her bottle (which I call milk)
hibye - says when she’s waving
Things she’s doing this month:
-waving
-putting her hands up to her head when you say peekaboo
-circling her index finger on the palm of her other hand when you sing round and round the garden
-getting excited when you say milk
-getting excited (and eating!) when she sees a bowl of food coming
-defiantly throwing food on the floor when she’s full
-crawling away quickly when she knows she’s up to no good.
-Screaming when you take something away from her
-looking for each family member by name
-walking behind walker
-saying mum, ma (milk) and hibye
-trying really hard to be where her sisters are
-following me around the kitchen trying to pull up on my leg
-crawling around after Emma and Leah while they scream she’s a monster coming to get them
-playing with the cat door
-heading for the bathroom if we forget to close the door
-gently touching things and using her index finger to feel and study things
-pulling books (and everything else she can get) off the shelf
Personality:
She’s a good baby. No change there. I still wish she’d sleep a little more but she is so incredibly easy to deal with during the day that it doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should.
Emma and Leah are still really good with her. Things have changed a lot during the past two months as Claire has become increasingly mobile and quick. She is always very curious to see what her sisters are doing and for the most part they are very accomodating. When they do get annoyed with her it doesn’t take much to get them to remember that she’s a baby and doesn’t understand.
I brought out some of the girls old stuff for Claire this month. They are always interested in her toys but this was the first time we had three children going for the same thing. When I told them to let Claire play with her toy I was quickly corrected with “Claire has to share her toys Mommy. We share with Claire so she has to let us have a turn.” Let’s hope that in 14 years they’re still teaching her nice things!
Ticklish Claire. She loves watching this video of herself.
Discovering her hidden talents.
