7 months old

N is 7 months old and her weight is 19lb 3oz. Her personality is really starting to show now. She is often very serious but sometimes so silly. She's very determined, she know what she likes and doesn't like! The weather has been good and we had our first trip to the beach. She really loved paddling in the sea. She loves straps - the straps on her car seat, the straps on her bouncer. She sucks them and plays with them all the time. She's really loving her swimming lessons. She finished stage 1 this month and started stage 2. She's great at kicking! We had pictures of her taken swimming underwater which came out well, and they provided a short video too which is beautiful and emotional to watch :) She loves when I sing songs to her, particularly 'row row row your boat' and 'the grand old duke of York'. She loves the cats and likes to watch them and grab their fur. They are very tolerant and keep a safe distance. She is making new sounds: baba and mmm, sucking back your saliva, gargling saliva which is entertaining. She really loves screaming! Just because she can and when she is tired, and when playing with daddy. I worry what the neighbours must think! She is so beautiful. She has beautiful skin, lovely long eye lashes and a sweet rosebud mouth. She has become a little scared of male strangers recently for some reason. She is rolling all over the place and has started to move backwards on her belly and is comfortable sitting up unsupported for long periods. She is doing well with eating solids. She has breakfast and dinner now. I think it's fair to say that her favourite foods are Greek yoghurt, strawberries and tomatoes. I do often feel uncertain with feeding - is she getting enough of the right things? I keep reminding myself that it's "Just for fun til one", but I still worry if I'm giving her enough. She has some purées but mostly finger foods. At first I really found it time consuming and annoying when she didn't want what I gave her and my effort was wasted. But it's fun and it's getting easier with every meal. Most of the time she eats well. I'm glad to say that although it's still not happening often due to time, sex is getting easier all by itself which reinforces my theory that nature was trying to stop me! We moved her into the nursery from our room which I found tough but we've both for used to it now. Although she isn't sleeping well at all. I don't think it's the move but I'm not sure what it is. She'll settle easily but will wake within a couple of hours and sometimes more than once in the early hours, and waking again at 5-6. She'll usually nap a few times after that and I'll nap with her! It's been pretty rough and I'm tired all the time. I think it could be teething, particularly as we can feel one coming through now, but she isn't fussy during the day and doesn't seem to have any other majors symptoms apart from chewing on everything. I've been trying to nap with her later in the day but we have a lot going on this month (birthdays, holidays)!and I'm finding that my head is just buzzing and I can't get to sleep. I found out the hard way how sleep deprivation can make you do stupid and dangerous things. I put N in her high chair and attached the tray without strapping her in! I didn't notice and when I took the tray off after her meal, I took it over to the sink and N fell out the chair face first onto the tile floor. I heard the bang and couldn't believe my eyes. I immediately realised what I had done. She bawled and so quickly got a red puffy face and I couldn't tell if she was hurt. I took her into A&E with my mum and they checked her over and confirmed that she was fine which was a huge relief but it was devastating. I still feel sick thinking about it. I was very careful about what I said at A&E because I was worried what the fallout might be. I told a few friends immediately, trying to release the guilt I think. They were very supportive and it seems that most mums have a similar story, and most of them seem to have kept it completely secret. It's so sad that mums worry about being judged so much, sometimes by their nearest and dearest, that they keep their mistakes to themselves and suffer the guilt in silence. Just a couple of days later she lurched forward while I was holding her and hit her head on a toy. She got a few small bruises down her face :( The whole experience has made me very fearful of accidentally hurting her of her hurting herself. Oh god, I'm turning into my mother...

Three months old

N will be three months old tomorrow! Wow. She seems to have really come alive this month, particularly in the last couple of weeks. She responds to our voices much more now, she has spotted the TV and can't keep her eyes off it, she's smiling a lot and makes lots of expressions. She is getting more coordinated with her hands and is purposefully reaching out for things. She spends quite a lot of time studying her hands which I love to watch. She's also just starting to notice her legs and feet. She's getting much more vocal - really shouting out at times! Her hair is getting slightly thicker. I don't think her eye colour has changed at all this month, it's still blue/grey. She has had a few firsts this month. She had her first swim at the local pool which she loved and we also took her to a taster session for baby swimming lessons. She loved that even more so we've signed her up for the course! She also had her first trip to the cinema! One of our local theatres does a mother and baby screening once a month. N fed and slept through the whole thing and the other babies were pretty relaxed too so it worked well. We're going again next week with D. She also had her first set of jabs this month. I'd always heard of Mums being upset when their kids get their jabs but I thought I would be fine with it. We all get jabs after all. What's the big deal? The nurse asked me if I was OK beforehand and I was fine. Nia took her Rotovirus oral vaccine and she smiled from the sweetness. And then she got the first jab in the leg. Her reaction really floored me. I hadn't seen her cry out in pain before and it was rough! I had tears in my eyes and tried to hold it together while they did the second jab. Poor baby. I really felt like I'd given her into a false sense of security. I took her outside to feed straight away and she fed and quickly went to sleep :( She had REALLY bad wind for a while that night and was crying in pain again. Horrible to see. I think it must have been the Rotovirus vaccine. Not looking forward to the next round now... At 10 weeks she weighed 13lbs and was 24.5 inches. At 11.5 weeks she was 13lb 9oz. So she is between the 50th and 75th percentile - a very healthy weight! She likes to spread out in bed and so the moses basket just wasn't working anymore. It's too cramped and noisy and I couldn't settle her in it if she woke in the night. So we moved her cotbed into our room and she's now sleeping very comfortably. She generally sleeps from around 11:30-12pm until 7-7:30am, which is great! I'm working on getting her to bed a little bit earlier now. I'm feeling quite guilty about the lack of attention that our two cats are getting. Basically they are get next to none! And the weather has been really wet so they are getting frustrated being indoors all the time too. They tend to feel like more of an annoyance than anything else now which I feel bad about. I also feel guilty whenever I'm doing anything for myself rather than something for N. I've got to get over that as I don't give myself a great deal of time. I seem to be healing well now and things seem to be getting back to normal. I have an appointment with the consultant at the hospital this week and I'll be asking him about a few things. Since I've been sewn up I have a skin tag and I don't know why it's there and if I'm stuck with it. It's a bit annoying but I guess I can live with it. I've also had really bad, noisy and sometimes very smelly gas lately! It happens completely unexpectedly and embarrassingly sometimes. I've read online that it's normal and gets better but I need to ask about it as it is a concern...! Also, D and I have attempted sex a couple of times and although we made better progress the second time, it feels very tight in there and we couldn't do it properly. Afterwards I felt like a virgin who had lost her virginity at an orgy - very sore! I'm very happy with how my body has sprung back to my original size (actually slightly smaller). I assume this is partly because I didn't put on a great deal of extra weight and also because I'm breastfeeding. But I need to keep an eye on it as I'm eating obscene amounts of cookies and cake. I won't be breastfeeding forever after all. We started a short course of baby massage lessons this month which N seems to enjoy. She certainly sleeps well afterwards. I also took her to a baby sensory class taster but I don't think we'll go again as it was a bit of a glorified play group. I'm really feeling the time running away - I'm a third of the way through my maternity leave already... :( I want to literally inhale N and really feel every moment with her to be savoured forever. I really don't like the idea of going back to work and leaving N with anyone, even if it is my Mum. I feel it's my job to take care of her. There are some work opportunities for D which might help us to accomplish this - we'll see how they pan out over the next few months.