Of plug points and other attractions

S has become very active in the last 2 weeks. She started sitting up on her own about 2 weeks back - and I find her way of sitting up very entertaining. She will lie on her back, then flip over to her stomach, then lift her behind up and scoot backwards and sit backwards- like a car parking in reverse is what the hubby calls it. Now that's she's mastered sitting her next step is to lunge forward towards any object she finds interesting. And inevitably it would not be the musical flower pots which the hubby bought very enthusiastically envisaging S sitting up and hitting the flower faces on the head to hear musical notes/songs, but the plug point next to the bed or the bed drawer which S tries to pull. The main attraction is the plug point which is luckily disabled and S has already learned how to put on the switch. I try to cover it with a pillow but S has learnt to throw the pillow away or else bury her face in the pillow which sends me off on any tangent of worry.

After the plug point comes the bed drawer, S has learnt to lean on her knees and reach towards the drawer and pull it forward. This is itself is ok since the drawer doesn;t have any dangerous objects but in her enthusiasm to pull the drawer S sometimes loses her balance and hits her head against the side of the bed.

Then comes the objects lying on the inside of the bed (the bed has a shelf)- everything is picked up and put into the mouth including the video camera and camera. We have started to keep small items like nail cutters on top of the bed.

We've put the bed against the wall so she can't fall from one side of the bed but when she lunges from one side to the other she sometimes hits her head on the wall or on the side of the bed. We put a small carpet also on the other side of the bed (learning from our mistake last week when S fell headfirst from the sofa in the hall, luckily there was a rug spread so she didn't hit her head on the floor, but it was enough to give us some heartstopping moments). S has also started crawling on the bed since yesterday (September 15) and she scoots from one side to the other. Her cot is put against the bed so she'll scoot to that side, hold the side of the cot and then stand up. She is not as comfortable crawling on the floow (i think she is a creature of comfort and doesn;t like the feel of the hard floor on her knees). Love to see her sitting on the floor and moving cautiously towards any object put on the floor, always making sure that her kness are not exposed much to the floor- but put a rug on the floor and she'll again be scooting on the same.

About 3 weeks back S also started holding onto me/the hubby/the sofa and standing up. A coupel of time she started walking holding onto the sofa when we put her favorutie toy (the newspaper) on one side of the sofa but now she's stopped walking and started lunging towards the toy . The paediatrician said she's too young to be standing up, but I think if she's pulling herself up to standing by herself and is comfortable standing up (when she gets tired she just flops down) she should be alright. We don;t encourage her to stand by pulling her up or anything.

S's favourite play area is her cot. Her mattress is quite bouncy and she loves to bounce from one side of the cot to the other. The railings on one side have three balls on them and S tries to reach up and play with them. This railing side is quite high and every time she tries to reach for them she ends up falling back on the bed- but since the mattress is so bouncy she just finds hte whole thing very funny. S has also learnt to pull herself upto standing using the shorter rails on the other side nad somteimte she'll hold onto the shorter railings and reach for the higher one.

We also have these long cushions which was initially supposed to protect her from the sides of the cot and provide a cosy comforting closed feeling for her to sleep in. Now she just picks them up and plays with them. One of her other favourite acitivities (other than bouncing is playing box box with the cushions with the hubby). She also squeals with delight when boxing or bouncing.

will keep updated with other posts on mumm'y delight's activities

Sleeping like a baby

Wonder where this phrase comes from considering I've spent the last 7 months (ok not the first 3 months at least) trying to get S to sleep through the night.

I had heard a lot about getting up at night for feeds and given that my last 2 months of pregnancy consisted of many nightly trips to the loo i thought i was well prepared. Well S has not given any of the troubles of the "night" babies you hear about who sleep during the day and play during the night. My nephew was one such baby and my sis-in-law had a tough time managing him. S was already regulated into the morning night cycle. The first 10 days went off relatively smoothly. She would sleep around 11 then get up around 4 am for a feed and then again around 7 so not bad i thought. Then the doc visit happened where i found S was not putting on weight and more importantly was wetting herself only 4-5 times a day (for non-parents, a baby must wet herself at least 6 times a day to maintain weight and more than that to put on weight, any frequency less than this means she is not getting enough nutrition). I am one of those mothers who maintain charts on baby feeding times and promptly showed it to the doc who immediately said the time between night time feedings was too long and at least for the first 1-2 months babies should be fed every 2-3 hours max. So i promptly used to set the alarm clock for 21/2 hours after the previous feed and get up at least twice every night - around 1 am and then again around 4 am. Some of my friends' doctors had given contrary advice to let the baby sleep and feed when the baby gets up but given S not putting on weight i decided to follow my doc's advice.

The first 3-4 months passed with this schedule. I was at my mum's place from the 2nd to the 5th month so while i had these gruelling night schedules I would give S to my mom at 5:30 in the mornign and get some good sleep till 8:30 in the morning.

somewhere in between the 1 am feed stopped and it was 11:00- then 4-then 7 which is reasonably ok, but i was having problems getting back to sleep after the 4 am feed so usualli would be awake till about 5;30 and again have to get up at 7 am. Then S started sleeping at 9 pm every night around the 4th mopnth and i would have to wake her up for the 11 pm. feed, i used to do this, otherwise her stomach alarm clock would have her waking up at 2 am (and i did not want to wake up at this time!!!). Half the time she was too sleepy to finish the feed and i used to wonder whether it was really worth waking her up for it.

Anyway from the 6th month the evening solids started, and I also moved back to my own place. S started sleeping for 6-7 hours at a stretch- unfortunately this was from 8:30 om to 3:30 am so another round of changing of feed timings and now finally it is reasonable from 10:30 pm to 6:30 am. unfortunately S still wakes up 2-3 times at least every night and I have to rock her back to sleep/ give her some water. The hubby plays no part in this as he sleeps through the night (wondering whether the phrase should be renamed as "sleeping like a hubby") and doesn;t even know when S is crying. Couple of time i poked him in the night and asked to rock her to sleep and the answer was let S sleep in another room and then you'll get some sleep as well ( I think some parents are ok with letting their children cry it out and learn to fall asleep, and i used to think i would do this as well, but I just cannot bear to hear S crying so i pick her up and rock her back to sleep still some 3-4 times in the night). It's tough since i've started working as well so am waiting for the time S starts to sleep through the night. Wondering whether the frequent getting up is due to teething pain as S is drooling a lot as well, and loves to chomp on anything (except her solids) including her book which I am patiently trying to read to her and including her potty box (named so since it stores the cotton we use to wipe her potty)

Keeping fingers crossed!!

A delighted mom

I started this post in the 3rd month of my pregnancy. Somewhere in between my website disappeared and i had neither the technical skills or the time to find it. Today is my daughter's seventh month birthday and i felt it important to take the time to create a post for me to log all the delightful things my darling is upto both for me to read back to and for her to see when she grows up.
A couple of caveats - my writing skills are terrible, this is intended just to be a post for me to express my feelings and thoughts and it is highly likely that there won't be a smooth flow nor grammatical correctness
secondly this is mostly going to be about my family, so please don;t read on if you are expecting any thoughts about life and universe in general.

So how have the last seven months been. In summary a mixed bag
Firstly i was completely unprepared for what having a baby entails. I had read 3 books on pregnancy and none on what to do after the baby is born. In my defense i can argue that i was working till the day before S was born (she was 12 days early) and i had taken the rest of the time as leave from office in order to prepare for the baby. Fact of the matter is, my mom was around, my husband was going to take 2 weeks leave and given that my pregnancy was a risky one (with lots of bed rest) I thought my job would be largely done once i had given birth to the baby, and everything would be easily taken care off.
And in fact once S was born the first week flew past like anything and the missed sleep, troubles with feeding, recovery pain etc did not register in the awe and delight in having your child in your arms. Once i came back home the whole responsibily of it dawned on me. While i did not get post partum blues I moved very fast from being a delighted mom to being a paranoid mom. I hope, now with S at 7 months I can become less paranoid and spend more time being delighted. Have to rush now, but some things i am going to post on are:
1. trouble with feeding
2. missed sleep?
3. what to expect from father?
4. Getting back to work
5. the hired help
6. daily battle with solids
7. daily visits to the park