14 week update

11 weeks old-trying to crawl and getting frustrated when she can't.

11 weeks- core strength 

12 weeks-grabbing things with bilateral hands and bringing to her mouth.

13 weeks-grabbing and pulling a vibrating toy.

12 weeks:chewing on anything and everything, all day every day.

13 weeks-dexterity holding things with more precise grip

12 weeks-focusing on things with real purpose.

13 weeks:Dexterity-different types of grips developed.

13 weeks:Exploring toys in more detail-e.g. putting hand through hoops on her Katie doll.

 Although it has only been a few weeks since the last update, Ophelia has developed so much in those three weeks that I really need to document it! She has developed heaps even in the last week although i've noticed she is getting quite frustrated when she can't do the things she wants to do.  The biggest example of this is that she is so nosy and explorative; when you sit her up she purposefully pushes herself forward slowly towards her toys until she is on her front holding her head up and moving her arms and legs around trying to crawl.  She loves this and chatters away at first, she even manages to do a commando style move forwards pushing up off her hands and legs.  After a while she soon realises that she can't move much and gets frustrated and starts crying-this pretty much sums our Ophelia up.  She still barely sleeps in the day, which is because she is so keen to look around and take everything in but means that she gets overtired and cries. She is notoriously worse between 4pm until bedtime, although a little reading around and I discovered this is quite common for children.  She has also started being quite grumpy at bath and bedtime; she is fine in the bath and loves it, but the getting in and getting out of the bath she hates! We've tried everything: graded de-clothing, steamy bathroom, different bath etc etc and some seem to delay the crying but not for long.  The only explanation we can think of is that's because she is now aware of the routine and knows that it means bedtime.  Nothing has really helped in this respect because she really does just need to sleep, so we end up having to put her in her cot and leave her to moan-she usually falls asleep after 5-10 minutes but it's a horrible thing to have to do! We don't want to get stuck in the trap of using techniques such as rocking or putting her in our bed because those habits are hard to break! At least this way she is learning how to get herself to sleep without any help.   

Sleeping wise, at 11 weeks she had three nights of 12 hours sleep through (after generally sleeping 7pm-6am with one wake up in the middle), which we hoped was the sign of things to come.  Unfortunately that has not happened since and in fact the last three nights have been awful! The clocks going back really messed with her night and she got up at 1:30am, 3am and 5am-the 1:30am involved her doing her usual trick of waking up babbling to herself but at the top of her voice! I couldn't help but laugh and this then made her laugh.  She  has been a chatty baby from a young age but these last few weeks seems to have enjoyed exploring volume, tone, pitch and sounds.  We have nicknamed her "Phely Sealy" because the first noises she made were like a seal! Since then, she has developed a wider range and today she copied the speech patterns of how I said "YEAh!" but without the right sound coming out!  It's fascinating because she actually watches us as we speak, you can see her looking at how you form your mouth for certain words and then trying to copy it with her mouth.

She still refuses to nap most days, having said that, at the moment she appears to be teething and the last two days has had 3 or 4 naps!! Kinda hope this continues! On a good day It gets to 10am and she gets tired so I try to put her in her cot so that she stays down longer-sometimes she sleeps for 20 minutes but other times she wakes straight up.  She then tends to stay awake all afternoon until about 3pm and will again have a 20 minute nap.  On a bad day (quite regularly!) she will refuse to sleep, get over tired and cry. Lots. I find putting her in her gro bag now tends to result in a longer nap-after weeks of not getting on with the gro bags!

Seeing Ophelia interact with her surroundings has become more interesting recently, she is evidently more aware of her surroundings-she now looks at the cat when she is sitting next to her and will look around for her toys.   She goes through phases and at the moment really gets bored if left to her own devices-for example whereas before you could pop her on her mat and she would keep herself entertained, she now needs you to interact with her and the toys in order for her to find it interesting! The one toy which she doesn't need interaction with is her Katie doll.  She will sit in her travel seat on her pram and mess around with all the different textures on the doll-putting her hand through the rings, crinkling the material, holding her hand, holding the rings. She is also still totally in love with Sophie Le Giraffe, although mostly just to tuck her under her arm!

14 weeks on it's hard to think that this time last year that baby had just started growing in my belly! My recovery has felt like it finished about week 8 although i am now keen to get back to how I want to be physically.  Mentally I think we're coping generally quite well and try to keep positive, it is really tough at times especially with the amount that Ophelia has been known to cry but you just have to draw a line under that day and move on to the next day-doing whatever you think is best on that day to get through it.  What I find really reassuring is that most people I know with children have been through all the trials that we are (crying, teething, bed time difficulties, etc etc!) and it reminds me that it isn't my daughter being difficult or us being bad parents- perhaps the best way to look at it is us all finding our feet with our new life as a family!  Sleep wise, I try to get to bed at 11pm in order to get at least some sleep before her first wake up, unfortunately I still have constant bags under my eyes- anyone got any miracle cure for that?! I've also been getting my night terrors on a near nightly basis and poor Callum has been at the brunt of them! I used to get them quite often and I think it's because of the types of sleep I am getting- i.e. never getting into a deep sleep.  I've woken up most nights panicking that she's in our bed and suffocating under the duvet: i've been known to cradle the duvet thinking it's the baby or worst still, the other day I tried to pick Callum up  thinking he was Ophelia and hurt him in the prcoess! Again, if anyone has any tips for how to avoid this, they're welcome! If only she slept more in the day then I could actually "sleep when she sleeps"".  I refuse to go to bed any earlier, I want to enjoy my evenings and would rather sacrifice the sleep then lose my much needed winding down time/time to do the washing up, put the washing on etc etc!

So there we have it, I am rather enjoying watch our daughter's personality developing into a strong, confident and charismatic child.  :)