5 months

[aryanhwy]

Yup, still no hair.

The last week or so has seen a number of new developments. Peek-a-boo gets laughter like I've never heard from her before. She's also able to roll to her side, grab onto a toy, pick it up, and roll back onto her back; she can do this with large fluffy toys that have lots of things to grab on to, but also with her plastic rings! I was really impressed when I realized a few mornings ago that she'd managed to pick them up off the floor herself. There's a toy at daycare that has both rings and rubber feet that can be chewed on, and a number of the carers have noted that it's her favorite and that she can seek it out and grab it within 5 minutes or so. Over the weekend we also saw some more rolling from stomach to back, which she'd first done around 10 weeks, but hadn't bothered with at all for the last 10 weeks or so! Nevertheless, on her back she's getting more and more mobile, with a sort of reverse inchworm movement by lifting her hips up and planting her feet down and pushing off. This is especially good fun during diaper changes -- I think she likes the freedom of no diaper/no pants!

Bath time has moved from being tolerable to being downright fun. She has discovered that she can make the water splash by kicking her feet, and so I often end up all wet, and the floor too. I can't wait until she can sit up a bit better (she still needs some support, but I don't think it will be too much longer before her balance is better) and we can start doing baths in the real bathtub , because the sink is getting a bit small!

In addition to applesauce we've now also done avocado and ham lentil soup (just the soupy part of it). Everything we've tried has been met with approbation. Her biggest issue is figuring out how to get some of the thicker, stickier stuff (e.g., avocado) off the spoon, but once it's in her mouth you can definitely see the tongue going to work masticating it as best as you can without any teeth. (No teeth, no sign of teeth).

Thankfully she and I both avoided the lurgy that plagued many people after Crown Tourney, including Joel, who says he was sicker than he's been since high school. (I'll take his word for it. He's just as grumpy when he's not so sick.) Joel's business partner Jon has been visiting since last Thursday (he's heading to Paris today to meet up with his wife for vacation), which means Joel has been doing days rather than nights. Unfortunately, in the last week Gwen has also gone from 10-11 (sometimes 12!) hours straight at night -- meaning that if she goes to sleep around 7:15 it's probably around 6:00ish that she's up for the day, which is rougher than 7:00 but not so bad -- to 6-9 before she wakes up and will not go back to sleep without eating, and then she'll only sleep another 2-2.5 hours after that. Since Joel is now trying to sleep at night too, this means that I've suddenly gone from 9-10 hours of unbroken sleep a night as I've had for the last three months to waking up between 3:30-4:30 and then again around 5:30-6:00. After the second wake-up there's usually good odds that she'll go back to bed for a few hours, and sometimes I do too, but that means I don't wake up until later in the morning, and thus don't get as much work done in the morning. Frustrating. But I'm praying it's just a growth spurt and that it won't last too much longer. I hope. I get grumpy when I don't get enough sleep.

No well-baby check-up this month so I don't know her stats. I did the moderately accurate trick of standing on the scale, weighing myself, then picking her up and weighing again; she had all her clothes and a diaper on, which she doesn't usually have when being weighed at the dr., so the 8kg that she weighed in at I'm sure isn't completely accurate! But say that 200g of that was clothing and diaper, then she's still gained about 1kg since last month's 6.87kg. But to match that I'm pretty sure she's grown another 2-3 cm; she seems to be slimming out a bit more, though she's still awfully chubby and cute.

Comments

[mamamoira.livejournal.com]

Pfft, who needs teeth? Seriously, my oldest kid didn't cut a single tooth until she was *nineteen* months old! Lack of teeth didn't slow her down a bit. :)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

19 months, wow! That's pretty old.

Gwen certainly doesn't seem to feel the lack of teeth, but I've been having people tell me for a few weeks now that she's teething, merely because her drool has kicked in and she likes to put things in her mouth and nom on them. I don't expect we'll see teeth for awhile yet.

[draconisregena.livejournal.com]

She's adorable. Those chubby cheeks!! Makes you just want to cuddle her. :D

[(Anonymous)]

She sure is awfully cute!

Aunt Andrea

[valkyr8.livejournal.com]

She is a cutie!

[englandbound.livejournal.com]

What she lacks in hair and teeth, she more than makes up for in cuteness! One of my co-workers was quite concerned when her daughter didn't have teeth at 12 months. They come in eventually and do just fine without them until they do come in.

We have tried rice cereal (didn't go over very well), chicken (I was eating some with her on my lap so I broke off a piece, held one end and let her gum the other end for a bit. Small pieces came off but didn't stay in her mouth long) and very small bits of cooked carrots (which didn't reappear so they must have been gummed and swallowed) with Cordelia. The results from the chicken and carrots (the carrots were the most recent and most successful) makes me seriously reconsider trying baby led weaning rather than purees. The rice cereal was simply diluted with drool and ended up back out of her mouth. I suspect we will go for some combination of purees and soft lumps.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of baby-led weaning, but I do worry about choking, and also don't really see how the chewing works until there is teeth. And Gwen so far loves the applesauce, avocado, etc., that we've tried -- when she sees the spoon in my hand she'll grab my hand to pull it to her mouth. So I think even if we do try some of the BLW techniques, we'll still be doing some of the purees because she likes them so much!

But rice cereal? That's just sort of...gross...

[englandbound.livejournal.com]

It is rather gross, but cereal is how we were told to start with Valerie so I still have it stuck in my head that that is what we should start with. I have some other things ready to try in purees in the freezer. I don't think Cordelia is quite ready yet, but it sounds like Gwen is ready and loving it. There really is nothing wrong with purees. That's what we did with Valerie. Do whatever you think is right and don't let anyone tell you that you're doing it wrong.

As for chewing, their gums are really hard and their tongue is strong. They basically mush it around in their mouth until it is ready to be swallowed.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

When I fed her some mashed up ham lentil soup, I did notice that she can masticate pretty well even without teeth. In the future if I'm brave enough I may try handing her larger (> choke size) pieces of random things to see what she makes of them. She loves putting anything she can grab onto into her mouth, that's for sure!

[englandbound.livejournal.com]

Sounds good :)

If you are concerned about choking (their gag reflex is quite good although Valerie did scare me a few times) see if you can take a child CPR class and watch her closely when she eats. Greg and I took one when Valerie was little. It's probably not a bad idea for all parents anyway as it is impressive what babies can get their hands on...even when watched closely. A refresher for Greg and me is probably a good idea.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

It's definitely something I want to do. Maybe at her 6 month check-up I'll ask if there's any place that offers such courses in English.