Saskia's now a month old, unbelievably. It's probably been the most intensive month - both emotionally and physically speaking - of our lives, as we get used to looking after and living with this little person. And although progress of any kind is very gradual, looking back through the blog you can see how she and we have come on since the end of December. Our biggest achievements to shout about now are:
1. She's now only waking us twice a night! OK, I'd have been horrified if I'd envisaged myself bragging about this a few months back, but after the first few days at home when we couldn't even get her to sleep in her cot and then only in two-hour bursts, this feels very sophisticated.
2. If we're really lucky, she might go to sleep on her own about 9pm. We've been aiming for this over the past week and incredibly it actually happened on Thursday and also Saturday when after an hour of coaxing she fell asleep and left her Mum and Dad to have more than an hour of quality time to themselves (of course we spent this mainly glued to the baby monitor or talking about sleep patterns, but what did you expect).
3. As you can see from the picture above, she’s getting much more alert now too and has made her peace with the Activity Mat - as long as one of us is rattling the toys on it like the clappers to distract her from the cheek of having been put down in the first place. She focuses her eyes well and likes looking at the various dangly objects above her – and hasn’t worked out the weird thing in the middle is her own reflection in the mirror!!
4. Finally, we think (but can’t be quite sure) that she has started smiling. There are the usual doubts that this is just as she does a spectacular number two, but it’s happening enough now that we think we’re onto something. A beautiful smile it is too, although fleeting enough that of course I never have a camera around to capture the moment...
After a few days of Nana Weiss looking after us all with some great home-cooking, useful advice and even babysitting while we snuck a drink next door for an hour, Wendy has now been on her own with Saskia for two weeks. They seem to have worked out a nice routine of getting out and about in the pram, and next week there are even rumours of walking all the way into town which is quite an achievement.
1. She's now only waking us twice a night! OK, I'd have been horrified if I'd envisaged myself bragging about this a few months back, but after the first few days at home when we couldn't even get her to sleep in her cot and then only in two-hour bursts, this feels very sophisticated.
2. If we're really lucky, she might go to sleep on her own about 9pm. We've been aiming for this over the past week and incredibly it actually happened on Thursday and also Saturday when after an hour of coaxing she fell asleep and left her Mum and Dad to have more than an hour of quality time to themselves (of course we spent this mainly glued to the baby monitor or talking about sleep patterns, but what did you expect).
3. As you can see from the picture above, she’s getting much more alert now too and has made her peace with the Activity Mat - as long as one of us is rattling the toys on it like the clappers to distract her from the cheek of having been put down in the first place. She focuses her eyes well and likes looking at the various dangly objects above her – and hasn’t worked out the weird thing in the middle is her own reflection in the mirror!!
4. Finally, we think (but can’t be quite sure) that she has started smiling. There are the usual doubts that this is just as she does a spectacular number two, but it’s happening enough now that we think we’re onto something. A beautiful smile it is too, although fleeting enough that of course I never have a camera around to capture the moment...
After a few days of Nana Weiss looking after us all with some great home-cooking, useful advice and even babysitting while we snuck a drink next door for an hour, Wendy has now been on her own with Saskia for two weeks. They seem to have worked out a nice routine of getting out and about in the pram, and next week there are even rumours of walking all the way into town which is quite an achievement.
Sas is also getting used to being trussed up in the Baby-Bjorn pouch and we ventured up this weekend onto Cleeve Hill with Naomi who was back again for another glimpse of her niece. All went well until I thought I’d let Naomi bond with Sas by carrying her back to the car – little Miss W had other plans though and decided to test the acoustics of the Vale of Evesham instead.
Another change is that she has finally started to fit into some of the zillions of clothes that friends have so generously given or lent us. So last week Sas was able to sport the fetching cardigan/pink trousers combo below (where she's yawning not crying, in case you were wondering!!), and in a flash it was like she was almost a little girl rather than the sleepsuited baby we'd been waiting on for the past few weeks. She's hardly moving into her own place just yet, but it does feel like our little girl is getting older quickly.
Our next challenges are to try to stop Saskia getting so windy and distressed after her feeds (I’m all for taking the easy option and lacing her milk with Gripe Water, but Wendy is sensibly holding me back until we’ve tried to sort it out with the traditional backrubs and slinging her over the shoulder), and to persuade her to restrict her night-time awakenings down to just once. We’ll see how we get on!!
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