Now she's making gurgling noises! She's responding to us copying our noises and starting the process of learning to speak! and she's smiling more and more! She also follows me with her eyes as I move around the room and has started actively preferring to being held by me and Coyote, which means her attachment is growing and growing. She settles and calms faster with us, which shows she feels secure with us. Which is just lovely! Especially after spending so much time looking after other people's children, when, however much they like or love me, I wasn't mum, I wasn't the preferred person. Having my baby love me as mum is just...it's unbelievably nice.
We've also started our bedtime routine, to help her keep sleeping well (and it seems to be working). The first thing that we've started doing is not letting her sleep too much during the day. Tabitha will sleep almost constantly if I'm holding her, in fact her first couple of naps of the day are always cuddled on my lap. And most of the time I'm happy to let her. But now, after 4 o'clock (if it's been a quiet and sleepy day, later if she's been busy and not got much sleep) I put her down to play on the play mat, talk and play games with her, give her tummy time and generally keep things active until about 8 when the lights get turned down low, the tv gets turned down, she gets changed into a baby grow, has a nappy change and a feed while I read to her and put down in her Moses basket and given her dummy (if she wants it, she doesn't always). She might still take a little while to settle, but a lot less time than before.
We've also given her a little comfort blanket with a mouse on it (called blanky mouse) and I've been putting a little bit of breast milk on it so it smells good. and she's been cuddling it, and pulling it close and sleeping with it in her arms, which is very cute.
(Tabitha and Blanky Mouse)
No comments:
Post a Comment