During the summer holidays Noah turned 7-months old and to summarise, his seventh month consisted of a lot of teething, frustration from trying to but not being able to crawl, and tasting new foods. Most of the month we were away (see my previous post about our holiday ) and in that sense I hope it was an exciting time for him. But it was also so exciting for us that I didn’t really notice the difference and development in him until we got back home, apart from the first six teeth of course!! In fairness to Noah, he coped with the teething very well all things considered. He had the bottom two cut through first, and the top four (!!) followed within days! He slept ok still but was considerably more grumpy. Similar to Maia, grumpiness and keenness to chew things tend to be his only symptoms of teething.
I felt like we didn’t make much progress with weaning during our holiday and I was keen to get back to it. But I found myself struggling because Noah simply stopped opening his mouth. Since I didn’t spoon-feed Maia, this came to me as a surprise and I didn’t know what to do. One day I was sitting at the table with them two and trying to get Maia to eat properly (she’s been a bit naughty) and while I was focused on her Noah had picked up the spoon and was eating by himself! So it wasn’t that he didn’t like the food, he just didn’t like being fed – what a revelation! Since then I’ve been focused on cooking foods that are easy for him to eat, either finger food or thick purée/mashed food. I haven’t given him meat yet but I started with white fish instead. He has enjoyed a mash of roasted sweet potato, broccoli and flakes of pan-fried cod. Other favourites are cheese-broccoli scones and sweet potato-oat bites. A breakfast favourite has been carrot porridge. All from the Wean in 15-book. I also stated giving him water with meals from a sippy cup. I never gave him the bottle but Noah took to the sippy cup quickly and as long as I help him to tilt it he does very well with it. I still breastfeed on demand, but I try to offer his meals before a milk feed. Sometimes if he gets too hungry it’s easier to breastfeed for 5-minutes to take the edge off so that he has energy to sit and eat solids.
By the time we got back home from holidays we were living Noah’s eighth month with new exciting developments. His ability to sit up properly and grab toys and to move around a bit by rolling and shuffling have made him a much better playmate for Maia. Maia is such a good big sister and she likes playing with him and he in turn giggles at almost anything she does (easy audience, right?!). I’m still teaching Maia to share toys and not to take toys from Noah’s hand, but so far it hasn’t been a huge issue since Noah let’s her do it without kicking up a fuss. Noah is still frustrated with crawling but he keeps practicing and I’m sure he’ll master his technique in a few weeks. Maia also loves pushing Noah in the swings and it’s just a heart melting sight. I finally converted the pram into the pushchair-mode and Maia and Noah entertain each other as she stands on her board facing Noah. Except when he’s kicking her, that is… I have been bathing them together for months now but recently it’s gotten easier and more fun because of Noah’s improved balance and I can have him sit in the tub with Maia without having to worry about him falling over. I used to use a bath support on which he would lay but for the past couple of months he hasn’t been very keen on lying down and he would just try to sit up and climb out of it. Now I don’t use the support anymore but instead have a non-slip mat on the bottom of the tub on which they sit splashing. Bath time is fun, noisy and very wet – they are just so adorable together. ❤️ Bath has always been part of of the bedtime routine and still is, but it’s definitely no longer relaxing. 😅
In September we had Noah’s sleep regress… He started waking up very frequently at night again, every 1-2 hours, which was exhausting. It wouldn’t have been as bad if Maia’s sleep wasn’t disturbed as well from starting nursery (more about this later!) but we got to the point where we barely slept at all. I also noticed first signs of separation anxiety in Noah and wondered whether that contributed to the poor sleep. I think it’s a sum of factors, increased mobility being one of them. Noah started rolling and crawling around the bed and even pulling himself up the sides (we quickly dropped the cot bottom). As you might remember I am an advocate of age-appropriate sleep training (the gentler the better) and I always planned to take the next step and move from the “shush-pat” to teaching independent sleep after we had his nursery ready, the custom-made blackout blinds took awhile to be delivered in the current pandemic, and he had gotten used to it. But I had been waiting for us to get back from holidays first. After we were back I wanted to give it a few weeks while I was focused on Maia who started nursery school. And then I started wondering whether it was the wrong time for sleep training because of all the leaps in his development… So once again I picked up my trusted guide book, “Precious Little Sleep” (side note: I LOVE this book! It literally saved my life and marriage already once!) and it reminded me that there will never be a perfect time. There’s always something going on, teething, colds, etc, which will impact sleep. As long as I am ready and have the opportunity to commit to the project, the time is good enough.
So one week ago I started sleep training. To teach falling asleep independently we followed our normal bedtime routine but left Noah in his cot awake and came in at intervals to check on him (5-10-15-… minutes). This is what we did with Maia too when she was 9-months old (read: sleep training Maia). Our normal evening routine is: dinner at 5.30pm, bath at 6pm, bedtime story, sing “twinkle twinkle little star” and bed by 7pm. I have put Maia to bed first and then Noah because I have needed to stay with him until he’s asleep. The bedtime routine has been quite challenging with both kids because Maia has been craving for mummy-time and has used all the delay tactics in her arsenal to extend the bedtime and by 7pm poor Noah has been absolutely exhausted. Picture one tired but hyper toddler jumping around the bedroom demanding a third story while her baby brother is crying from exhaustion… not fun for anyone. So the way I changed our routine was to take Noah to his room by 6.30pm, after getting their pyjamas on, leaving Maia in her room with her books for five minutes. I give Noah a cuddle and sing twinkle twinkle, and put him to bed saying “ssshhhhh sleep time”. I leave the room and go back to Maia to read her a bedtime story. On the first night Noah started crying angrily, and my husband went into his room after 5-minutes to give him a quick reassuring pat and say “shhhh sleep time”. Noah continued to cry in rage. My husband went in again after 10-minutes to do the same. But before the third check (after 15-minutes) Noah has fallen asleep! By then I had finished my story to Maia and put her to bed too. It was 7pm and both kids were in bed and we were sat on the sofa wondering what would happen next. Not much happened! At night I gave it 5-minutes to see if he went down on his own (he did once) but I still fed him stove. He’s been used to quite a few night feeds so it wouldn’t even be fair to try to drop them immediately. The first night was however infinitely better than our nights before that.
I repeated the exercise the following day and the crying was cut to half- Noah cried for 15-minutes during which we went in once to shush. Two night feeds again. On day three he only cried for 5-minutes! And by day four he didn’t cry anymore at bedtime but simply rolled over to go to sleep. By day six Noah only woke up once to feed at night and by day seven he slept through the night! He slept from 6.45pm until 6am in his own cot. Amazing. It’s too early to assume this is the new norm (on day eight he woke up once at 4.30am) but we are definitely making huge progress!! I’m so pleased and very relieved.
During the day Noah has two naps and for the time being I’m still helping him to sleep. The morning nap tends to be in the buggy and I’d like to keep it that way because it works well with Maia’s nursery drop off and I enjoy a morning walk after that. In the afternoons I’m working on getting Noah to nap simultaneously with Maia in his own cot but this is still work in progress. It’s more important to simply make the naps happen while I focus on independent sleeping at night. Fingers crossed we’ll carry on on this trajectory!
I honestly can’t pick my favourite baby age – I love all the stages! ❤️
xoxoxo,
Sini