Developmental Milestones

This morning (or rather yesterday morning), while his nappy was being changed, Bubby pulled his feet up to his face and started sucking on his toes. He's been working up to it for a while but yesterday was the first time he actually managed it. This got me thinking about developmental milestones. Not that toe-sucking is an actual milestone. First there's the smiling. I love the smiles and I will never get sick of it. I especially like the random smiles where he'd look at me intently and then smile for no reason. I wonder what goes through his head then. Or when he pushes himself off the floor and beams with pride. There's also the baby babble. I love this too but not so much at 5 am when I'm desperate for a little bit more sleep. On the other hand, it is nice to wake up to at say, 7 am. Then there's the laughing. Smile, Babble, Laugh. That's the golden trifecta.

Then there's the rolling. I worked hard at training him how to roll from back to tummy and was super excited when he finally did it on his own. That's really when my nightmare started. It wasn't long before I would wake up to this.

Worried about the SIDS risk I got rid of the sleep positioner. He went from sleeping from 8.30 pm to 7 or 8 am to waking several times a night because he'd roll but would need someone to turn him over only for him to roll again immediately. So I end up feeding him back to sleep. Milk is the drug of choice in this house. I was back to the newborn zombie stage. He goes back to sleep, I emerge in the real morning looking like a junkie fallen on hard times.

The crawling. Oh the crawling. He can't even crawl yet but it doesn't stop him from trying. In fact, that's just all the more reason to try, all hours of the bloody night. For a while he got used to sleeping on his tummy and I got a couple of weeks of okay sleep. He'd only occasionally wake up. I attributed it to sleep regression or growth spurt, although I saw little evidence of this. Then he started to learn to crawl. I would wake up to thuds in the middle of the night because he's managed to get close to the head or side or corner of the cot and he'd bang his head. Bubby is the Thing that goes bump in the night. And so The 3 AM Feed is born. I used to be in utter despair from sleep deprivation and would cry and hit my own head in frustration but I've accepted my new situation, embraced it and started this blog. Hopefully, I might be able to change the name of the blog soon.

There are other milestones, like when learns to reach and grab things deliberately (not just the instinctive grab on to everything). It's fun to watch him play with his crinkly Lamaze toys (and not just stuff it in his mouth which is a developmental thing too. He will inevitably stuff it in his mouth though). One thing I don't like him doing is grabbing my hair. I'm already going bald from the post pregnancy moulting and he's just speeding things along. I do like it when he reaches up to cup my face in his little hands but not so much when he digs his sharp little claws into my cheeks and pull.

Speaking of milestones, I have one of my own. I can fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans again! The one that is figure hugging and makes me feel like I look Hot in it (Disclaimer: I cannot vouch for whether the Hotness is real or imagined). Say what you will about me, but I have a healthy dose of self esteem/ body image delusion. There is the slight problem of the muffin top. Hey, I only said I fit into it not that it made me look Hot once again.

Note the time people. Bubby didn't wake for a feed until 5.30 this morning!