It’s bee a while since I wrote your last update and my goodness, as I look back we’ve had quite a few months! You have come on leaps and bounds over the last twelve weeks and are becoming more toddler and less baby by the minute. You’ve also become a cousin for the first time and while you’re not quite sure why you’re having to share the limelight suddenly, I think you’re both going to grow to be the best of friends.

Not only are you crawling at speed, you are a pro stair-climber and spend hours each day waddling up and down the room with your walker. When you first mastered it, each time you’d reach one end you’d promptly sit down and applaud yourself with such pride. Now though, a few weeks in you have finally sussed how to reverse and turn yourself around. This last week you have even started to let go and just stand casually unsupported babbling away to anyone who will listen. 

I will be completely honest, I have been a bit worried about your speech and your lack of words, but suddenly you are singing out ‘Mum, Mum, Mum’, ‘Nan, Nan, Nan’ and of course, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad’ over and over again…. And breathe. You also take great pride in your ability to tell me what noise a cow and a fish make! You chat away constantly making all sorts of sounds, and eagerly wait for us to reply so we can have a proper chinwag. I have no doubt that you are going to be a bit of a chatter box!

Your sense of humor is really growing and you are becoming such a funny little thing. You have us in stitches every single day and certainly know how to play a crowd. You are at your best in a room full of people where you can really show off your cheekiness and blow kisses to everyone with such gusto that sometimes I wonder if you’r cheeks are going to implode! You’re finding us quite funny too, and I’ve caught you really chuckling at Peter Rabbit & Mr Tumble too which is just the cutest thing. 

Despite us all getting pretty much all of the glorious winter bugs over and over plus a delightful visit from the Chicken Pox, we seem to have fit in so many firsts and little milestones through over the last few months. You’ve seen and played in your first snow, we finally took you swimming, and we’ve celebrated your first Easter with an insane amount of chocolate! Now that we are all feeling better we made the decision to move your cot into your nursery, just after you hit 10 months old. It was such a huge thing for me that I just hadn’t been ready to do until right then. You’ve taken to it SO SO well and seem so completely unphased by it all. You just go with the flow! 

When it comes to play, you have learned a few little games that you love. You would play our own little version of catch all day long if you could – you squeal with glee each time you roll, throw or pass a ball to one of us and clap every single time. I have lost count of the amount of times I have sung If you’re Happy and you Know it, Horsey, Horsey! and Twinkle Twinkle after your constant requests. I love how much you love music and singing and dancing. But most of all, you adore books. Every morning, I pop you on the floor in the living room while I get your morning bottle ready and come back in to find you sitting among a sea of books that you’ve pulled off of the shelf, casually flicking through your favourites, lifting the flaps, fiddling with the feely bits and leaning forward to kiss the characters. Your love of reading and stories just makes me so proud. You are a girl after my own heart! 

Your relationships with your ‘people’ are just becoming stronger and stronger. You and your Daddy are becoming quite the mischievous pair. Whenever I turn my back I can hear you both getting up to all the things Mama doesn’t let you do – take Easter morning for example when I found you chomping your way through an entire Easter Egg before you’d even had your morning bottle! Hearing you both play and giggle together is simply just the best sound and your excitement when he walks through the door each day fills me with utter joy. 

We still see Aunty Libby almost every day and she seems to top the list when it comes to your favourite people, possibly only just missing out to the dog. She wears her badge as your aunty with such pride and absolutely wraps you in love every time she’s here, and trust me, you’re the only person on this earth who can get away with getting mucky handprints on her trousers and systematically messing up her make up brushes every time we go and visit her and Nanny. 

Alfie, oh poor Alfie. He’s doing his very best to accept your totally intense love for him. You seek him out at any opportunity and crawl at him with such conviction and yet he just lays there, gives you a quick lick on the hand when you reach him and promptly gets up and moves out of your reach. However, he is also your little shadow at times, checking on you every now and then just to see if you’re okay and getting a quick bunch of kisses on your cheek before I shoo him away! Which by the way, you find hilarious! 

I am sure there is just so much more that you’ve learned and accomplished over the last few months that I haven’t managed to fit in here. Little girl, my little Florrie Bum, you amaze and inspire me every single day and I am so happy to be able to call myself your Mama. 

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There comes a time when you’re a parent that you just have to put the rule book to one side and trust your instincts. Don’t get me wrong, that rule book comes in handy more often than we probably like to admit, but I also think we should remember that no two babies are the same and that reading your baby’s signals and trusting your gut feeling is so important.

Florence has always been an amazing sleeper, self settling and sleeping through from six weeks old but over the last few weeks she’s been struggling to settle anywhere and all the fail safe tricks are no longer working. She is draining her 9 oz bottles at every feed and despite me adding an extra bottle into our days she just hasn’t been satisfied. (We’ve been advised not to change her milk to ‘hungry baby’ versions.)   Both make for a very hungry & over tired baby who, while it’s what all the cool kids do, just isn’t quite cut out for the all night party lifestyle she’s been going for lately. Combine these two factors with Florence’s ability to hold her head up and steady without need for a break, can sit unaided for long periods of time, and has brilliant hand to mouth coordination.  Not to mention her sudden interest in our dinner plates and tendency to grab a handful of whatever we’re eating and attempt to get it in her mouth before we stop her! And so, after doing all the research, listening to the advice from friends, family & health professionals alike, we have decided to start weaning Florence at four months old.

We’ve started off slowly, giving her a quarter portion of very runny baby porridge at dinner time, before her 6pm bottle & bath. While I was cautious and didn’t really expect her to eat much of it at all to begin with, she just can’t get enough! Even on her first sitting on Saturday, she polished the entire portion off and would have kept going if she could have.

We have already started to see our happy little Florence return and she’s back on track and already more settled in the evenings so, while it’s early days, I think I am confident that we have done the right thing by starting to wean her earlier than the 6 month guideline.

We are going to stick to just the porridge for at least the first few weeks and then over time slowly start introducing different flavours and making our own purees week by week to ensure we can identify any allergies or intolerance.

When did you start to wean your little one?

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