Geoff and Gina's Little Addition: July 2012

Our little Stella has started standing up against things.. the first was against Robyn's ottoman - she even let go and stood completely on her own without holding onto anything for 5 seconds without even realising! (see pics & vid below)

In the kitchen a couple of weeks ago, I adapted a song from Moms & Babes "Wash your dirty face/hands/knees etc" to 'Wash the dirty dishes' & when I looked over, Stella was rubbing her hands together in the actions for 'Wash your dirty hands'! -- she never did them at Moms and Babes so I was very surprised to see her doing them at home! It constantly amazes me when there is evidence of things being learned that I don't even know about!

Sleep is going a lot better: Stella was waking up between 4 and 10 times a night. We're now down to between 1 and 3 wakings, which is much more manageable.

We're still struggling with food - Stella is a rather fussy eater who likes to feed herself... but she mostly plays with the food if given half an opportunity to do so. It is very time consuming & very messy! So we're mixing a little baby-led-weaning with a bit of puree / porridge feeding (she still loves her banana porridge - I mix in some real bananas, double thick Greek yoghurt & 60ml of milk formula). As she gets used to feeding herself, I'd like to phase feeding her out & let her feed herself - the sooner she can learn to do that, the sooner she may eat more - and hopefully sleep better!!

We had a clinic visit on the 3rd of July & it was confirmed that her growth - weight and height - are following her chart line perfectly (she's just above the 'average' line). Sandy says that some babies are food guzzlers - some are milk guzzlers (that's Stella!)