Week 56 – continues to be clingy, major sleep regression, signing for milk

As the reception drew to a close and it was dessert time, we pulled out the baby monitor to see how she was doing XD. Fast asleep 🙂

Week 56:

Oct 14: Now that she can sign for milk often, it’s ironic that this is now the time to stop giving her too much milk since she needs to learn to rely on solids to keep her full. Too bad… she loves signing for milk.
Oct 15: Can say “yeet” (hot) cuz sometimes things are hot and now she knows and doesn’t touch it.
Despite now slowing down on formula (no need to spend money on formula), she intakes more things like baby oatmeal and baby snacks. The $ previously spent on formula is now solids-based! 😀
When she doesn’t want someone to take her to nap, she actually shakes her head no and tries to reject the person’s arms so she doesn’t get picked up…lol.
She gets startled/scared really easily. I.e., today, she was playing with a batch of AA dry batteries (with supervision) and right before she put one into her mouth, I went “UHHHH”. She jumped and startled. She started crying a few seconds later too lol..
I will never forget the time when I was in the later part of the third trimester pregnant with her and I farted. I felt her startle inside my womb lol. I guess she was sleeping and I interrupted her lol. I will never forget that memory 😆😆.
Oct 20: She continues to be vocal and “demanding” with an attitude 😂😂. She’ll point us to a certain direction she wants to go in or point at snacks or demand milk. She’ll go “lai” and make the hand sign for it many many times.
This week, she loves to point at the two hair claw clips that I wear in my hair daily and demand/ask that I give it to her. She makes a “uhhh!” sound too when she requests for it. And then once she has both clips in her hands, she grins 😂😂🙄.
She has learned to shake her head from side to side and pretty much say no. She does this when we put her in the crib for her daytime naps or when we put her in the high chair. She is truly a full-fledged toddler now who has her own likes and dislikes.
When she does fall asleep in the crib for her daily naps, she can sleep up to 2 hours which is instrumental to us being able to get tasks around the house done or me getting a chance to transcribe some work.
The sleep regression is so, so bad. She is waking up 3 or 4 times a night to feed or for cuddles. DH got up twice to hold her for an hour. He held her from 6 to 7am, he said, and she didn’t want to be put down. So tough. How long does this phase last for? Other babies born September 2020 are also getting up multiple times in the night…
Surprised she is not walking yet. She is not confident yet and tries to avoid falling. She needs to fall when trying to learn to walk..but if she actively prevents herself from falling, of course she won’t be walking yet.
This week, she invented a new game with me. When I’m sitting on the chair facing her and she’s standing she likes me to open my knees and then she’ll rush in and I’ll “squish” her. She likes it and wanted me to play with her multiple times 😂. So great to not rely on toys for entertainment when we can just create games using our body parts and imagination.
She continues to drink breastmilk, formula, and 3.25% cow’s milk.
This week’s pumping has been smooth. No more cracked nipples or bleeding. 🤞🏼 Hope it stays that way.
She says “bye bye” and waves after the person has left/the door has closed. Lol… 😂😂
She’s had a growth spurt or something because she is now much taller! When slowly lowering her to the ground from a chair, for example, it doesn’t take as much time for her feet to reach the floor lol
DH and I were able to escape to/attend a wedding for the first time since pre-pandemic. It was so nice to attend a wedding ceremony and reception again. Thank goodness we have grandma at home to look after bb.
We were told that at bedtime, bb gestured to our room and tried to find me and DH. But there was no one there. That’s the first sign of her “missing” us.
Since she’s not walking on her own yet, she continues to hold onto furniture and cruise along chairs and furniture edges.
She sometimes holds onto the stuffed doll when she initially is put to bed. It’s so cute to see her hugging it.
Her poops are not banana shape but mushy again. Grandma says she’s noticed that since bb started on cow’s milk. Maybe she is lactose intolerant like most Asians?
This week, she’s been laughing at herself blowing a raspberry and then me following up with “boo”. She cracks herself up.
She also laughs when I hold her and tilt her backwards so her head hangs back.
Have been taking less photos of her recently.. just been more busy, I guess.
She’s not interested in using the wooden walker much these days.
Depending on her mood, she sometimes can play by herself with someone in the room close to her. She plays well and then once the adult tries to leave, she knows and starts crying.
She is still a serious clinger — to me 90% of the time.
We were cleaning out grandma’s closet and so I had a yogurt with me to feed her. She liked crawling into my lap to sit facing grandma to watch her sort clothes while I fed her. She likes sitting in my lap and finds it comfortable. She has done this twice. She recognizes my lap as a nice seat 😂.
Dug out a thicker sleep sack for her to sleep in. It’s much longer too for her legs. Very thankful to those friends who passed down so many clothes and baby accessories for us. We have at least 8 sleep sacks of different sizes since she has a newborn that we’ve used, and every single one of them was a hand-me-down. Most of them were brand new and unused too. Very thankful for them.
It’s funny how well time is spent when there is something pressing to do. I was stuck on a 3-hour transcription job that took three times the usual time it would take me to complete it due to various factors. I used my time so much more efficiently since I had little of it. And then once that transcript was submitted, I kind of wasted away the spare time I had when I could have used it to declutter and clean house. Why are we like this?
It’s an ongoing challenge to treat and view bb as a growing individual and not just a “baby”. This is why our own parents still think of and see and treat us as little kids/babies. It’s a difficult thing to turn our minds out of.
She still loves books. She loves turning the pages. For some board books, it’s harder to turn the page, so while I’m reading to her, my right hand holding the book is already finding the next page and pre-flipping it so she can turn the page easier. Otherwise, she sometimes ends up turning too many pages or flipping the entire book itself.
In the “Feminists flip-the-flap” book that involves interaction, she repeats the tone in which I say the word “baby”: “babe-be”. She can copy it.
She continues to build her vocabulary. She can kind say “leg”, “clip”, “ten” this week. All in Cantonese, of course. And of course she knows how to say “clip” as she grabs it from me daily 😂.
I’ve been letting her hold my smartphone since the beginning. I know some parents who don’t let their child touch their phone, but the more “forbidden” an item is to a child, the more they’ll want to touch and search out for it. It’s no big deal if bb takes my phone. I have a lock on it anyway so it’s not like she can access the apps. If I treat it as a normal object, she loses interest in it just like she does for any other object/toy that she plays with.
Instead of saying “mm dut” to her, I’ve replaced it with “mm haw yee” or “mm ho” or “may dut ah” just to not have her say/repeat “mm dut” all the time. So in English, it’s like I say “how about not” or “not yet” instead of a straight “no”.
Oh, and she is 13 months old now!
When I’m pumping and she’s hovering around, she likes to point at the pump and I’ll read the logo out to her, “BellaBaby”. She likes to hear me say it.