At nearly 5 months...

Its been a while since I've posted on Faith's developments. Physically and emotionally, my baby has grown quite a fair bit... ok, maybe less about the physical development as in she's not grown much in terms of size or weight. But definitely the emotional and also some level of gross and fine motor skills.

For the last few weeks, Faith has occasionally experienced an early onset of stranger anxiety. Usually, that hits babies at about 8-9 months. But we've noticed that she sometimes cry when we leave her with my in-laws or when not so familiar folks or strangers carry her. To help smoothen out some of her anxieties, especially about being left with my in-laws, Louis and I had taken to bringing her to their place after dinner on weeknights to just sit and play while the both of us are in the house. We think it might have helped becos she's mostly alright now. However, at times, she might purse her little lips still as if to start crying. When that happens, my FIL quickly shuffles her downstairs for a while or to the NTUC supermarket to distract her.

On her physical development, Faith's latest feat is to clutch both her feet with her 2 little hands and occasionally, bring one or even both feet up to her mouth to gnaw on them. Its rather funny and amusing, although diaper changing can be a little of a wrestling match as she would stick her two little feet up in the air and I'm struggling to bring them down so that I can fasten the sticky-tapes of the diapers.

I think my little baby is teething or exhibiting signs of teething. I've been trying to feel her upper and lower gums, as well as to gently pry her mouth open just to see if there are any white-ish marks on her gums. So far, it doesn't looks as if any tooth is sprouting soon.

However, for a few nights last week, she hasn't really been sleeping well. While she used to wake up naturally and smile in the mornings, a few times last week, she would be thrashing and flailing her hands about while sleeping. In the afternoons, she would sometimes fuss a lot more than her usual too. She had a one-time diarrhea as well as rashes around her diaper area. And mostly, she likes to stick her hands into her mouth, generating lots of saliva as well. Sometimes, I would let her catch hold of my fingers, where she would draw them into her mouth and start biting hard with her gums. Our paedi thinks it might still be early days for her to actually start teething. So, we'll just have to wait it out and see if any tooth/teeth starts sprouting over the next few weeks.

And the most exciting thing that happened today is that the paedi gave us the go-ahead to start giving some solids to Faith and get her exposed to the different textures of food. Louis and I have just bought her a packet of organic rice cereals over the weekend and finally, we can start feeding her. Even though I'm very very eager to start feeding her tomorrow, I've decided to hold off and wait until this weekend or next Monday to start her on the rice cereals. Why? Becos Louis is away in London this week for a business convention and I would like him to be able to participate by both feeding and watching his little girl take on the next development milestone.

Frankly, Louis and I are absolutely hopeless when it comes to bottle-feeding our girl. Faith is so distracted when Louis feeds her cos he would be singing or rocking her to cajole her to drink and our little one would just be so entranced or she would be busy gurgling back to her daddy (Yeah! She's a regular daddy's girl) that she wouldn't drink. And me... well... you all should know by now why I'm not able to feed Faith. So, feeding her solids would hopefully be a feat that both of us are able to do, preferably, without her spitting out those contents right back at our face *grin*

Faith's now able to hold her neck sturdily while sitting in the activity station (or exersaucer). When we first brought it home and placed her in it, her head would flop forward and she would actually end up sucking the front of the rotatable seat. But now, she's able to sit up fairly decently and hold her neck steady while playing with the toys. Of course her back muscle hasn't development fully yet, so, she's kinda slouching in the seat with a pillow propped behind her back.

Now, I'm just waiting for her to learn to flip from her stomach onto her back. I wrote before that she could do it. Apparently, it was a one-time feat, yet to be repeated again. So, more tummy time is in order :)