Fruity little miss

Having picked Emily up from Katherine the child minder's today I was told that Em couldn't stop blowing raspberries. This comes as quite a shock (or very least surprise) as she's never really done this before.

I assumed it was a daytime, with the child minder thing and left it at that. Lo and behold, we're not home an hour before she's doing it for me too, complete with soaking wet, spit-soaked chin. I've heard tell of other children doing this, and I guess it's a developmental stage, but I just don't know what it means.

Will have to investigate further.

Update: Apparently, Emily blew razzies before at around 6 months and then stopped. We've surmised it might be something to do with teething still.

Baby dehydration

Image via Wikipedia

Just when you think that breast feeding is the defacto best method for feeding your child, a horror story about dehydration, salt build up and gangrene appears in the press.

The BBC (among others) has run with a story today outlining how breast feeding your child CAN lead to - in extreme cases - death. So much for breast is best.

Apparently, in the early stages of life, it's a bit of a crapshoot getting your child to latch on to the nipple correctly. Then you're never sure how much is being taken in. If the child isn't taking in enough, hypernatraemic dehydration can occur. When this happens,"the levels of sodium in [the child's] blood rise dramatically, and if untreated, this can lead to seizures, gangrene, brain damage - and in the worst cases, death. "

When Emily was born we were told that the collostrum that was in Sue breasts (think the crusty topping in a gold top bottle of milk) might not enough to feed the hungry belly of a large baby like Emily, so we supplemented the first few nights with formula until the milk ran free.

Thankfully we never had an issue with Em "clamping on," as it were. There's enough crap out there without having to worry about the "fool proof" method of nourishing your child.

Crawling... an update

When we picked Emily up from the child minder's last night, Sue and I had quite a shock - she was crawling. True to form, however, Em had decided not to do it the conventional way. Instead, she was crawling backwards. Months ago, she was scooting across the floor on her back backwards, now she's crawling backwards.

Never one to follow societal norms is our baby!

Here's hoping she learns to walk forwards, else watch out walls...

Huge cranium

We've been told Emily's a large girl for her age and we're used to hearing it. This morning, just for fun, I found a measuring tape and decided to do a random measurement - head circumference. 

The measurement - her head is 19" (48cm) around - really meant nothing to me until I searched Google to put it in context. The search results were quite astounding. According to kidsgrowth.com, her head is still off the chart for a 10-11 month old. 

This just re-interates the eye-watering fact that she was NEVER coming out of mummy naturally AND the fact that everytime she tries to crawl she drops her heavy noggin on the floor.

Of course I'm not sure why this chart is published by the CDC in the US. Hopefully huge heads don't equate to some sort of horrible disease.

On the subject of large heads, here's a clip from "So, I Married An Axe Murderer." Suffice to say I won't be berating Emily anywhere near as much as Mike Myers character berates "Head" in this clip.

Drink! Straw!

Apart from the pee-soaked swim nappy incident, we also discovered something cool about Emily today. She can drink through a straw!

At the aforementioned Sainsbury's Cafe, we bought her a juice box with a straw as we didn't have a bottle for her. We thought we'd try the straw on the off chance before emptying the juice box into a cup.

To our astonishment, she sucked it all up and never thought twice.

Our child continues to amaze us!

Been caught "napping"

On Saturdays, we usually take Emily to Aqua Tots to learn the very basics of swimming - kicking, holding your breath under water, etc.

Today, the class was cancelled - we're assuming due to weather which, by now, was not a problem. Usually on Saturdays, we'd swim, change and either go for breakfast or do errands. Today we skipped the first two and headed straight to the latter... much to our peril.

After stopping a couple of shops (including bargain-ladened T.K. Maxx), we decided to take a coffee/breakfast break at the local Sainsbury's Cafe, with Emily still kitted out in her swim wear - bathing suit, waterproof nappies - under her snow suit.

When it came time to go, we got a rude shock - Emily was soaking. First thought was the high chair had some liquid spilt in it that we put Em in. On further examination, we realised that the waterproof nappies weren't actually pee-proof.

I can only imagine the discomfort of sitting in your own urine for any length of time, but credit to Em, she wasn't ALL that upset!

A quick change later (we always have a change of clothes for after swimming, so it was only a matter of getting her into the "street wear") and the crisis was a funny footnote.

As a parent you're continually learning and we learned today the important lesson that waterproof is not pee-proof...that or babies don't like Sainsbury's cafes.

Hey, dummy

We've not really given Em a dummy since she was really little. I think we've missed out on a trick here.

Normally, Sue breastfeeds her and that sends her to sleep. With Sue's imminent return to work, we won't be able to count on this as the magic bullet for much longer (especially for afternoon naps).

Today, after much advice, we decided to break out the dummy again. Magically, it took about 10 minutes and a minimum of crying before her Em-ness was fast asleep.

Here we thought it was the milk sending her off - and sometimes it is, judging from her drunk-eyes. Today, we realised it might also be the sucking motion itself that pushes her over the edge into Slumbertown.

Whatever gets her there is good in the end!

TV make baby dumb

Everyone knows that reality TV turns your brain to mush. The conventional wisdom is that kids TV - the good stuff, the educational stuff can only help.

Having read an article at ParentCentral made me quite aware and scared that even educational, learning stuff like Sesame Street can have a detrimental effect on Emily.

"In one of the most extensive reviews of its kind, the Seattle pediatrician says infant-aimed DVDs such as Baby Einstein, and even award-winning kids' shows like Sesame Street, can do more harm than good to children under the age of 2."

Of course, my parents used the TV as a baby sitter while doing things like laundry and making dinner and I turned out OK. Just wondering if I would have turned out better than OK if I wasn't being babysat by The Count and Grover.

More food

Visited with friends yesterday and their son is underweight. Made me think of our little food vacuum.

Still curious whether we're under or overfeeding her. She just seems to shovel in everything you give her. There are the warning signs she's not starving anymore, which are also akin to being bored. However, if you take that sign as being full, she can easily be crabby an hour later due to hunger. Best to make sure she eats quickly then? Not sure.

I went to Sainsbury's the other day and stocked up various types of cheeses for Em. A couple had fruit in them, a couple didn't. I realise that some - like feta - are mega salty, so they're out. I don't want her on an all cheese diet (how AWESOME would that be, though), but a nice variety from jars of sludge is nice.

Em also had her first curry the other night. Some tasteless chicken curry concoction for kids from Asda. Added some mango chutney to give it SOME flavour, but was careful not to add too much as it's obviously rather sweet. The chunks of chicken took their toll on poor Em though as she seemed to chew and chew and chew... rubbing her eyes like she was about to nod off.

I've said it before, and I'll reiterate now, I can't wait until she can speak or articulate things, so she can tell us she's full or hungry... or tell us what she likes, doesn't like and why she was choking.

First words or just blah blah blah

Em has been "talking" now for quite a while. First there was "da da da" then there was "ba ba ba," you know just getting used to sounds. Over X-Mas she seemed to add "dukka dukka" to her repertoire as well.

The other night cousin Ben was over and as he was leaving we were all saying "buh bye" as you do, but in that annoyingly condescending way you can only get away with talking to a baby. As we were doing what most adults would smack us for, Em actually said "buh bye" as well. Of course, this has not been repeated since and part of me feels that a trained parrot has no idea of what they're saying either (i.e. we said it so much she just repeated it).

Since that "monumental event", Em has now added "ma ma ma" to her vocab, which has pleased Sue to no end. For me, it's signifying that Em is becoming comfortable with more sounds and mouth movements and this kind of development can only be good.