Seven months.
Sitting unsupported, which was the big news for Ingrid a month ago, is now everyday fare. I no longer bother to put a pillow behind her, even. I was going to write that it’s been weeks since she last fell over, but then she went and proved me wrong earlier today… Bath times are a lot easier and less nerve-wracking now that I no longer need to hold onto her all the time, and can reach for the sponge without worrying.
She uses her new upright position to explore the world around her. A good way to keep her amused now is to put a big box with stuff in front of her. She takes each of the things from the box, briefly turns it over and puts it in her mouth, then puts it down next to her and reaches for the next. When the box is almost empty – empty enough to not be fun any more – she shouts. I shovel everything back in the box and she starts over.
Likewise when we are out on one of our afternoon walks, she reaches out for things she can see from the pushchair. We drive close to leafy bushes, and brick walls, and lamp posts, and she pokes at them with her fingers. Luckily both brick walls and lamp posts are impossible to put in the mouth so I don’t need to worry about how dirty they are. I just hope the bushes I take her to are not immediately poisonous. (Not that I allow her to eat them but she does occasionally pull them to her mouth.)
All this lifting and grasping has been good practice for her hands and fingers. She can grip things she would have dropped a month ago, and no longer runs the danger of accidentally hitting herself in the head or poking her eyes with them. This has greatly increased the range of toys she can play with. All kinds of non-fragile and non-dangerous household items can now be put into toy duty: whisks, bowls, measuring spoons, empty jars, CD cases and so on.
Ingrid would also very much like to move around on her own. When she is lying down, she often spots something interesting just out of reach, and pushes with her whole body to reach it. She has never yet moved forward by even the slightest bit – at best she manages to push herself backwards. But moving backwards is quite enough to get her tangled up in furniture, and when you add rolling over, she can accidentally reach all sorts of things. They are generally unsuited to chewing but of course they tend to end up in her mouth anyway. I am actually not looking forward to her learning to crawl.
During the last two weeks Ingrid has become more clingy – unless I’m imagining things. It may be because she has been sick for quite a lot of this time, or maybe she’s starting to realise that she is forced to be apart from us during the week. I’ve been holding and carrying her around more than I used to. Once again I am really grateful for our slings and baby carriers!
About a week ago she also began to go to sleep on her own, with no rocking or patting or shushing. This was a development that took me completely by surprise: there were no signs that anything like this was about to happen. After two nights of a lot of crying, it suddenly became obvious that any rocking or patting was now just disturbing and upsetting her. I can now help her calm down if (or rather, when) she wakes up and is upset in the middle of the night, but I cannot help her go back to sleep. And when she isn’t upset, I can just lay her down and she goes to sleep with no help at all.
I have a suspicion that the clinginess and the independent sleeping are related. They may sound like complete opposites, but I think she may be coming to realise that she is separate from me, and can be separate from me. Separation anxiety, in other words. When she is upset, whether it’s day or night, it is generally enough to just pick her up and hold her close.
