Fourteen months.

Just in time for this blog post, Ingrid figured out walking. On Sunday she suddenly started walking – instead of lurching a few steps she happily toddled all the way across the room. Yesterday we were out and she didn’t get much chance to practice, but today in nursery she must have spent all day walking because this evening she was doing it quite confidently, even while holding things in both hands. And she’s now standing so confidently that she can bend her knees to pick things up from the floor, to turn and look over her shoulder, and to stretch up both arms to cheer.

Instantly, when she stands up and walks instead of crawling, she looks a lot older. A toddler, not a baby.

Something has also “clicked” for Ingrid about language. She makes a lot of very varied noises, but doesn’t say anything that I can understand, apart from the aitäh and heja she could do earlier. But it’s clear that she understands some things we say. More interestingly she now also wants to know what things are called. She points at things and says “tääh?” which seems to mean “what is that?”. Sometimes she points all the way across the street so that I have no idea what she might be pointing at, but she seems to like bushes, large bright lamps, and trains. She also points and talks while reading her books, and likes us to tell her the name of what she’s pointing at – it’s not just about turning pages any more.

Pointing in general is a new skill, and a very useful one. Meals are more pleasant for everyone when, instead of just screaming, she can point at what she wants. (Mostly she wants fruit. I think she must be a fruitarian. She never seems to tire of mandarins or grapes.)

She’s learned to make new funny noises with her mouth and hands – saying “aaaa” while patting her mouth with her hand so it goes “waaw-waaw-waaw” for example. Or saying “www” while moving a finger up and down across her lips so they vibrate. Current favourite toy: the long cardboard tube from a roll of wrapping paper. She puts it in her mouth and “talks” into it and listens to the booming noise that comes out at the other end.

We’re also making a fresh effort with baby signing. We’re starting with “more”, “eat” and “nurse” because those should be most useful for all of us. Hmm, maybe we should add something for “train”, so we have something that’s fun and not just useful?

Remember my obsession with Ingrid’s sleep, and how powerless I felt about her bad sleep? Other babies seemed to go to sleep on their own (and without crying, would you believe it!) and sleep through the night, while Ingrid would only go to sleep in a sling (crying even there) and wake up every few hours at night. Even small achievements such as me being able to soothe her back to sleep were post-worthy news.

Somehow, very gradually, things changed. The latest and greatest development is that she can now go to sleep all on her own. Magical! We go into a dark room and nurse. When she’s done I lay her in the big bed surrounded by pillows, wait a short while to see that she really was done and is content, and then I leave. Most of the time she lies there quietly for a while, sucking her thumb, and soon drifts off to sleep. Some days she can jerk half-awake after a while, which seems to make her a bit confused and worried. She complains a bit, I go in and pat her on the back, she lies back down again and goes straight to sleep. But most days I don’t need to go back in at all.

It took me a while to figure out that she was able to do this, because for weeks (or maybe months, I haven’t been counting) we’d get a lot of that slightly anxious jerking awake and sitting up, and I needed to lay her down repeatedly. Then I found myself sitting in the dark bedroom, more and more bored, until one day I realised that I probably didn’t need to. Even then it took several days before I was able to really believe this. It feels like such a turnaround compared to the early months.

Once again I am glad that I let her learn this at her own pace without forcing the issue. I know several of you said it would work out like this in the end, but at the time it seemed quite impossible. You were right after all!

Regular night-time waking, however, seems to be here to stay. Ingrid wakes roughly every 3 hours and will not go back to sleep without a good-sized meal of breast milk. It’s not a matter of needing comfort and company – we still co-sleep and I’m as close as she could possibly want me. The “feed me” wakings are very obviously different from the times when she wakes up and just needs a pat on her back. Sometimes she accepts a drink of water first (and is then clearly quite thirsty) but she always wants to follow up with milk. A combination of thirst, hunger, and habit, I think.

I’ve been thinking off and on about night weaning her. On the one hand I’d love to not be woken at night. On the other hand I’m actually quite used to it, and despite my broken nights I am not nearly as tired as I was when she was younger – I’m not even joining her for naps because I don’t feel I need them. I’m only really bothered by her night feeds when our sleep cycles don’t mesh at all for some reason, and she happens to wake me just as I’m in my deepest sleep. In fact I’m more bothered by her early morning waking (she’s back to around 6:30 which is far too early for my taste) than the night feeds.

And there is no doubt that breastfeeding is still important to her, during the day as well as the night, emotionally as well as nutritionally. My few attempts to get her to settle without feeding have been total failures. Sometimes she just gets more and more upset until I give in because I don’t want to see her in such distress. Other times she does her best to try and go back to sleep, but only manages a very light doze, while she whimpers and keeps looking for the breast. So night weaning would probably take quite an effort. Eric and I had been thinking that Christmas would be a good time for night weaning, because we’ll both be home for a few weeks. But now I am again leaning towards just letting her continue until she seems more ready to stop.

Today Ingrid took a few shaky steps on her own. Very shaky. For some reason she chose to do this experiment in the bath. I remember that she also started pulling herself up to standing in the bath first. I wonder why… is it because the whole atmosphere is so full of splashy joy there? Or because it hurts less to fall on her bottom when the fall is cushioned by water? But her bottom is quite well padded in cloth nappies during daytime as well… Maybe it was just a coincidence.

This Saturday Ingrid had an epiphany: she discovered that she can stand without holding on to anything. And oh how proud and happy she was! She would stand up again and again, beaming happy, clapping her hands and laughing.

Today, just two days later, it’s already becoming routine for her. She stands up in the bath and lets go of the edge in order to play with the bottles, without thinking twice about it. I guess her body was all ready – leg muscles, balance etc. She just needed to switch on the feature and get used to it.

This whole vacation felt like an experiment. We hadn’t been on any particularly adventurous trips with Ingrid – only visiting friends and relatives, and that’s quite different from a week of hiking. We weren’t exactly nervous, but quite unsure about how it would work.

It worked out perfectly all right. Ingrid was OK with sleeping in a strange house and a strange bed. She was OK with being carried on someone’s back most of the day, and spending anything from 1 to 3 hours in a car every day. She was OK with eating strange food at somewhat unpredictable times. She was even OK with two 4-hour flights.

I suspect that she was quite bored much of the time, because she slept more than usual. Or it may just have been due to all the new impressions. But she accepted the boredom quite well.

The only slight complication was that she wouldn’t drink enough water (and did not produce enough wet nappies). Of course breast milk was as popular as ever, but I don’t think the amount she gets nowadays is anywhere near enough to keep her hydrated. We resorted to giving her diluted peach juice instead of water, and that went down very well.

Speaking of nappies, that tends to be our main logistical concern when travelling. Cloth nappies are OK if we’re going somewhere for a day or two, but for a longer trip it has to be disposables because we usually don’t have anywhere to wash and dry the nappies. If we buy them at home then they take up a lot of space in our luggage, especially because it’s hard to know exactly how many we’ll need. If we buy at the destination then we usually get lots left over (they’re usually sold in packs of 60 or more) and then either have to give them away to someone, or take them home with us, which raises the issue of luggage space again. I wish nappies were sold loose, by the pound.

All in all a great success. It was certainly helpful that we were lucky with the weather, and travelled with a very helpful company. And I think we hit the sweet spot in her age: old enough to not be too “fragile” and sensitive to changes, young enough to accept days of boredom. We’ll see how the next vacation goes.

Thirteen months.

I am, again, struck by how fast time goes and how quickly everything changes. A few months ago Ingrid was practicing her pincer grip and worked hard to pick up pieces of fruit from the table. Now she’s so good at it that it no longer impresses us at all, even when she is picking up teensy pieces of slippery fruit. We were talking to another parent the other day, and he confirmed what we’ve noticed: you are so aware of the things that are going on right now, but all the previous months (and years) just melt together into a jumble. Your child is doing things today that she wasn’t doing when she was born… but it’s so hard to remember when she learned it. Which is why I’m glad I’m stopping to take stock once a month.

Over here, table skills have been progressing recently, mostly because of Ingrid’s aversion to being spoon-fed (unless the stuff we spoon-feed her is particularly yummy). Everything tastes better when it is she who holds the spoon. But spoons are tricky, and food often slides off before the spoon hits the mouth, so she hasn’t been eating much spoon food. (Forks are easier, as long as I stick the fork in the food.) Instead she has been sharing the most finger-friendly parts of our food, and eating quite a lot of bread, cheese and fruit. She has a surprisingly mature palate: I have offered her quite strongly-flavoured sauces, aniseed-flavoured bread and garlicky things, fully expecting her to spit them out, but she has eaten them and asked for more. Most recent favourite: mandarins. Hard to eat without teeth, but she persists, because they taste so good. Now she’s taken to spitting out the chewed-out pieces. The same goes for raisins: she loves the taste and is happy to stuff lots of them in her mouth, and keep them there for a long time, but she can’t chew them enough to be able to swallow them so after a while they come back out.

The habit of putting all kinds of non-food things in her mouth is getting weaker, but some things still have to be tasted. She seems to be particularly fond of small pebbles.

Right now Ingrid is most interested in things that contain other things. The stacking cups remain popular, and so does the shape sorter, as do drawers and boxes, and our suitcases, and her changing bag. She was most happy when she got the chance to empty the pack of disposable nappies we bought while on holiday, pulling them out one by one, and the pack of nappy sacks is almost as good. Some of these are one-way activities because she has no idea how to get the things back in, but with others she definitely makes an effort to put them back. Chaos is no longer her guiding principle. Mealtimes often end with her picking food carefully from one bowl to another, or from bowl to table and table to bowl. And when she pulls down shampoo bottles from the edge of the bath tub (which she is much less interested in than she used to be) she also tends to put them back. Likewise I think she has just started to discover that blocks can be used to build (placing one on top of the other) and not just to demolish.

She is also just figuring out that objects can have effects other than just loud noises. We don’t have any toys that flash lights or make noises when you push a button, but she is showing great interest in light switches when I use them, and she has noticed that interesting things happen when I squeeze her bath toys so she is working hard at emulating that. The effects are pretty unpredictable since she hasn’t understood that the bubbles and/or squirts of water come out from one particular part of the toy.

She has learned to wave bye-bye and wave hello to people, and to say hello (which sounds like a hybrid of hello and hej). The timing is a bit random, both with the waving and the hellos, but it’s clear that she has understood the general type of situation where that sort of behaviour is expected.

Apart from the hellos Ingrid isn’t saying much. I guess the confusion of three languages may be a bit too much for her to untangle. She has, however, picked up pappa (since Eric has spent quite a bit of time practicing that). When we get up early in the morning, and I later tell her that we can now go in to pappa and wake him, she gets all excited!

And she is making a lot of noises. She tends to pick a combination of sounds and then repeat that for a while, almost identically. Then do something else, and then maybe go back to that sound again several hours later. Most recently she was experimenting with pitch: saying äi with a very distinctive falling tone, again and again.

But I get the impression that she hasn’t figured out the language = communication link yet. She doesn’t use words. She likes making sounds, and knows that certain sounds go with certain situations or things. But she isn’t saying pappa when she wants to go to daddy, or making a certain kind of sound when she wants food. That kind of wish is still just signalled by a generic complaining screech. (On the other hand, she now knows exactly what to do when she wants milk: pull up my t-shirt. Very clear signals there.)

The other big baby milestone, walking, also remains just out of reach. Or rather, I think it is within her reach but she just doesn’t know it. Given how fast she is toddling around with her Wheely Bug, and how unstable that thing is, I am pretty sure that she could pick up walking within a few days if she tried, but she is too cautious to try walking without support. Sometimes she lets go with both hands because she needs them for other, more urgent things, but then as soon as she realises what’s happened – oh no, no hands! – she quickly grabs hold of something, or sits down, just in case.

This week’s favourite toy by far: a little limp rag of a balloon. Much better than a big round balloon, in fact.

When Eeyore saw the pot, he became quite excited.

“Why!” he said. “I believe my Balloon will just go into that Pot!”

“Oh, no, Eeyore,” said Pooh. “Balloons are much too big to go into Pots. What you do with a balloon is, you hold the balloon.“

“Not mine,” said Eeyore proudly. “Look, Piglet!” And as Piglet looked sorrowfully round, Eeyore picked the balloon up with his teeth, and placed it carefully in the pot; picked it out and put it on the ground; and then picked it up again and put it carefully back.

“So it does!” said Pooh. “It goes in!”

“So it does!” said Piglet. “And it comes out!”

“Doesn’t it?” said Eeyore. “It goes in and out like anything.”

There used to be a time when Ingrid had needs. When her needs were not satisfied, she reacted, mostly by crying. There was little or no conscious involvement or decision in the crying, and (I imagine) little understanding that she was crying because of something. Crying just happened, like a force of nature.

Now she has developed wants. And when her wants are not satisfied, she reacts. Sometimes by shrieking, sometimes by arching her back violently to get away, sometimes by crying big big tears.

The smallest things can upset her. Occasionally the sight of a spoon and a bowl is enough to set her off crying, sounding like she was being tortured. I don’t really understand why she cries – I am pretty sure that she is hungry, I am not forcing food down her throat (in fact I haven’t even lifted the spoon yet) and it is food she likes. Generally she stops after a short while and is then happy to eat, although sometimes she refuses the spoon and will only eat with her fingers.

In any case, she is now crying because she wants to tell me something, and she knows it. She just doesn’t have any other way of expressing her wishes. And when she really wants it badly, she cries hard. I can already see the emerging roots of proper tantrums in this – you know, the kind of tantrums that involve lying on the floor, kicking and squirming and screaming. Preferably in a public place.

I hate hearing and seeing her cry. Some months ago I heard a parent say “It’s surprising how quickly you get immune to your own child wailing.” No, I don’t actually. Her cries still pain me. If it is something I can fix, I do. If she is crying because she sees me hold a spoon, well, I put down the spoon and walk away so she can calm down. If she is crying because I won’t let her play with my camera, I hide the camera and distract her. Sometimes, of course, I have to harden my heart and ignore her crying, no matter how much it hurts – for example when she wails because she does not want to lie down for a nappy change.

Other times I can’t do anything because I just don’t know what she wants. I am really looking forward to when she learns to talk so she can tell me.

Pulling things out has been one of Ingrid’s favourite activities for a while. Now she’s spending more and more time doing the opposite. She picks things out of the drawer, and then actually puts some of them back.

She’s also playing more with the shape sorter she got for her birthday. Initially she seemed mostly frustrated with it. (Her attention span is about 3 seconds – if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try again.) After a little while she discovered the lid on the rear of the box and found that it was a lot easier to get things into the box that way. But she does sometimes try getting the blocks in through the little holes on the front, and occasionally succeeds.

As with other new skills, she tries it with various things around the house, not just with her blocks and boxes. In the bath she puts her toys and sponge in a bowl, again and again. Other things travel longer distances and end up in stranger places: I have found freshly laundered baby clothes (that she picks from the drying rack in the kitchen) in my sock drawer, a bicycle inner tube on a shelf in my wardrobe, and Eric’s shaver in an (empty) wastepaper basket. And she is showing far too much interest in the big rubbish bin in the kitchen… I hope I won’t need to go looking for our shoes or her toys in there!

Ingrid is one year old. Old enough that it will soon seem enough to count her age in years and half-years instead of months. Old enough to be a toddler rather than a baby.

Unfortunately much of this past month was taken up with illnesses: chickenpox and a strep infection with extras. I guess we had been pretty lucky, health-wise, until now.

Her two favourite games right now are pushing and pulling. Pushing things in front of her while walking across the floor (on her feet with tall and stable “toys” like chairs, on her knees with things that are small or move too fast) – and pulling things out of any drawers she can find and open. She continues to focus on bottom drawers, even though she can easily reach the next one as well. In the living room she spreads my hankies and underwear on the floor. In the kitchen she picks out all the tea lights (and chews on them). In the bathroom she pulls out cleaning cloths and spray bottles with Ajax. These are sometimes dumped on the floor, but she also likes to throw them in the bath, especially if there is water in there. Cleaning cloths are also fun to play with in the water.

The time of chewing on everything seems to be past, and it is now a lot safer to have her explore everything. I don’t worry much about plants or computer cables or CDs any more. Even books survive her attention for a while, when she manages to pull one out from the shelf. But the power button on the computer now has a cover, firmly attached with sticky tape, to keep away curious fingers.

The toy box hasn’t seen much use recently, and I think we will reduce its contents drastically soon. Some things can be thrown away (half-chewed egg cartons), others put back to where they really belong (sieves and bowls), and some simply packed away. Many of the toys that are actual toys may become interesting again later, I suspect, when she can find new uses for them.

The only toys Ingrid has been playing with recently are balls and stacking cups. We have been rolling and throwing balls to each other, and she likes chasing them across the floor. Not for long, though – her attention span is still short and she gets bored with such things pretty quickly.

Instead she has been a lot more interested in her cardboard books: picking them up from the bottom shelf where I keep them, opening them and turning the pages. But only if she can do it on her own! If I come and try to direct her at all, to talk about what’s in the pictures or to turn the book right side up when she’s got it upside down, she pushes my hands away. I do wonder what she sees and what she thinks when looking at an upside-down picture of a lamb. She’s never seen a real lamb, after all.

In some activities I am welcome to join her. The best one is a very physical game that involves a mixture of chasing (me after her, on the floor), climbing (her over me) and tickling – and lots and lots of laughing. I am never quite sure what it is that I do that she likes so much, and it seems to change by the minute, but it gets her shrieking with laughter again and again.

She is very clearly developing a will of her own, and I can see the first inklings of what will certainly become tantrums a few months down the line. When she is not allowed to do what she wants, or when I do something that she doesn’t like, she will arch her back and scream and cry. Luckily this really only happens when she is tired. But then the smallest thing can set her off, such as taking off a t-shirt. She has also learned that it’s my hands that do things, so she tries to push them away when she expects them to do something she doesn’t like.

Speaking of things she doesn’t like… I think we now have a fix for her aversion for brushing teeth. Solution: two toothbrushes, one of which goes in my mouth, and another one that I put in her mouth. Seeing me brush my teeth is either sufficiently interesting and weird to amuse her, or simply makes it clear to her how those toothbrush things work.