Isolde at 7 Months

Can't believe our little busfia is already 7 months old (almost a week ago, on 9 August)! Where did the time go?!

At seven months, Isolde:

• sucks her thumb often, and occasionally her toe. It's always the right-hand thumb. A month ago she sucked on both thumbs and also quite often her index finger (like her dad did when he was a baby) and it was a irregular activity for her; a lot one day and then not again for a few days, but now it's all the time. It gives her comfort when she finds something new a bit "scary" and it puts her to sleep in the evening and back to sleep in the middle of the night. She'll never lose it like a pacifier but I guess it will be harder to wean her in two-three years time... But that's then and now's now!


• at six months mainly wanted to sit still and play and fiddle with things - she can still entertain herself for quite some time though if she's in that mood - but now wants to stand up or practice crawling. It's far from crawling at this stage; she can creep backwards and she also does some sort of push-ups whereby she gets up on her toes and pushes her bum in the air. She hasn't succeeded in getting up on her knees yet though. She things it's more fun though to hold on to our thumbs and raise herself (no help) to standing, or to pull herself up in the pram by holding on to the sides (in the safety of a harness!). She wants to stand up almost all the time!


• still rode in the Bugaboo's bassinet until today when we changed to the seat (when we tried a few weeks ago we felt she was still too little and short and the seat harness was way too big). I had to buy a harness for the bassinet though since she has wanted to sit up for the past month and could potentially climb the sides and fall out.


• has a wonderful giggle and laugh. She loves it when we tickle her or pretend to scare her. She's still a very happy and content girl who hardly ever cries (mainly only at night and then it's mostly in her sleep (or she's half-awake) - we truly feel we've been blessed with such a sunshine girl!


• with some exceptions, is a good sleeper, often without much fuss from 8 or 9 pm to 5 am (if she goes to bed later she still wakes up at 5). After a feed she usually goes back to sleep for another two hours. Irrespective of whether we get up at 6, 7 or 8 am, she usually wants to play for 1-2 hours and then take a morning/AM nap (and mum usually sleeps then too). She usually sleeps an hour in the afternoon too. She often falls asleep during the evening feed but when she doesn't, she's pretty good at putting herself to sleep, however not without some whining and thumb sucking. This applies to nap time during the day too but then she's usually tired and wants us to leave her alone in her crib. Often she naps in the pram while we're out and about though. In her crib she sleeps like a banana with her face pushed into one of the corners. Or right across the bed.


• still flirts with strangers and hasn't shown any signs of separation anxiety yet but I assume it will come soon as she's at that age. The first few minutes she's usually studying the person though, sorting through her person file cabinet. But then it's like she found the right one and a smile appears.


• smiles for the camera and sometimes stops what she's doing to pose. A real linslus!

• doesn't have any teeth yet. We thought one was on the way a couple of weeks ago as she's had a couple of cranky days and nights. She was drooling and fiddling with her tongue a lot, but nothing. We'll probably know once the real teething does start though, as I understand it's quite tough for most babies. I've heard that the later the teeth break, the better, as they are stronger then but I don't know if that's correct. For me I don't mind if they wait as long as I'm still breast-feeding.


• can protest when she doesn't like something, for example when 1½ year-old Elvina was getting too close (but she was still intrigued of course). When she's "upset", as in not wanting to do something we want her to do, such as eat, or she's bored or tired and not happy with being left on the floor, for example, she groans and grunts rather than cries. And in between the groans, sucks her thumb :) She also grunts if we don't feed her quickly enough when she's hungry.

• kisses us in her own special way, which means an open mouth and lots of dribble on our cheeks or noses. She used to be more cuddly with me but since Peter started his holiday and has been with us 24-7, she's starting to be as cuddly with him.

• eats really well now after the sloooow start on solids. In the early hours she still breast-feeds but after 8am she eats oat cereal (usually around 9am) for breakfast. The next meal is lunch around 11am-12 noon. Dinner is between 4-5pm. At lunch and dinner she eats ½ to 3/4 of a jar of baby food followed by fruit purée (half a jar or half a banana or equivalent at the most). Between lunch and dinner she's served a snack, usually fruit and wafers with liver patée or cream cheese. Sometimes she also snacks between breakfast and lunch depending on when she eats breakfast, which in turn depends on when we get up in the morning... The food day is finished with oat cereal between 6-7pm and breastmilk an hour afterwards, roughly. At the moment it feels like all day is about feeding! Full-time nursing was so easy - we didn't have to keep track of the time and she could easily eat when she wanted, where she wanted. Now we have to remember to pack food, bibs, etc.

• talks a lot - although no words or anything near words except for perhaps hej (hi) - and with more melody in the language. She tries new sounds and noises and makes new faces almost every day. Sometimes she's babbling and looking at us intently like she's really trying to tell us something. She still blows bubbles and makes fart noises. Lately she's been doing it a lot when she's being fed, not because she doesn't want to eat but because it's more fun with food in her mouth I guess!

• is just such a little darling and hanging around her is like walking on sunshine every day. It's amazing to rediscover life and the world with her every day. We could not imagine how much we'd enjoy being with her and how strong the love for her is - because it is in a way stronger or at least different from what we feel for each other. It's so cool to see how she learns something new or develops in some other way, constantly - every day. It's like she's a new person every day and at the same time, the same personality that could be seen when she was a few hours old.