Anna – 8 months old

Anna has grown so much over the last month. Her hands have become more and more skilful. She can pick up the rattles from the floor, hold one in each hand, shake them to make noises, and put them into her mouth.

She now knows how to play with Sophie the giraffe too. She holds its legs with both hands, moving it up and down, and sucks its ears.

Anna loves poking anything that sticks out from an object. She isn’t interested in soft toys but really likes playing their tags as they stick out. This also means she is better at playing with her touch and feel books. She starts to touch the surfaces with special materials and turn the flaps over. She liked to spot small things too. Sometimes a tiny little picture of a red ladybug can catch her attention as they stand out from the white background.

She seems to have learned to interact with others. When her auntie pushed a small ball towards her, she kicked it away and laughed continuously. She also enjoyed playing the building blocks with grandad. Her favourite is the long green cylinder one. I find it very sweet that she sometimes checks on me to make sure I’m still around by turning to me and touching me.

She can sit very well. She keeps her back upright for a long time. She only falls if she tries to reach for toys which are too far away or if she pushes herself to stand up. But she doesn’t seem to like tummy time any more.

She makes more sounds including ‘da-da’ and ‘ma-ma’. If she is in a good mood, she will babble with lots of distinguished sounds. But she is still more noisy with unrecognisable sounds when she is tired. She has been doing the puckered lips recently. I don’t really know what it means. Maybe she has discovered her lip muscles and now enjoys playing with them.

Anna is definitely better at chewing food, especially things that she loves. She loves sweet fruit like oranges, strawberries, grapes and melons. She would stare at the food and make noise to signal for more. We don’t mash the food up anymore, but we do make sure it is soft enough for her. She hasn’t picked up food to put into her mouth yet even though she is interested in playing with them. Sometimes she doesn’t seem to digest the food very well as they come out in her nappy with the same colour and shape as when they come in. She often has two meals a day. It doesn’t seem to reduce the amount of milk intake.

Brushing teeth is another thing that she loves. In fact, it is more of the tasty mint toothpaste that she loves rather than brushing teeth itself. Any time when she sees the toothbrush coming, her eyes will light up. She has never spit out any of the toothpaste.

When we went away during Christmas, she didn’t enjoy her bath time very much without her usual baby bath and she fell in the bathtub once. Even after we came back home, she refused to bath on her own. So she ends up bathing with her daddy and she loves it. It is still a challenge to stop her scratching herself even though her eczema has gotten much better.

There hasn’t been much change in her sleeping. She sleeps around 9 or 10pm after a dream feed and wakes up for the day between 9 and 10am after a few night feeds. However, an established routine has gradually emerged for her naps. She needs two naps of at least 45 minutes each a day, one around 11am and one around 3 or 4pm, otherwise she would get very unhappy. She sleeps best in the buggy, even though breastfeeding does send her to sleep sometimes.

After the Christmas break, we have started our daily activities again. It is strange to see Anna being the older one in the baby class. We have started the new baby sing and sign class this term. Anna really enjoys listening to the teachers and looking at the signing.