Changes

Fiona is growing so fast, it’s amazing. It’s a little bit sad, since she is almost definitely our last baby, but cool too. She’s sitting on her own, is very chatty, and just the other day started pushing herself up with her hands and using her knees and/or toes to sort of rock. When we go to put her down on her tummy now, she will often tuck her limbs underneath her and end up on her hands and knees. So not ready for a crawling baby! But Meredith started crawling on her 6 month birthday so if Fiona follows the same timeline (and so far she’s hit all the milestones at the same time or even earlier), that’s less than a month away.

Speaking of the two of them, it is so neat to be raising another baby after having done it once before. It’s amazing how different they are already. Meredith has been the type of kid who likes to repeat things and “practice”. For instance, she started rolling over around 4 months, and then did it over and over and over again every time we put her down. When she learned to sit on her own she actually originally fell from a crawling position into a sit. And she started doing it over and over again on purpose after that until she could sit well. She still learns that way.

Fiona is so much more laid back and seems to go with the flow more. She rolled over on a flat surface for the first time much earlier (maybe 2 months old? I have it written down somewhere), but has only done it a handful of times since then. At 5 months she still rarely rolls over. But if she wants to (like there’s a toy she wants to reach), she definitely can. She just doesn’t seem to do it unless there’s a need. She sleeps better at night but not as well during the day (the day time sleep could be attributed to a noisy big sister though).

Fiona is much less of a “boob” girl too. Meredith has always loved to nurse. As a baby, nursing would comfort her more often than not, and if she was offered a nurse she would rarely refuse. Fiona nurses for hunger, but not nearly as much for comfort. At three, Meredith still has days where she nurses as much as Fiona does! I actually find it harder for me to find ways to comfort Fiona. It was easy for me to console Meredith. Kris, on the other hand, is well-versed in soothing crying babies without nursing them so I don’t think has noticed a difference in this regard.

Meredith and Fiona cuddling in bed in the morning

EC is going really well with Fiona. I have definitely noticed a huge difference if I’ve had dairy. She has more accidents, signals less, and pees more. It really makes me wonder how EC would have gone with Meredith if we’d gone off dairy earlier. I’m not sure if I’ve posted this here, but Meredith has regressed in the potty training, and went from wearing panties full-time, to trainers, to diapers for a while, and now she’s back to panties around the house and the co-op, and diapers for out and about. She is back to basically 100% accident-free if she’s naked, and she’s starting to figure out that panties are not like diapers and she needs to take them off before she pees.

Fiona is virtually diaper free at home, and I will often take her for walks diaper free too now. She’s outgrowing the diapers we have and we’ve decided to just get trainers to replace them instead of more diapers. We have a few diapers already for overnight (though I’ve actually been putting her to bed diaper free on a pad too, since it’s so hot, and in the last week or so since I started doing that have only had one accident) or outings where we might be in the car. For a while I was doing laundry more because Meredith needed diapers than for Fiona! Though I only have 6 diapers for Meredith and 15 for Fiona so it’s not a completely fair comparison. I end up doing diaper laundry every three days or so, and lately I’ve only been doing it that often because I don’t like them to sit, not because I have a full load or need more for either of the girls. Fiona has also just in the last week started more consciously signalling the need to pee too. She does the same thing Meredith used to do (a bit of a crotch grab or pat). The nakedness has a downside: A lot of my pictures aren’t internet safe!

Meredith is changing a lot too. Her doctor told me regressions in potty training at her age are extremely common while going through growth spurts (which she has been) or learning spurts (which she also has been). Just in the last few weeks, Kris and I have noticed an enormous change in her vocabulary and, even more so, the way she speaks. She’s making complete, grammatically-correct sentences. It’s neat to listen to her now. She tells stories about her day and can remember things that happened and talk about them after the fact. (In fact, at one point I mentioned the birthing pool, and Meredith made a comment about how that was the day that the baby came and that she remembered jumping into the pool with me, and I never asked her any leading questions about it.)

She also had surgery recently for a funny looking mole on her leg that was growing and changing and we had some concerns about. I think I’ll post about that in a different post though.