Bigger and better adventures

Well another month has gone by and my tiny baby is suddenly 18 months old!

After taking a few tiny steps 10 days ago, she’s decided not to bother any more with that walking business for the time being. But she’s spending more time standing without holding on to anything, and has recently taken up walking like a crab with her bottom high in the air, which is very funny to watch. She can climb up a gently sloping slide and at least 3 stairs, and can come down 3 stairs backwards too. She’s pretty good about turning around and coming down backwards from any sort of step or higher level (such as our bed). She does a lot of reasonably accurate pointing, and will occasionally wave bye bye (but usually not when someone is actually leaving!)

We’ve started baby swimming (synchronised splashing) classes and after 3 classes she’s just starting to relax a little and not cling to me like a limpet for the duration. I hope she’ll start enjoying it soon, as I love being in the water myself. At the moment she uses a little rubber ball as a security toy.

Her favourite activities are going on the swing and reading books. She is particularly fond of books with flaps. She also loves balls, balloons and bubbles, and taking a bath (not to mention her bath toys). I can see a bit of a B theme emerging here! She has also grasped the concept of putting pieces into a simple jigsaw (no interlocking pieces) but doesn’t have the dexterity to complete it by herself. She enjoys posting items into a home-made shape sorter, and playing with pegs. She starts and responds to games of peekaboo - it’s the easiest way to put a smile on her face.

Her spoken language is really minimal - lots and lots of fantastic babble but probably only 3 actual words; “boo” which means both ball and balloon, “woo woo” which means dog (woof woof), and “gat” or “tat” which means cat, cow, bird, elephant, giraffe or any other random passing object which is not a woo woo. Nothing to indicate mum or dad!! She can also indicate milk via sign language. STOP PRESS! Two days after I drafted this post she started using a new word: “dut” for duck.

However her understanding of new words is growing rapidly. I can ask her to find a particular toy (eg ball, balloon, peter rabbit, snugglebunny, etc) and she will go and look around the room and (mostly!) find the thing I ask for. The other day I said “where’s the Maisy book?” and she went to a stack of books and found the Maisy book which hidden underneath another book. (I was so impressed!!!) She has several “that’s not my XXX” books and they all have a mouse on each page. Now all she wants to do is point at the mouse when I read those books. Then today (gotta love this) I was reading a different book which also had a small mouse on one page. I said “Talia, where’s the mouse?” and she looked at the page but she couldn’t see the mouse, so she crawled over to That’s not my Dinosaur” and pointed out the mouse on the cover of that book instead!! She can also point out flowers and other objects she knows the name of when I ask her where they are. Even though I know it’s normal, I find it really quite amazing that she understands so much more than she can say.

Eating is still patchy, with the same problems of “loved it yesterday, hate it today, don’t even bother tomorrow”, but she’s continuing to gain (and grow out of things) despite the fact that she’s almost 100% self fed on finger food and I’m no closer to getting her to eat off a spoon, regardless of whether I’m holding it or she is. On the positive side, we can feed her a little bit of whatever we are having and no longer have to rely on food organised specifically for her (although we still do to some extent).

She will sometimes allow us to brush her teeth but it does take quite a bit of persistence. She sleeps well overnight and has one nap in the middle of the day, usually 1-1.5hours long. I wish she’d sleep longer but no luck so far - her room is probably not dark enough.

We’ve just come back from a short trip to visit family in Sydney, and she was marvellous apart from the flights - she threw up on both of them (eeeewwwwww) and also threw the most ENORMOUS tantrum on the way back - easily the worst behaviour in her entire life. I did feel very sorry for the people sitting around us! Then she did a similar thing before we put her to bed. I know she was tired but this was so over the top… I think the “terrible twos” may have arrived early.

Last but not least, her latest statistics: 9.335kg and 74cm in length. Something above the 10th percentile in both cases. She is now in size 0 clothing, size 1 if it’s an all-in-one including toes.

Both parents are very proud!!

Just a quick post with Talia’s latest achievements…

Since her 12 month corrected paed check up, Talia has started:

- walking behind a cart

- climbing up and down steps (only one a time as our house doesn’t have a staircase)

- responding to a simple command to give me her cup, which was previously always dropped over the edge of the high chair

- recognising some words - she will, if asked, go and find some of her toys which she knows by name

- making a few new sounds - like ta ta ta, and something that sounded suspiciously like her name - Ta-ee-ah

- hugging some of her toys

As I said in an earlier post, the longer you leave between blogs, the more things you have to talk about. Talia has been making fantastic progress in the past few weeks.

• Since crawling (her technique is beautiful), she has worked out how to pull herself up on the footstool we use as a table for one of her favourite toys, and is also trying to pull herself up on a few other things (like her mother, for example!)
• In just the past few days she has also started to be able to sit herself down from a standing position in a slightly more controlled fashion than in the past, when she just put her bum backwards and let gravity take its course.
• She has started to put blocks and balls IN to a box, not just take them out.
• She will put blocks and balls through posting holes in a home-made shape sorter (with a bit of encouragement)
• She can post balls and push buttons to make the music start on her favourite toy.
• Much to my delight, she has started giving the hand sign for milk. She uses it to mean “I want” or “give me” and it doesn’t always refer to milk, but it’s a major step forward and one I am very pleased about.
• She will give me an object if I ask for it and point to my open hand. (I have to stop myself signing for milk at the same time!!)
• She’s banging two objects together more frequently, which is (hopefully) a precurser to clapping.
• Her babbling is coming along nicely, with lots of nan-nan, although sadly (for me) no mum-mum since the first week she did it.
• Tooth number 6 is now through, so she has four along the top jaw and the 2 middle ones in the bottom jaw.

We are now trying to encourage her to cruise along 2 adjacent footstools. At present her hands move along but her feet stay planted. We also encourage her to walk while we hold her hands, which leads to some fabulous “ministry of silly walks” exercises.

The doting parents just got even dottier…

At her 8 month (corrected) paediatrician appointment Talia was making very few consonant sounds, so we were told she would be given another hearing test.  Three months later we still hadn’t received our appointment, so I phoned the hospital to ask what was happening.  Less than 2 days later the audiology people were hastily offering us an appointment for early the following week (today).  Ho hum.

Unfortunately Talia currently has a cold, and the audiologist decided that this was likely to be blocking her ears at the moment.  She was able to determine that Talia hears loud noises (we knew this) but could not get down to the 20 decibel level they would be happy with.  We will need to return for a second appointment in a month’s time, a week before her 12 month (corrected) paediatrician appointment.

At the moment she does babble, and uses da, dee, ya, wa, ba and sometimes na, ma, ga.  Not to mention lots of “oooh!” which is very cute.  The only word in her vocabulary that I am certain of is “cat” but she does struggle to say it.  The audiologist said that, given her other delays, it’s likely that speech will also be delayed (so no surprises there!)  As long as she has no physical impediment (like a glue ear) to hearing then I’m really not too fussed.

Talia has been having some extra physiotherapy to help with her gross motor skills and in the past week it seems to have really come together for her.

At 6 months corrected she was able to sit, lean forward, and roll from front to back, but then she failed to make any significant progress for several months.  She couldn’t move out of the sitting position, or off her back.  At 9 months corrected we started the physiotherapy, and within weeks she had started turning to the side, an important first step in being able to shift her weight from her bottom (while sitting) onto all fours (ready for crawling).

Now, at nearly 11 months corrected she has finally started to pull herself up (not successful yet but definitely trying), she is rolling from back on to her front, she pulls herself onto all fours from both a sitting and a lying position, she is starting to rock on her knees and looks like she will crawl very soon.

Today I held her hands and she was able to take a few wobbly steps with very little assistance.  We have her 12 month review coming up in another 5-6 weeks and suddenly I feel confident that we won’t be a complete disaster in the gross motor skills department after all!

I have lots of warm fuzzy mummy feelings today.

Physiotherapy is one of those emotionally fraught issues for a parent. You know you are doing the right thing by giving your child extra help to reach their physical milestones, but at the same time you still feel fragile and vulnerable because your baby isn’t making progress like everyone else.

When it was first suggested Talia have physio I was ready to burst into tears, even though I knew she was lagging behind her peers. When she made early progress and sat by herself, I was very proud, and assumed we were over that hurdle and wouldn’t need to go back. Unfortunately a few months later the original prognosis came back to haunt us - her development was very patchy and would only lead to frustration as she matured mentally but was trapped physically. She could sit all day like a buddha, surrounded by toys, but nothing on earth would persuade her move from where she sat. If a toy was out of reach, so be it. Shortly after her birthday four weeks ago we resumed one-to-one physio sessions at the hospital to help Talia develop the skills she needs to be able to reach, turn, crawl, stand and eventually walk.

Two sessions of physio (plus plenty of practice at home) later, Talia has steadily improved her abilities, and now does things other babies (and their parents) take for granted, but which were entirely new for her: playing with a toy using both hands on the same side of her body; turning to the side over her knees and raising her bottom off the ground; moving her body so she is on “all fours” (although she usually slips down onto her tummy); turning and reaching and then bringing herself back to a sitting position; pulling herself up to standing while holding my hands. With help she can put weight on her knees and will occasionally start rocking in a way which some babies do before starting to crawl.

Today I went proudly to the monthly group physio session, knowing that Talia would be surrounded by ex-24 weekers who are crawling like Olympic champions but glad at least that she no longer spends these sessions just lying on a mat crying, and hopeful that she might have crept up a little on the development chart. (Yes they have percentile charts for development too, not just height, weight and head circumference!)

The physiotherapist who saw us was very pleased with her progress - but regretfully showed me that Talia has in fact slipped lower on her development chart due to the very erratic nature of her progress. I am making up an example here, but apparently most babies develop skill A (like rolling) before skill B (like sitting) before skill C (like pulling themselves up on furniture) before skill D (like standing confidently with support). Talia has decided to do B before A, and D without C. So from the physiotherapist’s perspective, she still has a long way to go. In contrast, my mother has been overseas since we started the extra sessions and will no doubt be amazed to see how far Talia has come in 5 weeks.

The hospital provides physiotherapy only until their NICU graduates are 12 months corrected, which in our case is only 2 months away. So it will be interesting to see how much more progress we can make in the next 8 weeks, before we are out on our own.