Gabriel is two years old

Gabe and mummy blowing out the birthday candles

I’m not quite sure how it’s happened but my little baby, Gabey-goo is two years old! In a lot of ways the time has flown since he was born but at the same time we seem to have been waiting for a long time to well and truly put the baby days behind us. I love both my boys to pieces but it is safe to say I am not a big fan of little babies. Give me a walking, talking toddler any day! Read more

Gabriel is 18 months old

Well, OK, Gabe is actually 19 months old by the time I’m finally getting round to writing this, but hey, who’s counting?

So what can I tell you about Gabe at 18 months old? Well, I could start with his vital statistics, except I only know he’s about 83cm tall, and is wearing size 4 shoes. I have no idea how much he weighs! He is mostly wearing 18-24 month clothes (or 86 in European sizes) so he is definitely smaller than Toby was at this age – he was already moving into 2-3 clothes at 18 months, and had size 6 feet!

Gabe the cheeky chops is 18 months old

There are quite a few similarities between Toby and Gabe at 18 months though. At this age Toby could only say Dada, hiya, see saw, what’s that and shoe. Gabe’s vocabulary so far includes Read more

Toby is three and a half

Toby was three and a half a few weeks ago. On the one hand it really doesn’t seem that long since his third birthday but then when I think about it that was before we even moved from Scotland, which seems like it was ages ago now.

When you spend every day with a child it’s easy not to notice the changes and developments they make but when I was reading through Toby’s three year update I realised just how much he has changed in the last six months.

Three and a half year old Toby in his sunglasses on the slide

I guess I’ll start with the vital statistics – Toby is now 106 cm tall so he’s grown 4 cm in the last 6 months. He’s still sitting above the 91st centile for his height so he’s still tall for his age but he’s not off the top of the chart like he was when he was two! Read more

Gabriel is one year old

One year old already! Well actually it was Gabe’s birthday a week and a half ago but you know, life. Seriously though, I don’t know where the time goes. It doesn’t seem two minutes since I was high on gas and air, laughing because the midwife could see my bum, while Barry fed me jelly babies…and then Gabriel was born on our living room floor looking the absolute image of Toby when he was born.

Gabriel is one year old

And yet here we are, one year later. In a different house, a long way from the living room where that home birth happened.

First birthday Grimm's rainbow

I’m not going to pretend it’s been an easy year. With reflux, endless coughs and colds, chicken pox and the inevitable teething, Gabe has not had the easiest first year. There hasn’t been a huge amount of sleep for any one and I reckon I must have spent at least 50% of the last year rocking, pacing, pushing, driving, singing… doing anything I could to get Gabe to go to sleep and stay asleep. Things are slowly improving but he has still only ever slept through the night twice, and one of those was when he was about four months old. I know things will get better eventually – Toby didn’t really sleep well until he was two and a half and now he sleeps from 8 pm until 8 am nearly every night with the odd wake up every couple of weeks for a bad dream.

Apart from the sleep thing though (oh, and the not eating, but we’ll get to that later) Gabe is doing great. He’s developing a proper little personality now, he loves playing peekaboo and has just discovered the hilarious game of hiding under one of Toby’s muslins. He’s not walking or standing unaided yet, but he can crawl super fast, pulls himself up on everything and is cruising like a demon. He’s just like Toby though and won’t walk, or even stay standing if you hold his hands. He wants to do it by himself, his way.

Getting his own toys

He’s started being much more independent with his play too, and will happily go and get a toy (or all the toys!) out of one of the boxes and sit and play by himself. We’ve even started to get a few moments of Toby and Gabe actually playing together, or at least playing side by side without trying to grab things off each other so that’s a start!

Gabe loves babbling away to himself too, and anyone who is listening – favourite words are still hiya and dada but just this week he has started saying mama too which is very cute. He still has a dummy for sleeping but he’s not that fussed for it the rest of the time and will usually take it out himself if we forget.

My baby is one year old

Weaning though, is slow going and we seem to have really regressed in the last few weeks. Gabe has always been quite fussy about food, which I think is probably related to his reflux. After seeing the consultant before we left Scotland though his reflux seems to be pretty much under control but still Gabe hardly eats any solid food. He was doing really well with eating for a while – I’ll admit he was mostly eating shop bought pouches, but he would eat some finger foods too. In the last month or so though he has decided he doesn’t really like being spoon fed so I have been giving him bits of what we are eating but he hardly touches that either. He still likes fruit pouches and he sucks it straight from the pouch himself. He’ll usually eat banana, and rice cakes, and bizarrely Linda McCartney sausages, but that’s about the only things he’s guaranteed to eat. He still has three bottles during the day and usually one in the night. I did try reducing his milk a bit but all that seemed to do was make him constipated and grumpy. He’s still growing and putting on weight fine so I guess I just need to keep offering him different things and hope that one day he gets an appetite. He’s just so different to Toby who has always had a massive appetite and when he was one he ate almost anything you put in front of him. I know I shouldn’t really compare them anyway. Gabe is nowhere near as big as Toby was at this age so maybe he just doesn’t need as much food as he did.

We didn’t really have any celebrations for Gabe’s birthday – in fact he went to nursery on his birthday so we just did some present opening when Barry got home from work. My mum and dad are on holiday at the moment and Barry’s mum has just had an operation on her back so we’re planning on having a bit of a house warming/ birthday party for both boys when everybody will be able to come.

Gabe checking out his birthday presents

Of course Gabe thought the wrapping paper was way more interesting than the presents, and Toby did plenty of helping with the unwrapping too!

The paper is more interesting than the presents

So there we are  – my baby boy is one. We definitely aren’t planning on any more babies so this will be the last time I write a one year update. I know lots of people feel sad when they realise there aren’t going to be any more babies but I can only be happy we’ve got through the last year and look forward to all the adventures that are still to come. And sleep. I’m looking forward to one day, hopefully one day soon, actually getting a full night’s sleep again.

0-12 months

Gabriel is eleven months old

I only got round to writing Gabe’s 10 month update a couple of weeks ago so not much has happened since even though this update is slightly late too. Eleven months old seems to have come round very quickly – I can’t believe Gabe is going to be one next month!

Gabriel is eleven months old

We’re still waiting for tooth number eight to appear so there’s been quite a lot of whinging still, and for the about a week he’s being refusing to eat anything much apart from fruit pouches. The last day or two he has started eating again but still no tooth!

Of course the lack of appetite could also be a bit of a reaction to the total disruption to his routine and the heat – since last Thursday we’ve been living with my parents until hopefully we get the keys to our new house next week, so everything has been different for him the last few weeks.

Despite my high hopes for Gabe’s new reflux medication it hasn’t quite been the wonder cure I thought it might be. He does seem marginally more comfortable at night he is still waking up at least a couple of times and often wants to get up around 5 am. Having said that, we have had a couple of nights where I’ve brought him into bed with me sometime in the early hours of the morning and he’s slept until nearly 7 am so maybe the tide is slowly changing…

Gabe standing at the TV

Gabe is the most active baby I’ve ever seen though so I don’t know how he manages on so little sleep sometimes. He never sits still, he’s always crawling off or pulling himself up. If you try and hold him he’s super-wriggly and often will try and dive out of your arms onto the floor. He is cruising round the furniture like a pro now and doesn’t seem to need to hold on for balance quite as much any more. I don’t think it will be too long before we see him standing on his own and even walking.

Gabe sitting in the bath

He’s loving the bath now too – he’s always quite enjoyed it but up until the last week or too wouldn’t sit in the bath so he couldn’t really do much. He’s decided he’s happy to sit now though so he can play with all the toys and the bubbles. We might even brave trying to give Toby and Gabe a bath together soon.

Gabe is eleven months old

Apart from the teething and lack of appetite Gabe has actually been much cheerier for the last few weeks. It could have something to do with the fact that we have actually, for the first time in what feels like months, had a couple of weeks where he hasn’t been ill!

That’s about it for this month I think. Gabe is eleven months old and I still can’t believe that next month I’ll be writing that he is one! And hopefully we’ll be all settled in our new house and I’ll be telling you that he’s sleeping through the night…well I can dream right?

0-11 months

Toby is three years old

Toby is three years old today. Can you believe it? My little tiny 6lb 10oz baby, who was only three months old when I started writing this blog, is three!

Baby Toby

This is the first time that he’s really understood about birthdays and so the first year we’ve bothered having presents wrapped and waiting for him in the morning. Of course, his favourite thing was the balloon though!

Birthday balloon

We only gave Toby a few small things today because we’re moving out of our house this week and won’t be in our new house for at least a week so we didn’t want to give him presents that would just need to be put straight into storage.

Opening presents

So anyway, what is Toby like at three years old? He’s funny and cheeky, polite for the most part, prone to crying when he doesn’t get his own way but rarely has a tantrum. He can count to 20 (if you ignore the fact he goes from 13 straight to 16). He knows his full name and can recognise the letter T for Toby. He still loves his muslin blankets and has four on the go at any one time and he still loves to suck his thumb, although we’ve started trying to get him to only have it at bedtime.

Sucking his thumb in a cushion house

He can name all the planets and will tell you that Venus is ‘berry berry hot’, Jupiter has got a big red spot and Saturn has got rings. He knows the names of at least five different dinosaurs and could probably tell you every single character in every program on CBeebies – which perhaps I shouldn’t be quite as proud of! He learns new words every day and we rarely have trouble understanding him these days. I love how I can have a proper conversation with him now, and some of the things he comes out with are hilarious.

He loves anything chocolate and always wants to eat some of my cake, even if he’s got his own. He eats most things, as long as he’s got mayonnaise to dip them in (he may have picked that one up from me!) and we seem to have mostly got over the fussy phase that I mentioned in his last update. He eats a lot and was 102 cm tall at the last measure and wears age 3-4 clothes but he still only weighs 2st 5lb so he’s only put on 2lb in the last six months.

Imaginative play at three years old
He loves playing outside, especially making giant bubbles, and he’s really starting to get into imaginative play at the moment; building things and making up stories about them. But he also loves playing games on his ‘tiny telly’ (which is actually my Kindle Fire). He would probably play on it all day if he could but we try to limit his time and make sure all the games are at least vaguely educational.

He sleeps in a single bed, and usually sleeps all night. He likes to have three stories at bedtime and fall asleep on my lap. He sometimes wakes up early but always stays in bed until ‘Mr Sun’ comes out on his Groclock at 7:20. Sometimes he sleeps later, it usually depends whether Gabe is being noisy and wakes him up. He doesn’t nap, except sometimes in the car, but if he does it’s a nightmare to try and get him to sleep at night.

He still wears nappies (cloth ones of course) and although he knows when he is doing a wee or poo he has absolutely no interest in using the potty or the toilet. I’m hoping we might have a breakthrough over the summer, although with all the changes coming with moving house I’m not going to push him if he doesn’t want to.

Toby and Gabe - best of friends

He loves his little brother, and is still the one person who is pretty much guaranteed to be able to make Gabe laugh, but he gets annoyed with him all the time and is still not keen on sharing his toys. We are seeing more moments of affection though and Toby even seems to have started babbling nonsense back to Gabe – I have no idea what they think they are talking about but it’s very cute.

Fun with mummy
He winds me up every day, and then he melts my heart when he says ‘I ruv you mummy’. My Toby-Bear, my T-dog,my Super-T, my Toby-tobleroney, my baby.

Now you are three.

 

 

Gabriel is ten months old

Yep. That’s right. Gabe is ten months old. Another two months and he’ll be one. And actually because I’m so late writing this month’s update he’ll actually be one in just over six weeks!

Gabriel is ten months old

When I wrote Gabe’s nine month update he had about 10 chicken pox spots and I was hoping he was going to get away with a mild dose but no such luck. A couple of days later and he was covered; they were all over his body, his bum, his face, his head, in his ears, eyes and mouth….it was horrible and he really suffered for the next week. Despite not scratching any of his spots he has ended up with a few scars on his body and one right between his eyes – hopefully it will fade a bit over time but I don’t see what else we could have done to avoid them.

And it just doesn’t get any better for my littlest bear – the week after he had recovered from his chicken pox he got another stomach bug. He was sick one evening then seemed OK overnight but was sick five times the next day. After he’d got over that he seemed to be really struggling with his reflux and then started teething again… It really is never ending! Despite all the illness we have still managed to get out and about a bit this month and Gabe seemed to enjoy having a go on the swing a few weeks ago.

Enjoying the swing

Hopefully though there is some light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel. I can actually feel a tooth on one side and the other one doesn’t seem to be too far away. And last week we finally got to see a paediatrician at the hospital after being referred back in April. The doctor has prescribed Gabe some new medicine and so far it does seem to be helping so fingers crossed things are on the up at last and we can all start getting a bit more sleep soon! At the moment Gabe is still up at least once or twice a night (and often more) and is usually awake and wanting to get up at some time between 4:30 and 5 am. Most nights he ends up in bed with me in the early hours too. I wouldn’t say I was an enthusiastic co-sleeper but I just do whatever I can to get as much sleep as possible at this point.

In spite of all the illness Gabe has made some big developmental leaps in the last month. He is super speedy at crawling now, making it very difficult to get this month’s milestone card picture!

Gabe won't stay still

He has learnt to pull himself up to standing which he is incredibly pleased with himself about. He’s started cruising along the furniture too. It does mean we have to be in a state of constant vigilance though as he is still a bit unstable and hasn’t quite worked out how to sit back down properly yet either so he always seems to be seconds away from causing himself an injury!

Gabe only wants to stand up

Our progress with weaning has been slow this month as being ill and teething has affected Gabe’s appetite quite a lot and I think because of that he has’t really grown or put on much weight in the last month either. His co-ordination is improving all the time though and he is getting much better at feeding himself finger foods, although he is still mostly spoon-fed. I’m hoping we can get him more used to lumpier food over the next couple of months and he can eat the same as the rest of the family. He usually has three bottles of milk during the day now, but also has at least one or two during the night as well. I’m hoping that getting his reflux under control will help us stop the night feeds too.

Gabe enjoying some lunch

Gabe has also started making much more distinguishable sounds now too. He says hiya and although we’ve not quite got Dada yet he does say ‘a-da’ instead. It’s very cute.

I think that’s probably about it for this month’s update. When it comes time to write Gabe’s eleven month update we will be mid house move and he’ll have to deal with lots of disruption to his normal routine. We’ll be leaving the house he was born in which is a little bit sad but hopefully by this time next month we will be getting settled into our forever home. And please, everybody, send all your wellness vibes this way because I would love Gabe to have a month where he isn’t ill at all.

0-10 months

 

 

Gabriel is nine months old

I’m a bit late with this month’s update – Gabe was actually nine months old last week while we were on holiday at Center Parcs but with that, house viewings and the chicken pox I’m only just getting round to writing this.

Gabriel is nine months old

Well in last month’s update I said I hoped there would be less illness this month but unfortunately that hasn’t really been the case. On top of his habitual cold Gabe has also had a stomach bug which he caught off Toby but whereas Toby was just sick a couple of times then back to normal after a couple of days, Gabe had really nasty nappies for almost two weeks. Almost as soon as he got over that Toby got the chicken pox and then it was inevitable Gabe would get it too. His first spot appeared on Monday and today he’s still only got about 10 so I’m really hoping that is it and he is going to escape with only a mild dose of the pox. On top of all that he is still suffering with his reflux, particularly it seems at bedtimes, and our paediatrician appointment which was scheduled for 17th June (already about three months after we were referred by the GP) has now been moved to 15th July!

What do you mean it's the wrong way round

On a happier note Gabe hasn’t had any more teeth this month, although I did think he nasty nappies were due to teething for a while. Weaning has been a bit all over the place, along with Gabe’s appetite this month. He’s still being spoon fed most of his meals but he is getting much better and chewing lumpier food, and at picking different foods up and eating them himself. Rice cakes and yoghurt have been firm favourites this month along with lots of different pouch meals (we’ve mostly been using the HiPP Organic 7+ month ones). We’ve also changed Gabe’s formula to HiPP Organic this month. I’d heard that a lot of reflux babies find it gentler on their tummies, and I was also hoping the prebiotics in it would help get his insides back to normal after the stomach bug. I don’t know if it has actually made any difference but he isn’t any worse so we’re going to stick with it for the moment.

Gabe enjoying lunch

With all the illness, and the disruption of a holiday sleep is still rather illusive. We’re having lots of night waking still but whereas I used to be able to settle him with his dummy and a rub on the back or a cuddle now he nearly always needs milk to get back to sleep. I’m pretty sure this is because of his reflux rather than hunger as Toby used to be exactly the same. It never made any difference how much he ate during the day he would still need milk if he woke in the night. At least for now Gabe does usually go back to sleep quickly after he’s had his milk so I don’t have to be awake for too long in the night. We’ve been doing quite a bit of co-sleeping this month too – mostly when he wakes for the second time at about 4 am and isn’t that keen on going back to sleep. Usually if I bring him in bed with me at that point we manage another hour or two of sleep.

Crawling takes concentration

The big development this month has been that Gabe has started crawling! He started off just commando crawling but in the last few days he’s pretty much crawling up on his hands knees. Which means nothing is safe any more and we’ve had to break out the playpen again. Gabe isn’t a huge fan for any length of time but at least it gives me somewhere safe to put him for a few minutes while I go to the loo or something!

Crawled for the first time

I haven’t had Gabe weighed for ages now but using the probably very inaccurate method of weighing myself then both of us together he weighs 19lb 3oz. He’s still wearing 9-12 month clothes but I think we’re going to have to move into the next size soon, at least for sleepsuits as he is so long, especially with a massive night time cloth bum too!

Gabriel from 0-9 months

I think that’s all for this month, I just really, really, really hope Gabe makes it to 10 months without getting ill again!

Gabriel is eight months old

It’s time for another monthly update already and I’d love to say it’s been a happy one but since last month’s update Gabe has continued to be ill pretty much constantly. He’s had another cold, conjunctivitis again, and although his cold has started to clear up in the last few days he now has an ear infection too! On top of all that he’s got another three teeth since last month making for six in total. No wonder the poor kid has been miserable!

Gabe is eight months old

Despite the ear infection though (which the doctor thinks is just external and has given us ear drops to clear up) Gabe has been much happier in the last week. He’s got his appetite back and his sleep has improved a bit too. We’re still getting a lot of wake ups most nights but we have had the odd night without him waking up until 4 or 5 am again which is about the best we can hope for from Gabe at the moment I think. His morning naps are mostly back on track as well but afternoons are still all over the place.

We did decide to put Gabe’s cot in our bedroom in the end. He was just getting too big for the co-sleeper and although there’s not much room in our bedroom now I think he is better in the cot. And as much as I loved the co-sleeper I am enjoying being able to get out of bed without having to slide down to the bottom first!

I really hope Gabe’s sleep starts to improve now he’s feeling better and there are no more teeth coming for the moment. Toby’s sleep was great when he was Gabe’s age but went really rubbish when he got to about one. He’s only been consistently well since Christmas so with that and being pregnant and then Gabe not sleeping I reckon I could count on one hand the number of really good nights’ sleep I’ve had in the last two years! I seriously can’t remember the last time I wasn’t tired.

Big smiles and a sore nose at eight months old

So despite being ill and not having much of an appetite some days Gabe is continuing to grow at quite a pace. I haven’t actually had him weighed or measured him this month but he is comfortably wearing all his 9-12 month clothes now. I think he might be even bigger than Toby was at this age so who knows what he’ll be like by the time he’s a toddler! I’m not surprised though because he does love his food – we’ve probably been spoon feeding more than we did with Toby and Gabe is definitely having more shop bought baby food whereas Toby only really ate the same as us. We’ve got an exciting collaboration coming up soon that I can’t wait to share with you so I’ll be writing a lot more about Gabe’s weaning experience over the coming weeks and months.

As far as movement goes we haven’t got any crawling yet but like Toby at eight months Gabe is quite adept at spinning on his tummy and shuffling backwards. He’s managing to get up on his hands and knees but still isn’t really near properly crawling. I know I shouldn’t really keep comparing them but Toby was 10 months before he started crawling properly and to be honest I’m quite happy for Gabe to still stay more or less where I leave him for the time being!

Can't quite reach it...

I think that’s probably about it for this month. I really hope that over the next month we can have a lot less illness and a lot more sleep!

0-8 months