Last month at home

J is 7 months today! 👶🏻 🥰

After weeks of 🤤, his two bottom front teeth finally emerged! He’s eating semi solids and baby finger food like a champ 😋. He now combines strings of babble together, seems to understand common words like “妈妈, 抱抱, 公公, 洗手洗口, poo-poo, milk, bath, up.” He’s also super active — flips confidently, crawls in all directions, and even pulls up to stand … leading to a few scares lately! 😳

Above all, I’m blessed that he’s such a 开心果 as a friend affectionally calls him 😊. Though lately I’ve noticed some separation anxiety especially when our time together is limited to an early morning 😘 before I head to work. At bedtime, I still try to leave him drowsy but awake in the cot, but we snuggle just a little bit longer, and I linger in the room so that he knows I’m around…. So far thankfully, he is still able to self soothe and 😴 well overnight🤞.

He starts infant care very soon, and my heart is breaking a bit that we have to do this 😔. But it gives him the full time care needed and me flexibility and support in this season of work and family life 🙏

Month 7 Week 4: Reading, signing, talking … and teething!

We started reading and signing to B around 4 months with basic words (milk, eat, drink, sleep, bathe, book, car, plane, etc.), black/white picture and touch books with simple words, rhymes and numbers.   Lately, he likes colourful peek-a-boo books with foldable, pull out tabs/toys and books with real baby photos and different textures. He still loves nursery rhymes and songs that we make up or improvise every day.  Evidently children use familiar words and rhymes in their speaking vocabulary at a more rapid pace as well as contexts and concepts such as counting, time, measurement, position, and weather. B reaches out to pick/grab books when he sees them, and seems to engage and focus quite well when we read to him. Since he can’t clearly talk, sing or sign back yet, I take this to mean that he understands more by now….! He does babble a lot at times and experiments with his tongue for pitches and inflections to indicate that he’s curious, wants yes/no, sleepy/tired, bored, happy, satisfied, etc.

 

Meanwhile, B now has 6 teeth!  That’s a record among his peers who have on average 2 teeth.  He got the 2 lower central incisors at 6 months and then the 4 upper incisors (central and lateral) over the past few weeks.  Ouch! While the teething resulted in plenty of sleepless nights, seeing his pearly whites makes all those groggy pats/cuddles/rocking worth it. I hope there’ll be a brief respite so that he can eventually settle back to sleep “through the night” again (i.e. sleep by 8p, may wake briefly 1-2x but settles back on his own, real waking at 6/7a to start the day). Also, he seems to put everything in his mouth these days — that is, everything BUT his actual teethers.  What irony.

Physically, he’s pushing up to stand wherever he can — cot, sofa, toystool, etc. though he tends to tiptoe still.  He continues to creep, roll, turn, scoot backwards, rock and bounce as he tries to move more than 2 steps forward. We’ve installed our window grills and bought a play “fence”  – waiting for him to crawl for real!  Guess B’s been too busy growing teeth to focus on his crawling this past few weeks 🙂

Read more:
http://www.parenting.com/article/best-books-for-every-baby-stage
http://www.rwitap.com
http://www.babycenter.com/0_developmental-milestone-talking_6573.bc?
http://www.babycenter.com/0_your-childs-teething-and-tooth-loss-timeline_10356447.bc?

Teething symptoms and why it hurts

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