Eva turns 15 months old today! We are out of the baby days
and full steam ahead for toddlerhood. She is constantly on the go, into
everything that she can get her hands on and is a contender for world’s fastest
crawler. It’s such an exciting time and so far it’s been my favourite stage. I’m
feeling a little bit sad that she’s becoming more independent every day but it’s
making me so proud to see her grow and learn.
Development
The last month, more specifically week has been a major breakthrough.
Eva is now consistently using ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada’ for when she sees us or wants
to be held by us. She is also using ‘Stop’ for when she doesn’t want something,
which happens quite a bit! We’ve noticed that she is making much more
considered decisions and learning from consequences. When she drops something
she says, ‘Uh oh’ and puts her hand to her mouth in shock, it’s so sweet. Eva
is also becoming much calmer when we are reading books too and seems interested
in the story now. Before she would grab at the books and crawl away
uninterested but we’ve worked on getting her engaged with the book and have
found flap books to be great source of fun!
Eva has been standing independently for a few months now and
in the past month has gotten really good at walking when we hold her hand. She
is really confident with bending down and picking up items and is so steady
now. However she really hasn’t attempted to start walking independently. When
we beckon her to walk towards us, she just looks bemused! At the moment she is
more than happy to cruise about the room holding on to furniture to steady
herself with one hand. We are trying to encourage her by popping her down on
her feet after being held as opposed to being sat. We also take her for walks
at every opportunity and she absolutely loves it. Plus we are giving lots of
praise when she walks. It is a bit worrying as most of Eva’s peers are walking
however I’m really not worried as I know she will get there, she just needs
some confidence that she can do it by herself.
This month I’ve really noticed that Eva is closely following
the wonder weeks leaps. I bought the book when Eva was a few months old but I
didn’t follow it too much. However I noticed that Eva was getting extremely frustrated
quite easily since around September time. I wasn’t sure if this change in mood
was due to the changes in routine and me going back to work or something
developmentally. According to this leap Eva is experiencing a need for
boundaries and is testing them through having tantrums. Once I was able to read
about why this was happening it gave me the ability to understand have more
patience with dealing with these little outbursts. I must say though I am happy
that she’s 5 days away from the leap ending and I can see she is much happier!
Routine
Since I went back to work in August we’ve had to have a
pretty structured routine otherwise we’d never get anything done! Eva wakes up
between 6.30-7am most days. Mondays and Fridays are nursery days so she has
breakfast there and is dropped off for 8am. Tuesdays and Thursdays are her days
with her grandma so she’s popped into her car at 7am in her pjs and brought
over there. Eva’s grandma totally spoils her so she has more clothes and toys
there than she does at home! But it is handy as it means I don’t have to pack
anything in the morning. On Wednesdays she has a day at home with Luke where
they do fun activities like swimming or going to soft play. We are still on two
naps a day, one around three hours after she wakes up and one around 2.30pm. I
tried to reduce it to one nap a day to make bed time easier but Eva was getting
so over tired by 5pm and it really wasn’t fair on her. Plus I really believe
that sleep breeds sleep as even if she naps until 3.30pm it may take her a bit
longer to get to sleep in the evening but she stays asleep for longer.
A rule that we implemented over the past few weeks was no
screen time an hour before bed. I was finding that she was very over stimulated
when it came to bed time. So instead we swapped in the night garden for a bath
with some bubbles and nursery rhymes. It’s a lovely way to spend time with Eva throughout
the week when I don’t get much due to working full time! We’ve found that this
has really helped with keeping her relaxed and in turn has made the 7pm bedtime
much smoother. Some nights we do find that its harder to get her to sleep but
mostly she is usually down by 7.30pm. We are still co-sleeping as there has
been so much upheaval recently and we are finding that we are all having a much
better night’s sleep when she’s in with us rather than her cot. I’m pretty
happy with our routine at the moment, it seems to be working quite well for Eva
and means we get some time in the evening to drink cups of tea and actually
have a grown up conversation!
Food
Getting Eva onto food has been a labour of love. If she had
her way she would eat yoghurt and sweetcorn for the rest of her life. On the
days at home we have porridge with banana or raspberries for breakfast followed
by some toast. I notice that breakfast is her favourite and the meal which she
tends to eat the most of. She has lunch about 12 and that’s usually a sandwich,
fruit and yoghurt. Then a snack around 2pm followed by dinner at 4.30/5pm. Eva
is eating a mostly vegetarian diet purely as she doesn’t really like meat. She
will eat cod and prawns but really doesn’t like chicken or ham. Recently Eva
has really gone off drinking water so we are diluting some organic apple juice
with water which seems to be working quite well. We also use these cups which
are the only ones I’ve found which don’t leak in the nappy bag!
This Month’s Favourites
· Play ideas from Amy Jayne and Baby found here
· These cashmere leggings from Zara, the softest material and it washes so well
· My new favourite skirt from Marks and Spencer
· Eva’s new love of giving me hugs
· Watching Stacey Dooley’s documentaries
· Our Airbnb holiday to Bristol, a perfect break with the family and finally, this picture!!
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