One Step Forward, One Step Back
One of the big milestones for a baby is rolling from their back over to their front. Typically they hit that milestone around 5-6 months. Somewhere around that time Evie did it once and I think it was an accidental turn over rather than an on purpose turn over.
All these months she never repeated it and I figured that she probably didn't see any point in it so didn't have any motivation. I knew that eventually she would do it and since she started crawling 4 weeks ago, I was actually rather relieved she wasn't rolling over because once she knows how to get over onto her front, then she can do that anytime anywhere including when I'm not watching her like a hawk. And it's not just about rolling over. It's about rolling over and being able to crawl wherever she wants once she's on her tummy - including off the bed.
Yes, we co-sleep and we've been lax about taking our bed off the frame (so that it's lower down by the ground) because really, once we lay her down she can't get off the bed on her own.
Today I was trying to get her to go down for a nap and she wasn't being very cooperative, so I laid down next to her in hopes should would relax and go to sleep. There I was, shutting my eyes pretending to be asleep and all of a sudden I felt the bed shift in a way that I'm not used to. I opened my eyes and there she was sitting up in bed. Whu? How did you do that? So I laid her back down and watched as she rolled over onto her tummy then pushed herself up into a sitting position. The third time she rolled over again and rather than pushing herself up into a sitting position, she crawled... towards the edge of the bed.
She was all proud of herself for learning a new trick and she had a huge grin on her face and kept giggling. Randy and I giggled with her. Because even though this means a new challenge for us to adapt to, we are proud of her.
I think the time for co-sleeping is over. As much as I enjoyed having her close, it's really time now to transition her to her crib. That's the most sure fire way to make sure she doesn't crawl herself off into the precipice. And she proved last night that she can sleep through the night and not need me every few hours because.... ***drum roll***
...for the first time she slept 10 straight hours. Huzzah!! We got an 8 hour once, and a couple of 7 hour stretches once... but mostly it was 4-6 hours that she would sleep before waking to be nursed. In the past 2 months, she's been waking up every 2-3 hours and it was really taking a toll on us.
Now that I know she can sleep through the night, I feel much better about trying to get her to do this in her own sleeping space in her own room.
Though tonight she's been in bed less than 4 hours and she's already woken up twice. Grrr.
In a previous post I wrote that she pulled up on her own on a shallow step during swim lessons. This just a few days after she started crawling. The buoyancy of the water made it easy to do.
Well, just a few days after her first pull up, she did it again (this was just a couple days after she turned 10 months). This time outside of the water, at home, using Randy's guitar case.
Throughout the past few months, we would help her stand and she loved it. Randy would put her feet on his and show her what it was like to walk. She got a big kick out of that. So it was really neat to see her stand on her own.
I wrote in a previous post how she fell off the bed a little over a week ago. I didn't realize until a day later that she hurt her ankle during the fall. There was no swelling, or bruising, but everytime I touched the lower part of her right leg, she would wince and cry. The chiropractor checked it out and said she probably strained or sprained her ankle a little, but she would be just fine.
Now even though the ankle doesn't seem to be bothering her any longer, she refuses to stand on her feet. Even when we help her just like we've done for the past few months, she refuses to put her right foot down.
I'm sure that even though it doesn't appear to hurt anymore, she has that imprint of the pain in her head and she's avoiding anything that might hurt.
So a step forward with rolling over, a step back with standing. And eventually she will take her first steps despite the setback.