It's time for a little personal update, and I wanted to do a post about the milestones that my daughter, Romilly Hero, has reached.
I've never been good at filling out baby books, so it seems a nice way to record how she is now she's reached six months old.
The last six months have been the quickest of my life. Having two kids to take care of is a game changer because every minute of the day is pretty busy! So much has changed already and I'm actually now thinking about going back to work in a few months.
It's made me determined to really enjoy the rest of my maternity leave, and I've been lucky enough to make some really lovely mama friends along the way - people I know I would be friends with even if there weren't kids in common.
Eating Solid Foods
So Romy has always been quite a hungry baby and she took to breastfeeding very easily. She was always a much more efficient feeder than my little boy Theo, and we never had any of those worries about her gaining weight that were such a feature and an anxiety of his early days.
Romy became interested in food quite early on - which I suppose is only natural with her brother eating around her. At about four months old, she started staring down people she could see eating!
We started her on some solids at five months, which is quite early, but she was raring to go. Her first solid food was on Christmas Day - sadly not Christmas Dinner, but a bit of mango puree and mashed banana. She took to it immediately, there was zero hesitation. She was practically wrestling the spoon off us!
Since then she has scaled up to three meals a day, and she still has a fair bit of milk as well. As she was so young when she started on solids, it was obviously spoon feeding but we've since switched to Baby Led Weaning.
She's liked pretty much everything she's tried, apart from avocado, which didn't impress her much (surprising, as I practically lived on them while I was pregnant!).
She's also quite keen on meat, which is strange to us as Theo was pretty much vegetarian for a long while and didn't really like meat until he was well over a year old.
Sleep Habits
Apart from a few random occasions, Romilly doesn't sleep through the night yet. She wakes up quite regularly around 3.30am for a feed. I had thought this might naturally decrease as she went up to three meals a day, but she hasn't dropped it yet.
I'm considering looking into night weaning, which a couple of my friends have done, but at the moment I feel like she needs the milk and it doesn't seem to be just for comfort.
She is in a good napping and bedtime routine though. We followed the Sensational Baby Sleep Plan by Alison Scott-Wright to establish a bedtime, as a friend had been recommended to a sleep specialist by their health visitor, and that was the plan that they were told to follow.
With Theo we didn't do any sleep training until much later because I co-slept with him. Romilly has always been much more independent and happy in her own space, but I still had to break the habit of feeding her to sleep.
We start her bedtime routine at 6pm. She has a bath, a massage with her creams, we pop her pyjamas on and have a last feed and story with Theo in his room. Then I carry her through to the nursery, put her in her sleeping bag, pop an hour of white noise on the iPad and say goodnight.
She will then usually sleep from 6.30pm through to her early hours feed, which is great as we have our evenings back now. I'm able to go off to my hot spin classes or Sebastian and I can watch a film or just relax.
Her naps are also pretty regular. She wakes at around 6.30am and is ready for her first nap 8.30-9am, which she always has in the cot. She usually has a couple of hours although sometimes she has an epic four hour nap! It never seems to affect the night time. She has another nap after lunch at about 1pm which tends to be shorter, but again it varies.
She was having a further half hour at around 4.30pm but that's been dropped now. Her naps are regular which is great because I know I can get things done, although I do have to plan my days around it a little.
Sometimes she will nap in the car seat but usually she isn't so good at napping in her pram, as she wakes up the second you stop moving! Whereas the pram was the only way we could get Theo to nap at all.
I'm thankful that she will do fairly long stretches napping rather than just short bursts more often. So although we don't get completely unbroken nights usually we get enough of a block of sleep to cope. I've still kept a double bed in her room so I can just climb in there with her if she wakes during the night.
Physical Features
Romilly has been teething on and off in bursts for what feels like an age but she doesn't have a single tooth to show for it yet, poor baba! Although it doesn't seem to have slowed her down on the eating front any.
She's always been quite chunky but she's starting to lean out a bit now - again, very different to Theo, who was tiny and skinny as a young baby.
She has enormous bright blue eyes, just like Sebastian. I wonder whether they will stay that way or turn green like her brother. It's funny as I always pictured my kids having brown eyes like me, and yet neither of them do. She has a really pretty shaped head which is perhaps a funny thing to say, although she wasn't born with as much hair as Theo and she still only has a very little.
I am looking forward to her getting more hair, although I am rubbish at plaits and things so I'm going to need to up my game.
She looks very similar to Theo as a baby and there is definitely a very clear sibling resemblance. She can roll over and push herself up, but she hasn't started crawling yet. I don't think it will be too long as she adores following her brother around.
Nature & Language
We haven't had any proper words yet but we’re getting a lot of babble with a few ‘Dada’s’, although we aren't sure how intentional they are (Seb would say 100 per cent intended though!). Sometimes I think I hear ‘Mama’ but it tends to be only when she is quite upset.
My money would be on her saying ‘Theo’ first or maybe ‘cat’ as she is fascinated with Shilling, our tabby.
She's smiling and giggling and playing little games with us, although she is certainly a lot less smiley and more serious than Theo was - you have to really work it to get a smile from her!
Her character is definitely laid back, she's an observer of the world rather than reacting immediately. She very rarely gets upset and doesn't seem as sensitive and highly strung as her brother.
She's very loving and adores cuddles, but she's equally happy in her own space and will sit propped up with cushions or in her activity centre for a good half hour on her own.
Health
Apart from the usual coughs and sniffles, Romilly has generally been in good health, thank goodness. She picks up all the germs that Theodore brings home from nursery so hopefully by the time she starts school, she will have a cast iron immune system!
She does have very dry, sore skin though and has been given special creams for baby eczema. She also got impetigo from scratching all the time, and although we file her nails right down she still claws at her skin sometimes.
I have wondered if she might have a mild food allergy, but I can't see an obvious culprit.
Favourite Toys
When you have a second child, they tend to play with a lot of things you wouldn't dream of letting the first baby have at their age - and basically Romilly doesn't have much choice but to play with toy cars as her brother loves them, and they are everywhere in our house!
It's only in the past couple of months that she's taken a real interest in toys and will reach out for them. Her favourites are a Lamaze peacock and her chewy Sophie Le Giraffe, and she also adores her Guess How Much I Love You comfort toy, which she always sleeps with.
Romilly & Theodore
One of the very best things for me over the past few months has been watching the relationships between my two kids developing.
Romy absolutely adores Theo, and spends a lot of time watching him and laughing at his antics. He's always guaranteed to make her smile and that's so lovely to see. He's always been so good with her that I think we sometimes almost forget what a big adjustment it's been for him at only three and it has come out in other ways.
But he's always lovely with her and in return you can tell that she thinks the world of him already.
We are so enjoying being a family of four, and although it can be hard work occasionally and is definitely very tiring, Sebastian and I are both so happy and in love with our beautiful little humans.
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