Finley the crawler

brad — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 11:56:33 +0200

Amanda is in Durban at the moment, visiting family (read showing off Finley). Just before we left for Durban on August 20th Finley had started get the hang of starting to crawl, well, he could "step" forward like three steps and then sit on his bum, while moaning and complaining continuously. After a few days in Durban (I think it is the warm air) he was really getting the hang of it (so much so that we could leave him on the floor with toys splayed around, and he would amuse himself). The realisation of the impact of a crawling child dawned on us when we were trying to put him down for a nap one time (when possible me and Mandy lie on either side of him while she feeds him to sleep, this is the result of his separation anxiety phase which he is currently moving through). As we were trying to get him to sleep he kept rolling over, pushing himself onto his hands and knees, and crawling to the edge of the bed. Mandy described the situation quite nicely in an email she sent me last night:

BUT. It took me about 10 minutes to change his nappy tonight. Once I take his dirty nappy off, before I can put the new nappy on, he flips onto his tummy, gets onto hands and knees and crawls away laughing. He does it really quickly and I can see that changing nappies is never going to be the same again. He can also sit up from lying down on his back without rolling onto his tummy first. Which means putting him to sleep has become increasingly difficult. He just sits up and does what he wants to. His crawling speed has also accelerated. So if you can, please try and do some childproofing before we get home.

I am a bit scared. Mandy also took Finley to uShaka Marine World and said "Then we went to the Aquarium and he was quite sleepy and was a little frightened by the fish at first, but soon warmed up to them. He especially like the huge sea turtles.". It is quite nice to hear he is warming up to stuff a lot quicker, our week in durban bombarded him with people, places, and plenty of new things, most of which he did not have an immediate appreciation for:

Sleeping, Moving, Teething

amanda — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:56:16 +0200

Its been a while since my last entry, mainly because the No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley arrived last Monday and I have spent the last week and a bit reading through it and establishing our sleep plan for Fin. It is a gradual process but I think we are moving in the right direction. Finley now sleeps for 3 hours straight between 11pm and 2am so getting some deep sleep definately helps! He's still waking up frequently before and after that but I'm trying to just focus on the positive. He also doesn't need to be nursed until he's completely asleep (as was the case before) so Pantley's Gentle Removal Plan definately does work. After about 10 minutes of nursing, he follows my cue (fingertip under his bottom lip) and rolls over to the other side and falls asleep. Finley has definately entered the land of mobility. If he's not bum shuffling, then he's doing his own variation on the crawl: from sitting he gets himself into the hands and knee position (yes, I said knee not knees). His foot of his other leg is flat on the floor and between the knee, foot and hands he manages to propel himself forward. Only until the desired object is in reach however, then he grabs it and gets back into sitting position. He's getting quicker and better at getting in and out of sitting, but the moving forward part is still a bit wobbly and unsteady. Recently, he has discovered that when he's in hands and knee and loses his balance and ends up on his tummy, if he squirms about he can actually move backwards and at a much quicker rate than forwards. He's always been frustrated being on his tummy, so the speed aspect hasn't impressed him too much yet. His brand spanking new trick is to pull himself up onto furniture or people and then let go and try and stand by himself. He inevitably ends up on the floor, but perseveres time after time. His record is probably about 3 seconds before he lands on his bum, but the 'Look mama, no hands' smile he flashes while he's doing it is priceless! And then today after months of speculation and false alarms, his first tooth cut through and we can definitively say the boy is teething! Its only a little sharp bit of a first tooth that you can see (and feel..oww!) but its definately there.