10 Months Have Sped By

Yesterday Willow turned 10 months old. What has now become a cliche with each new update but goes without saying; Willow has come on leaps and bounds over the past month and the changes are incredible. I feel like my little baby is turning into a little girl and her personality, mannerisms, behaviour and even looks, are so different over the past four weeks.

We actually had a very rough month, with Willow spending three weeks being quite unwell which resulted in a trip to A&E with suspected meningitis. She had been unwell for over a week with a cold, that we had tackled with the necessary baby medicines and lots of bedsharing to get us through the nights. After a week or so of being unwell we woke up one morning to find Willow had a rash, that was quickly spreading all over her body. We did the glass test, and although it made the rash less severe to look at, it was still present, so I rang the non-emergency NHS number; 111. Thankfully it wasn't meningitis and the nurses said it was most likely a viral rash, but could have also been the start of chickenpox. It took a further two weeks for Willow to get 100% back to herself, with lots of sleepless nights, refusing milk and food and a rash that didn't want to disappear (but thankfully was just a viral rash and not chickenpox, or worse!) 

Thankfully Willow is now much better, which is a big relief as it was the first time she'd ever really been poorly so it was quite a shock for all of us and all I wanted was to make her better. She lost a bit of weight from being poorly and refusing milk and food, but thankfully she had more than enough squishy baby rolls to keep her going.

The biggest change over the past month is just how active she is. Three days after writing Willow's 9-month update, where I told you all that Willow didn't seem likely to crawl anytime soon and might even skip crawling altogether like her cousin, she started crawling! She is constantly on the move now, either crawling or 'cruising'; standing up all day, moving herself along using furniture and standing 'hands-free' for 20 seconds or so. She will also walk around if you hold her hands, and you don't even need to do anything to help her as she can hold her own weight and knows how to move her feet for a good walk around. I'm beginning to wonder if she'll be walking before her 1st birthday in January, but now I've said that she'll probably wait until she's older!

With her moving around more, it's becoming a daily battle of trying to keep her away from the TV stand, TV and XBOX. It's important to me not to shout at Willow etc, so it can be quite frustrating trying to explain to her a million times a day that she shouldn't do something, especially when I'm trying not to use the word 'no' as a default reaction. For me, personally, I feel that if I just tell her no all the time she won't learn why she shouldn't do something and she'll end up with a negative association to the word no. That said, she is only a baby and it will take a long time yet before she really understands when we explain to her why she can't do something, so I think this is going to be quite an on-going thing!

She is so into her food now it's unreal. Hardly anything ends up wasted, she devours everything - but still lets us know if she's had enough. Since we began Baby Led Weaning she has had three meals a day; breakfast, lunch and dinner, and she now also has a few snacks throughout the day too. I think she's starting to cut down on her bottles too, which is a relief as I'm so unsure about how much milk she should be drinking after she turns 1, and I know it's less than what she has now! Even with her 7th tooth popping through over the past couple of days, she's still loving her food and her current favourites are blueberries and melon, Shepherd's pie and Thai Green Curry, yum!

There are just two months left until my little baby turns 1. It's crazy how fast her first year is speeding by, and over the past month she has started to look so much more grown up. I think December is going to be quite the exciting month for us, with Willow's first Christmas, and many more developments and milestones reached.

Willow's 1-month update
Willow's 2-month update
Willow's 3-month update
Willow's 4-month update
Willow's 5-month update
Willow's 6-month update
Willow's 7-month update
Willow's 8-month update
Willow's 9-month update