General update

We have just got back from a short break on Texel and Michael is doing very well. We were a little concerned that being in a strange place and sleeping in a travel cot would throw off his routine altogether and leave him unwilling to sleep. We needn't have worried - he did fantastically well and slept soundly all night and for his daytime naps. In fact, he slept so well that I think the blackout blinds in the hotel suite might have had something to do with it. We're going to buy some for the bedrooms at home. We don't really have much to complain about when it comes to his sleep but he does tend to be a bit of a light sleeper once the sun has come up. Blackout blinds should help with that.

He thoroughly enjoyed exploring the hotel suite and thought it was a great joke when Daddy stood outside on the balcony and tapped on the window. The floor was stone and I nearly had a heart attack every time he crawled off or pulled himself to standing. If I had had a big butterfly net then, believe me, I would have been following him around with it.

Michael has never really seemed afraid of anything but, curiously, he was frightened of the shower nozzle in the hotel bathroom. It is a pity because it is the fastest way to rinse the soap suds from a squirming and determined baby. He's irrepressible so I imagine he'll get over this fear before long.

He has started babbling 'Mama' which, as you can imagine, is thrilling for me. He has been saying it off and on for months but only when he needed something. To hear him say it as part of general baby chit-chat is lovely. He says 'baba' too.

I think he has had a growth spurt because he seems to have grown quite a bit in the last month or so. He has a health check at the baby clinic in a couple of weeks so I will be interested to see his updated stats. His legs look like they are finally starting to catch up with his huge torso.

Lastly, I haven't mentioned how he is doing with solid food in a while but I can report that it is going very well. He has his ups and downs because of the teething but on the whole he does very well. He now lets me feed him with the spoon rather than taking the spoon from me to feed himself. He absolutely loves banana, although he enjoys all of the fruits that I have offered. He is less keen on vegetables and will sometimes eat what I offer and sometimes not. I have tried mixing up breast milk with something like sweet potato but quite often this little fishy won't bite. So, the list goes as follows:

Foods that Michael likes doesn't hate:

• Banana
• Avocado
• Apple
• Pear
  
• Rice cakes
• Carrot
• Sweet potato
• Pumpkin
• Green beans
• Brown bread

I'm not surprised that he didn't like the puréed green beans. What was I thinking?!? It was absolutely disgusting and I wouldn't have eaten it either. At least he was polite enough not to throw the bowl at my head!

Forgot to mention

Despite the teething, the introduction of solids has gone much better this week than previously. I wouldn't say that Michael is incredibly excited about these strange blobs of gloop being proffered but he opens his mouth willingly now and is keen to grab the spoon and try feeding himself. He eats a good few spoonfuls before getting bored at being made to sit still. He has had a change of heart and now likes banana which is good news because it is a nice quick meal which does not involve steaming or using the food processor.

Success and failure

Today was our last session at baby gymnastics. It was sad to say goodbye to Lillith and to the other ladies that I have followed through both pregnancy yoga and baby gymnastics. I hope to keep in touch with some of them, but as I live well outside Amsterdam I won't be able to make it into the city as often as I would like.

I got some very useful advice from Lillith on offering solid foods to a baby. She suggested that offering it when the baby is on your knee is less intimidating and offers more encouragement. Since Michael has seemed to hate solid food so far, we gave it a try this evening with some puréed apple. It worked a treat and he was willingly opening his mouth and trying to feed himself. I was thrilled. It makes a lot of sense, when you think about it, as his only experience of nourishment for 6 months was nestled up against my chest. The only down-side is that Michael likes to share his success by leaning into me for a cuddle and I ended up getting covered in apple purée too.

So... that was the success.

Now for the failure.

It took two hours to get Michael to go to sleep this evening. We followed his usual bedtime routine and he simply would not settle. Initially he wasn't crying or obviously distressed but he was wide awake. We told him a story - "Goodnight Moon" - and he lay happily on my knee alternating between leaning into Phil for a cuddle and then doing the same with me. After a while he started to cry and chomp on his fists and I gave him some Dentinox. That had no effect whatsoever and he became really distressed. About an hour and another breastfeed later he finally fell asleep and I carried him up to his cot.

For the last 24 hours he has been periodically nestling into me, closing his eyes and then sucking his thumb furiously. He does this for a moment or two and then rouses himself and bounces back into action. Then a few minutes later he is back nestling into me. I think he is getting quite overtired because we have been rushing around a bit and the teething has been interfering with his naps. He doesn't nap when we are out and about unless we are in the car. For the next few days I'll keep activity outside the house to a minimum and will encourage him to get as much rest as possible.

Now that the baby gymnastics class has ended, I think I will enroll us in a baby swim class in Hoofddorp. The 0-1 age group have a 15 minute session in the pool once a week and I think that we would really enjoy it. The times are quite good so I hope to persuade Phil to come along with us.

Solids

Foods that Michael likes doesn't hate:

• Banana
• Avocado
• Apple
• Rice cakes

The gag reflex is still pretty powerful because he was quite sick after putting a piece of rice cake in his mouth that was a little too large. He doesn't seem to like solids yet, really, but we will persevere.

Solid food

Michael had his first solid food today. We tried him with a little banana at lunchtime. I chopped it up into little pieces and let him explore it and taste it at will. He wasn't dramatically impressed and the faces he pulled were priceless! It is interesting to me that he'll put anything non-edible that is within reach into his mouth but the minute I actually present him with something he is permitted to eat he gets all coy.

We had a really rough time with him this evening because of his teething pain. Even with paracetamol he could not sleep for his last nap of the day so by the time his (early) bedtime came around he was very difficult to settle. I think I must have run through my entire nursery rhyme and song repertoire at least twice. When it gets to the point where I am singing Edelweiss from "The Sound of Music" followed by "More than Words" by Extreme, I recognise that things are getting desperate! He has finally gone to sleep and am crossing everything that he is a happier bunny in the morning.