Uma has added oatmeal to her menu. She seems to like it better than rice cereal. Green beans are in the pipeline as her next food. She seems to understand what's going on a lot better than before; it looks like we're past the "training" part of solid foods and now moving into just plain eating. Hopefully, that's a harbinger of sleeping through the night again. Now that she's well again, she mainly wakes up in the night due to hunger.

Her dexterity and coordination have improved. She's starting to do the pincher grasp, which is using the thumb and index finger to grab at things. Her fine motor skills are stronger as well; yesterday, she was pulling at the whiskers on her stuffed tiger puma. She's been able to pass things from one hand to another for a while, and is slowly learning how to pick up more awkward items with both hands at once. She hasn't toppled over while sitting down in weeks. Uma's bouncy bucking is, if anything, more energetic. If you say "bouncy bouncy bouncy" and bounce, she'll often happily mimic the motion.

Uma's learned to clap her feet together. She doesn't do her hands, but she'll smack the soles of her feet together. We think she learned that from Jessica doing the "Kissy Feet" move from the "Baby Yoga" book. She also does this thing where she'll hold her right fist out and tap it with her left fist. Sometimes, she does that while holding her rings or other toys to knock them together. Uma also will thump her chest with her right hand repeatedly. We're not really sure what's going on with either of those things. She's a funny girl.

I thought you'd be interested in knowing what an average day in the life of the Puma looks like:

8:00am: Wake up and play
8:45am: Breakfast, followed by more play time
9:30am: Nap
11:30am: Go out and see the world, or more solid food followed by play time
1:30pm: Nap time
3:00pm: Go out for a walk, another errand, or just hang out at home.
5:30pm: Bath time!
6:00pm: Naked time (and massage)
6:25pm: Reading
6:40pm: Last nursing before bed time
7:00pm: Asleep
Anytime between 11:30pm and 5:00am: Late night snack (meal, really; she's a hungry girl).

Her daily routine has been something like this since the late summer. We used to put her to sleep about 20-30 minutes later, but eventually, we realized that the reason she was usually cranky around that time was because we were keeping her up too late. During the blessed weeks she slept through the night, she would wake up closer to 7:00am, but make up for it with a longer morning nap. Her afternoon nap has been pretty hit-or-miss for a few months, as she just didn't want to sleep (but really needed it). Thankfully, it's stabilized in the last week or so. The morning nap tends to be about 90 minutes, with an hour-long afternoon nap, but it's not unusual for either to go as much as twice as long or as little as half as long, assuming she does the afternoon nap at all. The duration of the nap doesn't matter so much as long as she wakes up naturally. It's easy to tell if she had enough based on how she wakes up; if it's sudden and angry, then she didn't get enough, while if she wakes up and starts talking to herself, it was a good one.

Note that most days don't fit this schedule, but pretty much every day looks a lot like it. The times are pretty approximate as well. Play time could be actual play, like attacking her bear, or it could be watching Daddy iron. Nursing and diaper changes are interspersed as needed, usually every two hours or so, especially immediately before and immediately after sleeping. She doesn't go for a walk every day, just some days. She will fall asleep pretty well in her stroller when all else has failed for the afternoon nap, which was really helpful last month. The period between her afternoon nap and bed time can be a little long as well, so a little catnap in her stroller around 5pm can be very helpful for refreshing her spirits. Usually, we start watching her for signs of tiredness and unhappiness after she's been awake for 2 hours or so. This last week has been going particularly well, which is nice all around.

Labels: words

posted by Ketan @ 12/05/2005 04:55:00 PM