Grace’s harness is off!! What a relief. We went to the hospital early last week for the scan and her right hip has moved / rotated 5 degrees after wearing the harness for 3 weeks. Honestly, it was such an amazing day for me and Rob to see Grace stretch out and also to see how bloody tall she is. I’m 5ft 10 and Rob is 6ft 6, so it’s safe to say Grace will have some height to her. She clearly wasn’t used to her long legs after the harness came off, her Moro reflex was something else. When she startled she burst into tears 😭💔. But she’s getting used to the limbs and we are back on tummy time and bicycle legs.

She is becoming such a happy girl, she finds me hilarious, which was going to be a given 🙃 but it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. When we wake up in the morning, Rob and I both look over her in her next to me crib and we just get all smiles, whatever the night is like, we get that smile and it starts the day off just right.  I feel like I’m really getting to know her and getting reactions back from her; new noises, screeches, faces etc really help and I think my confidence as a Mum improves every day.

However, Grace had her 16-week jabs last week. Rob was in London for work so I went alone thinking it would be okay. She cried but calmed down, however, the next 2 days were probably the hardest days I’ve experienced as a parent. Grace wasn’t unwell in terms of a fever or anything, but she wasn’t herself. She would scream when she was awake and it was like she was in pain but I wasn’t 100% so I didn’t know what to do apart from comfort her and feed her. I kept her up with the advised amount of Calpol, but she still wasn’t herself. It’s so hard watching your little one in pain and there is nothing you can do. It also can take its toll on your relationship with your partner because everything feels more intense and you’re more tired etc, so you can easily take it out of each other. So it wasn’t the best couple of days but we got through it!! 2 days after her jabs, I felt Grace getting back to her normal self, which was a huge relief.

Now the harness is off, I can start to look at taking Grace swimming. I booked the lido but it was for yesterday during day 1 of extreme heat, so I didn’t think it was safe to do so. So the last couple of days, I’ve stayed indoors with Grace and the dogs with fans on to try and stay cool. It’s such a British thing to complain about the weather but it is sooooo hot! We ended up buying a portable aircon unit from curry’s for the nights. I can’t handle the heat and didn’t want it to disrupt Grace’s sleep. She has been sleeping so well the last few weeks. We haven’t quite established putting her to bed after our bedtime routine but we are tweaking things every evening to get her closest to this goal. My aim is to put her to bed and come downstairs, which I feel loads of people who have a baby the same age as Grace that I know, are already doing, but I might have overthought this and actually, that’s not the case. But I like to do a bath, massage, change, book and maybe a little song whilst Grace feeds but then I can’t put her down (because she wakes up immediately) so I bring her downstairs to sleep on me and then when we go to bed together (at 8.30pm 👵🏼) she stays asleep until about 4 am for a quick feed and back to sleep. So I shouldn’t get myself worked up over not getting her down to bed because she is sleeping so well. I tried putting her down and she woke up and didn’t cry for about 20 minutes, which is when I went into the room and I then got myself so worked up because I didn’t know what I was trying to achieve. She’s too younger for Ferber training; I feel that responsive parenting works for us so she trusts that I’ll always be there and therefore becomes more independent and when the time is right we can add in some gentle training.  So anyway, I picked her up and brought her downstairs and she slept downstairs until we all went to bed and then slept through. So why do I get myself so worked up? She’s doing really well and I’m trying to do something that perhaps she’s not ready for we are getting closer to her being put down for bed happily but just taking some time. Am I the only one? Or is this what other people do too?

Grace also has been to her first hen do and she was so good there. One of my besties, Clare, is getting married and she had her hen do 45 mins from mine so I could drive down with Grace each day to spend it with Clare and friends. Grace slept a lot throughout the days and when she was awake she was happily past round or sat in her bouncer in the shade whilst I socialised ❤️ so it worked out really well for us.

As I write this, I’ve booked the lido to take Grace into the baby pool, so I will keep you posted on how we get on!! Can’t wait….

Maddie x