(The detour at the hospital yesterday, with the abscess, got us a little bit side-tracked.)
What she is doing now at 16 months :
- I am a little bit worried about the language development. A friend said she should be speaking 10 words by now. Let me count: Mamma, Pappa (daddy), tatta, hello, Arnia... She is even calling every other object “pappa” now? And the rest is mermaid-speak. Should I be getting worried?
- The finger still points and she now comes to fetch us to walk with her. Not that it is always clear what she wants. It seems she is happy to go in any direction, as long as we are going with her.
- The new class at day care has definitely “turned on a few more lights”. She seems to be more interested in drawing, building puzzles and reading. It was a good thing to have moved her from the baby class. They also don’t have any problems with her going to sleep on the mat. She spends two hours sleeping in the early afternoon, a bit longer than the rest of her friends. (But she used to sleep twice during the day in the baby section).
- I am still breastfeeding. The two year goal is within reach! I think it is a comfort thing during the night. She loves to sleep while being latched on. I am treasuring these wonderful bonding moments. After I have seen the Avatar movie, I think of breastfeeding in the same context as the species on Pandora who latches on to the Tree and the animals with their “hair”.
- I am struggling to get her 100% healthy. She has missed the MMR vaccine at 15 months. It seems that she has an allergic type of sinus problem. I think milk is number one suspect, but I have looked on the shelves, and don’t think that soya is a good alternative. I feel a bit unsure to cut it from her diet at this stage? (Which a friend suggested.)
- She is sleeping much better. The problem is getting her to fall asleep. I feel that 8-9 is a bit late, but that is usually the time she goes “down”. She wakes up once or twice, and sometimes she goes right through until 6. I hate it every day I have to wake her for day care. Powerwoman is allowed to say it, and to keep on hating it! Not nice to be a working mother when you leave a sleepy baby in somebody else’s arms...
- She loves shoes! She has no problem in the mornings to sit down for us to put on her shoes. And she doesn’t take it off until she goes to bed at night. It was a struggle yesterday to take it off in hospital. She was trying to put it on again the whole time. She is a girl, for sure! (Smile)
What she is doing now at 16 months :
- I am a little bit worried about the language development. A friend said she should be speaking 10 words by now. Let me count: Mamma, Pappa (daddy), tatta, hello, Arnia... She is even calling every other object “pappa” now? And the rest is mermaid-speak. Should I be getting worried?
- The finger still points and she now comes to fetch us to walk with her. Not that it is always clear what she wants. It seems she is happy to go in any direction, as long as we are going with her.
- The new class at day care has definitely “turned on a few more lights”. She seems to be more interested in drawing, building puzzles and reading. It was a good thing to have moved her from the baby class. They also don’t have any problems with her going to sleep on the mat. She spends two hours sleeping in the early afternoon, a bit longer than the rest of her friends. (But she used to sleep twice during the day in the baby section).
- I am still breastfeeding. The two year goal is within reach! I think it is a comfort thing during the night. She loves to sleep while being latched on. I am treasuring these wonderful bonding moments. After I have seen the Avatar movie, I think of breastfeeding in the same context as the species on Pandora who latches on to the Tree and the animals with their “hair”.
- I am struggling to get her 100% healthy. She has missed the MMR vaccine at 15 months. It seems that she has an allergic type of sinus problem. I think milk is number one suspect, but I have looked on the shelves, and don’t think that soya is a good alternative. I feel a bit unsure to cut it from her diet at this stage? (Which a friend suggested.)
- She is sleeping much better. The problem is getting her to fall asleep. I feel that 8-9 is a bit late, but that is usually the time she goes “down”. She wakes up once or twice, and sometimes she goes right through until 6. I hate it every day I have to wake her for day care. Powerwoman is allowed to say it, and to keep on hating it! Not nice to be a working mother when you leave a sleepy baby in somebody else’s arms...
- She loves shoes! She has no problem in the mornings to sit down for us to put on her shoes. And she doesn’t take it off until she goes to bed at night. It was a struggle yesterday to take it off in hospital. She was trying to put it on again the whole time. She is a girl, for sure! (Smile)
Hi Karen - good to meet you. I am also an older mom with little people. Twins nogals. Anyway, I would not be too worried about her language - I was very aware of it with my boys as twin boys are prone to speech issues, but at 2 years they should speak 10 words (apart from mamma and pappa) - so you are fine. It completely threw me off because my firstborn is one of those natural language kids - had more than 50 words at 18 months, fluently bilingual at 2 and a half. Not so my boys, but they are still ok.
ReplyDeleteAnd prepare yourself for lots of shoes - she sounds like my princess, who at 5 is completely shoe besotted.
I don't think you should be worried. My one daughter's speech developed much faster than the other and she still has a much greater vocabulary than the other.
ReplyDeleteOne of my mom's friends who's son turned out to be a genius (literally) was diagnosed as being "delayed" as a baby because he did not interact with others at all.
Another neighbor of mine told me her son never spoke a word until he turned four years old and then suddenly one day he just started talking non-stop.
They all develop differently. My motto is as long as I see improvement there is not a problem. I think when things don't improve for an extended period of time and worse case scenario, regress, it is time to get concerned.
Oh, I'm with you on the milk. My kids had chronic ear infections. As soon as they discontinued formula around 1 year of age, I switched them to rice milk. I also got a suggestion to use almond milk as an alternative. No ear infections ever again!
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I cut from their diet for a while was gluten. It's very hard on the digestive track and can cause bloating and inflammation which in turn cause a buildup of mucus. My babies being born small (5 pds each, did not have the advanced digestive system to cope with the stress from dairy and gluten.
They still drink rice milk. They hate the taste of cows' milk.
Hi Cat & HT Thanks for the feedback about the language development.
ReplyDeleteHT: I will look at the rice milk we get here in South Africa. I am not sure that it is very good, because they put sugar in it?
Put I will try it to see if it makes a difference.