Dear Nelson,
Unbelievably, you are now four months old, and what a month the past one has been.
There have been a couple of major achievements this month, which make your father and me justifiably proud.
1. The sleeping through the night thing.
The other morning I woke up wondering why the birds were singing at 3am. In reality it was 6am, and you’d been asleep since about 9pm the previous evening. It felt surreal. It felt like an unexpected Christmas present, sleeping for hours at a time while it was dark outside. And since then – with a couple of minor blips – you’ve continued to sleep in one major block of time over night. These days you’ll get tired about 7ish, we’ll put you to bed 8ish, and you’ll sleep through until 4-5ish. I think sticky-taping tin foil over your windows has really helped with this, especially now with summer coming and sunlight peeping through at about 4am. Now you have a feed at about 5am and then snooze until about 8ish, partly because you think it’s still dark. HAH! Just you wait until I lie and tell you that the pile of cabbage you won’t eat is really just boiled lettuce. The tinfoil is just the start of it all.
2. The eating of food that’s not milk.
I’m quite sure that committing this to writing will incur the wrath of my bureaucratic and overly stringent health visitor, but we have started feeding you food from a spoon. Food that’s not milk. First it was just baby rice mixed with a bit of formula, then it was a bit of apple purée mixed with baby rice, and then we moved onwards and outwards to try banana, apple and banana, apple, carrot and parsnip and carrot and potato.
The first few mouthfuls you weren’t really sure what to make of it all, and to be honest I didn’t care much for the taste of baby rice either, but once you got the hang of rolling the mush around in your mouth and then actually swallowing it, you were away. Now you virtually bite my hand off to get whatever I’ve mixed up into your mouth. Some days you’re not into it, and that’s fine: we have a bit of fun and then you drink your milk and all is dandy.
This Thursday I am determined to take you down to the baby clinic and get you weighed. I want to know just how much this grown up food is affecting your weight. You are such a solid, lovely boy, with a cute little belly and teeny tiny rolls on your thighs.
Love, mum.
