Babies of this age are such fun! Your baby is now a little person who just soaks up stimulation and attention.

 

Making connections

She starts to understand routines and to interpret tone of voice and social interaction. You can just see her personality developing. She will love her reflection and the sound of her voice and she has learned how to charm a response from family members.

 

If fussiness persists

If you find that your baby has not outgrown the fussy stages of the early days or is sleeping very badly, you may benefit from the guidance of an occupational therapist who specializes in dealing with fussy or very sensitive babies. Click here to go to a checklist which can help you to determine whether yours is a fussy baby.

 

Sleep patterns

During the day, your baby has probably settled into a daytime sleep pattern. At this stage she probably needs three sleeps during the day, coping with awake time stretches of about two hours each. Anything longer than that between sleeps and you may well find that your baby becomes irritable and may fight sleep, making it hard to get her to fall asleep. This is when bad habits frequently develop.

At night your baby should be sleeping through. If she isn’t, you may need to go through a process of elimination (see page 54 Baby Sense™) to establish if there is a reason for night wakings. As separation anxiety is common at this stage, your baby should have a transition object or sleep aid to help her to resettle herself at night.

 

Solids vary in texture

A variety of solids should make up her diet now and over the next few months the texture and consistency of the food should become more varied.

 

Moving makes life interesting

Her growing ability to move gives your baby some independence - and you some peace - as she explores her world. She sits well now and in this position plays happily for periods of time. Rolling and crawling are methods to move around and possibly get into trouble. You need to start babyproofing your house and take care to watch her if you have steps in the house. Do not become over-concerned with watching milestones and comparing your baby with others. As long as she goes through the stages of rolling and crawling, don’t focus on when and how long.