Violets Four Month Update

FOUR MONTHS! Can you believe it? I say this every time, but Violet is growing up so fast and I can’t believe it’s time to write another update on her progress. This month she has definitely changed from a baby into a little person. She wants to be grown up now, she wants to be independent and her personality is showing through more and more every day. She’s been smashing the milestones this month, she started to hold her head up with ease, she can now roll from her front to her back and she occasionally treats us to the sweetest little giggle.

June is a very special time for us as it marks exactly a year since our successful IVF cycle. Can you belive that was Violet in the top left picture? She was a ‘top grade’ 5 day embryo, smaller than the eye can see – now look at her. Science is pretty amazing – right?

Happy IVF birthday, Violet!! ? On this day in 2016, Violet was a five day old ‘hatching blastocyst’.. Yes, that’s her in the top left corner (and that picture was taken under a microscope as she was smaller than the eye can see.) I wore my lucky rainbow socks as she was put into my tummy to snuggle in for the next 9 months. ?? Luckily, she got extra comfy and in February our superbaby Ultra Violet arrived into our lives with a flash of bright purple light ? One year, 126 injections, one pair of rainbow socks and a whole lot of hopes and dreams later, here she is, our tiny miracle, Violet???????#IVF #ivfsuccess

A post shared by Lyndsay (@fizzypeaches) on Jun 4, 2017 at 11:21am PDT

So, generally speaking Violet is a really sweet, contented little baby. She sleeps well and isn’t too much trouble to look after during the day. We’ve had a few up’s and downs this month as she entered the dreaded fourth leap, but honestly it doesn’t seem to have phased her too much and she’s developing new skills all the time so it’s lovely to see. The thing that really knocks her for six are her injections. The 12 week jabs were fine, but the 16 weeks were really horrific. Not only did she scream the surgery down but we’ve had a rough few days afterwards too with no sign of her happy self returning, yet.

I went to get her weighed at 16 weeks and she’d had a massive growth spurt, moving from the 9th percentile to the 25th! She’s now 12lbs 10oz, so she’s doubled her birth weight and is so long! She has quite big feet and long legs so we think she’ll be tall. She’s mainly out of all her 0-3 month clothes and wearing 3-6 months now.

Skills wise, she is holding toys really well, shows an interest in absolutely everything – even day to day items, a crumpled receipt or a clean nappy keeps her entertained for hours. She loves faces and mirrors and has found her voice – cooing, singing and squawking constantly.  She’s found her feet and they are her new best friends. She holds them, eats them and could play with them all day.

Over the last couple of weeks she has started to teeth. She has really sore looking gums, rosy cheeks and dribbles all the time so all the signs are there that we are in for a tooth very soon. I’ve been trying to help her soothe the discomfort by using both Ashton and Parsons Infant Powders For Teething and Ambesol Liquid, both seem to really help. She’s also got some Nuby Icy Bite keys that she loves to chew on, if not it’s her fist which is in her mouth frequently.

She’s been getting on really well at Waterbabies! We are halfway into the course and it looked like she wasn’t going to take to the underwater swimming, but I’ve taken her to a couple of extra sessions, this seems to have been really good practice for her as she’s doing them with ease now. We even filmed this cute video of one of her early lessons.

She really hates laying flat, so wants to be held in an upright seated position all the time, especially for feeds, she’s almost holding the bottle herself and would do if it wasn’t so heavy. I tried her in her Bumbo Floor Seat and she loved it, so we do a little bit of playtime in her seat every day, building it up as her head was still a little wobbly at first, although you can see by her face she was so pleased with herself!Following on from this, we tried her in the ‘big girl’ pushchair part of her Cosatto travel system, which means she can sit up and look around, we only did a few short journeys but she really enjoyed it. This part is recommended from 6 months onwards, although we use a support pillow to keep her head and neck supported so she seems ok on the lowest recline setting. My lovely blogger friend Maisie also bought her this cute Lion Nuby Buggy Buddy, which she takes EVERYWHERE with her and holds the handle at all times, even whilst she’s asleep, it’s so cute! We’ve nicknamed him ‘Handle the Lion‘ as he is just that!

Lastly, for her four month birthday she got a special treat. How could we resist this GIANT unicorn! She’s so soft and has awesome glittery purple hooves! She is so big she needed her own seat to get her home in the car too! 🙂

MONTH FOUR: 

Feeding: Formula Fed using comfort milk which really helps her tummy

Weight: 12lbs 10oz – 25th percentile

Sleeping:  Sleeping so well, she’s slept through the night for the last 6 weeks now, although since her injections they’ve made her quite restless and I’ve done a couple of night feeds at 5am.

Skills: Holding toys really well, holding her head up during tummy time, rolling front to back (and nearly the other way), giggling at silly things, following you around the room with her eyes, taking in the world at every moment.

Favourite things: Rolling onto her side, pressing buttons on her Vtech baby, Moana soundtrack, sitting up

Hated things: injections again, not getting enough attention, teething, being cradled like a baby, laying flat in the water at swimming

And to finish, here is her first ever giggle captured on video: