Felix Edward. Today you turn one year old. How has it been one year since I had that final supper with Daddy and Dexter as a family of three? How has it been a year since we watched Theresa May on Sky News win a vote of confidence at 9pm before rushing off the hospital to give birth to you? How has it been one year since I first held you in my arms after birthing you in the water and feeling like I never wanted to let you go? It’s been an incredible year and I have been so privileged to have been at home for the whole time to watch you grow and become the emerging toddler you are today – Felix, happiest of birthdays to you!
So much has changed in the last month and it is quite clear that the baby days are leaving us behind – much to my horror and sadness. Last month I talked about how it felt like we had taken a step back with bottle and with sleep. We were knee deep in the 10 month sleep regression and you were back on four bottles a day. Boy, you must have been going through the biggest growth spurt known to man, we were really suffering with your constant wake ups and need to eat, but I can thankfully say that is all behind us now. You are now on only one bottle a day! We started early in the month by dropping the afternoon bottle and we found that it actually meant you slept through instead of waking at 4am for a fourth bottle – who’d have thought it? I assume dropping the bottle meant you had more room for proper food so felt more sated which helped with sleeping through – or it may just be a massive coincidence. Then, a couple of weeks ago I replaced your morning bottle with toast/cereal and a cup of cows milk and you have adapted amazingly. You now only have a bottle before bed which you often only drink a couple of ounces of – although at other times you drink the whole lot! It will be interesting to see how you adapt to dropping this bottle which we plan to do this week.
You are back to sleeping through the night and take one or two naps per day. You would prefer to sleep in each morning past 9am, but unfortunately, most days you have to get up so we can take Dex to childcare. You are normally back asleep for your first nap by 9.30am for around 2-3 hours and then you have another in the afternoon for an hour or two,. I never let you sleep past 3.30pm and you are normally down for the evening by 6.30pm. If you don’t have an afternoon nap because we’ve been out, you are in bed asleep by 5.30pm! It is such a relief to have you sleeping through again and you seem much happier for it, which is the most important thing. You go down like an absolute dream, along with your dummy, very rarely crying or standing up like you had been doing for months on end. You’ve been an absolute dream these last few weeks.
You are well and truly in 12-18 month clothes now and it’s been lovely picking out some new bits for you recently. I still have no idea what you weigh as I never take you to the weigh-in sessions, but you are a big lad and strong to boot! If you have a hold of something, there is no getting it off you!
You can now sit unaided (although you prefer to sit on your knees), pull yourself up to standing, get yourself back down easily, roll over and you have even started landing on your bum when you fall down, instead of falling over backwards and banging your head…thank god! The number of times over the last three months that you have just fallen and cracked your head has been insane and I am so glad you can now lower yourself or use your bum to break your fall. You often use a chair to help you walk across the room, pushing it as you go, but you don’t yet have the balance to stand on your own two feet. In the last couple of days you have started clapping and you now wave bye bye when it’s time for bed or you know someone is leaving.
You have developed this really cheesy grin that you give to the people you really love. It absolutely melts my heart and makes us all feel really special. It totally shows off your lovely eight white teeth (no more since the last update!) and it always ends with a big drool down your top! You have been really snotty for months now as well as drooly and we have to give your nose a good wipe, much to your horror, several times a day.
You have become really good at drinking out of any cup or bottle. Your favourite is either Dexter’s PJ Masks bottle or my H2O on the Go bottle. You also use a Munchkin 360, a free flow spout cup and a Tomee Tippee water straw bottle for toddlers. You’ve totally mastered them all! You drink water through the day as well as your morning and evening milk and you eat three meals a day plus two snacks. You love satsumas, fusilli pasta, chicken and sweet potatoes, but in reality you’ll eat anything that’s presented.
Felix, having you in our lives have given us the best year of our lives. We love watching you grow and develop and can’t wait to see what the next year brings for you! Will your hair get blonder? When will you start walking? And what will be your first proper word? Most of all, we can’t wait to keep seeing those beautiful smiles each and every day! We love you so much x