Monday, February 1, approximately 6:30 am. I was in the bathroom getting ready for work and I had set Hana down on the bathmat. She crawled over to my feet and promptly pulled my hair dryer out of the cabinet. And so begins the adventure of keeping up with a mobile baby.
Truth be told, she is still far more interested in walking than crawling. Even when she crawls, she's at least part way up on her feet, off her knees, to propel her forward, kind of in a downward dog pose. I don't think crawling is going to last very long if she continues to practice the walking. She and Pete came to visit me at lunch time today at work, and she was walking all over the place holding on to my co-workers' fingers. Very nosy - wanted to see everyone's office. :)
Unfortunately, with this sudden explosion of new motor skills comes two difficult issues: 1) separation anxiety, and 2) night waking. She has begin to show signs of separation anxiety, and I've read that it's very common for this to start when babies first develop mobility because they need to know that their mom and dad are still going to be right there as they begin to explore the world. It's also a sign of maturity and cognitive development, because it means they grasp the concept of "object permanence." Before, when I was out of sight, I was out of mind. Now, when I leave the room, she can hold the memory of me in her head and actually miss me. This has resulted in some tears, more so when she's tired or feeling otherwise overwhelmed, but it's clearly linked to my "disappearing" for a few moments.
The night waking is really a drag no matter how you look at it, especially since she has been doing so well at sleeping from 6:30 pm to 5 or 5:30 am with only brief wakings where she would fall back to sleep on her own. Now she wakes up 1-3 times a night and cannot/will not go back to sleep on her own. We've tried various levels of soothing, including Pete doing it instead of me, but she doesn't seem to calm down enough to go back to sleep unless I nurse her. So we are back to the night nursing for the time being, and I am a zombie at work. I have a feeling that the fact that she is learning all these new things is what's waking her up (busy mind and body) but she can't go back to sleep because once she's awake she notices we aren't there and she misses us. The nursing works to get her back down simply because it puts her in a food coma and then she's out...until the next time she wakes up, realizes she's alone, and then it begins all over again.
One day soon we'll catch some of the crawling and walking on video and get that posted.
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