Teething, weaning & babbling at 9 months

Intro
Welcome to Sense by Meg Faure, the podcast that’s brought to you by Parent Sense; the app that takes the guesswork out of parenting. If you are a new parent, then you are in good company. Your host, Meg Faure is a well-known OT infant specialist and the author of eight parenting books. Each week we are going to spend time with new moms and dads just like you. To chat about the week’s wins, the challenges, and the questions of the moment. Subscribe to the podcast, download the Parent Sense App and catch Meg here every week to make the most of that first year of your little one’s life. And now, meet your host.

Meg: Welcome back mums and dads. It’s always fabulous to have you here with me, joining me to chat about all things parenting. So each week we chat about the highs and the lows of parenting and there are a lot of those; the challenges and also the absolute delights with our little ones. And this week we are joined as we are many weeks by Cassidy and Cass is the mum, first time mum, although she feels like a seasoned mum now of Baby Max. Cass, welcome, how old is Max this week?

Cass: Nine months on the 27th. He is 40 weeks this week

Meg: Oh my goodness. So he’s been outside of you for as long as he was inside of you?

Cass: Yeah, I know. It’s funny. It felt like quite a momentous when he turned nine months it felt quite sort of momentous for that exact reason.

Meg: It’s amazing, really amazing. So how are things going? How is our little nine month old?

Cass: He’s good. He’s got another tooth coming.

Meg: How many does he have now?

Cass: That his seventh has just broken through?

Meg: Oh my word, seven teeth at nine months.

Cass: I know, I know.  I feel so sad for him even though, I mean, I’m sort of hoping that maybe they’re all coming to in a rush so I’ll have it over and done with. I don’t know.

Meg: But well there are only so many teeth, so if they come out early then they’re not going to be too many more.

Cass: Exactly. He’s got all those four front top teeth, his two bottom teeth, and now the two either side of those central, bottom teeth are coming through, so one’s already broken through and it does seem sort of a couple of days after they’ve broken through, that’s when he has the toughest time. But this time he has really bad nappy rash, which he hasn’t had before and it’s heartbreaking, but he’s just pooing all the time. And I’m not sure, because I’ve read contradicting information that that is related to teething and that it’s not. So, I didn’t know…Is that a teething thing or is it something…?

Meg: Yeah, I mean in my experience it absolutely is that;  when they teeth and particularly, I was going to say to you that those two outside bottom teeth are, you know, the sharp teeth, they’re the teeth that come through and they really do create havoc. And the reason for the smelly poos and the Bernie bum is that babies produce a huge amount of mucus and saliva while they’re teething, and that’s why he’s probably a little bit more drooly than usual and especially as he gnaws on his hand and they often get a little rash around their mouth, which has got nothing to do with food. It’s just got to do with the fact that they’ve got so much liquid around their mouth. But if they don’t get that, whether or not they get that, all of that mucus and saliva passes down through the elementary canal and it does create a Bernie bum and it creates that really horrible, acrid smelling poo as well, which is kind of that hallmark feature of teething, teething nappies really. And so, yes, I would say that that is very possible.

Cass: Yeah, because he actually had a period, I mean, I don’t want to say it’s over because I feel like at the moment, every time I say something’s going well that night changes, so I promised myself I’m not going to say anything anymore, but he had a few nights, could easily have few more nights caveating everything where he was actually pooing in the middle of the night and it was waking him up and it was causing a bit of a problem because he’d wake up but not really be awake. But he’d had a dirty nappy, so I had to change his nappy and that woke him up and he didn’t want to be awake. And so that’s been, it’s been a challenge because he’s not actually, doesn’t seem to be waking up because of the teething specifically. But yeah, so that we do see…Oh, I just don’t want to say it, but we do seem to be back to sleep through the night, but….

Mega: It’ll change tonight.

Cass: Every time I say that out loud. So, yeah, that does seem a bit better, but it’s heartbreaking because  he’s actually quite a bubbly, it doesn’t seem to bother him. We haven’t really had to give him much Calpol, but then when you’re changing his nappy, I feel as a mom, like, oh God, what can I do? This poor little boy.

Meg: So are you using Sudocrem for that?

Cass: So we were using Sudocrem and then we’ve been recommended by a couple of people and I actually can’t remember the name of it, but it’s a nappy rash specific, it’s like a yellow cream that they have here and midwives and NCT and other mums have recommended it to us and it does, I think it’s maybe a bit more heavy duty so for when it isn’t really bad

Meg: Well that’s great. There’s also one I know we used a lot in South Africa called anti-peel cream. So, very good, there’s variety of different ones. I mean, it is you just have to deal with it and work with it. What’s quite interesting is, I mean, you’ve pointed out something quite interesting that he’s not actually waking for the teething necessarily, but maybe for the nappy. And I think that’s often…I mean, I’ve always said teething gets such a bad rap, you know, everybody blames every night waking on teething. You know, if a baby’s waking up from six weeks old, people say, well must be teething, you know, or 17 weeks when they’re going through a sleep progression and find their hands and annoying on their hands. Parents say it’s teething. And actually we know that teething really only happens at around and after six months of age. But it’s that kind of the sub stuff that comes with the teething that actually wakes them up. And so that would make sense that his nappy is waking him because his bum is sore.

Cass: Yeah, well it’s actually even what it’s been that he was doing a poo in the middle of the night, which obviously he hasn’t done for a really long time, but because he seems to be having a worse stomach or just pooing more regularly or tired. But it kind of also, it kind of also leads me onto something that he eats a huge amount, but he will stop eating if he’s full. But he seems to take a huge amount and I know portion sizes, there’s no real portion sizes for babies or anything like that because, and I understand all the reasons behind that, but sometimes I do worry that I may be overfeeding him because he’ll maybe if he’s very active after a meal, when I will have sat there through the meal, be like, blow a neck. I can’t believe you’re still eating that, what’s going on. But sometimes, he is really active after, he’ll do a little run but it’s like a now adult sick, it’s horrible. I’d rather change a nappy than deal with his little zones nowadays. And I sometimes worry is that like overfill?  That’s just coming out and is he pooing as much as he is because actually he’s eating too much food. How do I know if I should go and make some more because he’s still wanting to eat or actually know you’ve had enough even though you could keep eating, you’ve had a sufficient portion?

Meg: Yeah, it’s a very interesting question. So yes, lots of poos and the little kind of vomiting, or little oopsies can indicate overfeeding. However, I really believe in intuitive eating for babies of this age. You know, and it’s one of the principles we talk about quite a bit in Weaning Sense. We divide up the responsibilities and we say you take the what, where and when and he takes the how much. What’s very important about the what, where and when though in terms of overfeeding is first of all the ‘what’ is critical. So you need to steer clear of your highly processed carbohydrates, your sugars. And you could even pull back a little bit on the, well certainly no fruit juice but pureed fruit, you know, so rather give him whole fruit that he can actually chew on rather than pureed fruit if you are worried about him eating too much. So that’s the what.

And the other thing of what is you’ve really got to watch how much milk he takes. So his milk intake at this age should have dropped quite dramatically. He should only be having three feeds in 24 hours and he doesn’t need more than that. And I think that’s where your risk of overfeeding comes more than from the solids. So, that’s the what. The where; obviously, doesn’t pertain to overeating unless you chasing them around the house, and kind of following him around to get food into his mouth, which you’re not. And then, the when is critically important because he needs those five meal outings or those five meal opportunities in a day. So, three meals and two snacks and then the three milks, and if you sticking to that and you’re watching that, you know that the food is whole food, the food is wholesome, that they aren’t highly processed carbohydrates, then I think you can let go completely and let him take over the how much.

What’s going to be interesting Cass, and let’s see how much longer this lasts is that he is like at some point to become a little bit more picky with his eating and then you’re going to look back on this podcast and go, oh my gosh, I should have been so grateful at the time. And it’s so interesting, because I have heard Kath Megaw, she’s the pediatric dietician who is on the advisory board of the app and she actually does all of our weaning courses on the app. So she does the weaning and the picky eating course. So if moms are looking for input on feeding, Kath has got amazing courses inside the app, but she often talks about how babies cycle in terms of their weight gain as well. And so you get these big kind of periods of weight gain, which you might be doing at the moment and then they kind of tend to go into fresh air and love and their weight gain plateaus and it’s needs to be seen over a much longer context. And when you’re looking at weight gain over longer context, there’s very little to worry about.

And so my advice right now is to make hay while the sun shines; let him eat as long as it’s wholesome food, let him eat as much as he wants. I know Max have seen him, he’s certainly not an obese baby, he’s a robust baby. And he’s tall and he’s big but he’s not fat at all, you know, and so I think that’s important. You know, it’s very rare that babies appetites can’t be managed by them. And that’s when you have something like Prada Willie, which is a syndrome which he absolutely doesn’t have because that gets diagnosed at birth and that is a syndrome where they don’t have an off switch for appetite and he doesn’t have that.

So my advice would be to let him go with the flow and to just enjoy it and to, there will be a hundred percent, there will be a time in the next couple of years where you’ll be in tears with how little he’s eating. You’ll be as frustrated as anything. And you know, very interesting, Kath did a talk very recently where she spoke in on picky eating and she was talking about, in fact, it was a recent podcast which, which people will be able to listen to where she spoke about the fact that the bitterest taste buds come on only towards, or they only developed towards a year. And when those bitter taste buds come on, all the food that he’s been thinking is utterly yummy, like the broccoli for instance, suddenly doesn’t taste so yummy anymore because the bitter taste buds have come about and have developed and then he’s suddenly going to start to reject the green veggies. And that’s absolutely common. It’s so typical. And then of course you’ll hit 14 at some point in his life and he’ll eat you out of house and home and you’ll wonder where that picky eater went. So my advice is to enjoy the cycle and definitely not to limit his food at this stage.

Cass: Yeah, Because I mean I’ve been through that already where literally in tears because he is not eating and I was also actually speaking to somebody who’s just about to start the weaning journey and, but they’re having a bit of trouble. It almost is at the same time that I did with the milk intake and that sort of thing. And I said, you know, I, I’m not saying this because I know what I’m doing just through coming through the other side and now having a baby that won’t stop eating. It’s all kind of okay. But I’ve now got the opposite problem only because he will eat everything I’ve prepared for his meal and like that is already a really big portion plus a pudding, plus some handheld like sticks of broccoli and Cauliflower. So you know, he’s had to save four ice cubes worth of a meal plus a stick of something, plus two ice cubes worth of a yogurt thing that I’ve made. It seems quite a lot when you look at a bowl, but he’ll finish all of that. And what I don’t really know, shall I go and try and hunt and find some more food to feed him because he still wanted to eat or is that the meal I’ve prepared and he’s done and that’s fine. He’s not crying for more food, he just would eat it if it was there.

Meg: Yeah, my suggestion would be to make it up upfront a little bit more. So, you know, going and hunting and starting to find something different is not necessarily the best idea. But actually just if he’s consistently eating for ice cubes or food, make five tomorrow and then offer him five.

Cass: I do keep upping it and he just keeps eating it.

Meg: He keeps eating it. Yeah, no that’s fine, and that’s absolutely fine. The one thing that you could drop if you wanted to and you know, I presume you’re doing the fruit after the savory meal because that’s usually the way that we would do it the way around we would do it. You could drop the fruit part if you wanted to, but there’s no reason to and fruit is wonderful and gives him other nutrients. So I would say the way you’re doing it is fine. I would actually up the quantity a little bit.

Cass: Okay, oh my gosh. The other thing that concerns me is Alex actually has never felt so in his life. So I am a bit worried that Max has this gene.

Meg: But Alex has also never been fat in his life?

Cass: No, no, exactly.

Meg: So, it’s, you know…

Cass: I think he would be if he didn’t say I should stop.

Meg: No, look and you bring up an important thing because the principle is exactly as I’ve said, but there are the circumstances where things can get out of hand and you might gain too much weight, which is highly unusual, but in those circumstances you would pick it up on a scale. So my advice is to follow his lead on the amount and at his next weigh in, have a look at what he’s doing. You know, as long as his height and his weight are in the same proportion. So he’s like in the 95th because he probably is in the 95^th, knowing him, percentile for both, that’s absolutely fine. As soon as the weight becomes really excessive compared to the height, then you would potentially be a little worried. But you know, he’s also very active Cassie,

Cass: Oh, I was just going to say since he’s…

Meg: A champion now.

Cass: Yeah, he really is. And I think he would be doing more, we’ve kind of tried to hold back a little bit on him getting to the walking stage. So he was pushing things and we’ve tried to not encourage that too much so that he really keeps going with that crawling a little bit longer and,

Meg: And how’s that going? Is he crawling like a speed monster?

Cass: Yeah. And actually now that he is so comfortable with crawling, I noticed last night we were playing a game where he was in his cot and I’d go from one end of the cot do some peak see and then I’d appear at the other end and do peak bit, and before he would’ve sort of walked his way holding onto the side of the cot. But he now I think he has worked out I can be much faster if I crawl

Meg: That’s brilliant.

Cass: So he’s dropping down to his fours, and then crawling and then pulling himself up again.

Meg: Which is absolutely brilliant.

Commercial Break
This episode is brought to us by Parent Sense, the all-in-one baby and parenting app that help you make the most of your baby’s first year. Don’t you wish someone would just tell you everything you need to know about caring for your baby; when to feed them, how to wean them and why they won’t sleep? Parent Sense App is like having a baby expert on your phone guiding you to parent with confidence, get a flexible routine, daily tips, and advice personalized for you and your little one. Download Parent Sense App now from your app store, and take the guesswork out of parenting.

Meg: So I want to point something out that’s actually happened. So in the early days of crawling, and this is really a lesson for moms in the early days of crawling. Max did crawl early. He crawled a little earlier than most babies do. But very soon afterwards, only two weeks afterwards started cruising and moving along furniture, which moms and dads, if you’re interested in hearing that piece of the journey you can listen to last time’s podcast with Cass, and he was really liking to cruise and then actually if you’d encouraged walking and cruising, which a lot of parents do because a lot of us think, oh we want to get them off the floor because it’s much nicer to have them walking. It’s cleaner, and for a million reasons. But if you’d encouraged the walking, he would’ve let go of and lost interest in the crawling. But by being intentional with it and just not encouraging the walking too much, you’ve now actually got him crawling really fast. And that is, in terms of his coordination, long term is gold. It’s absolute gold. The things that he learns when he’s crawling are worth so much more than what he learns when he is walking. So yeah, that’s a good one.

Cass: Yeah, no he’s very tough but I am trying so hard and I guess it is just repetition, repetition, repetition. But the turning round, when they’re at a step, is it just a case of repetition, repetition or is there something really clever there that I can do?

Meg: There’s nothing really clever. You need to sit on the stairs. I mean the best thing that you can do, and I can remember we did it for months and months because we had steps in our home for both of our first two children. In fact even for our third child as well, is to just plunk yourself on the stairs when somebody is nearby you just chatting. And just be there for them to practice and practice. And that’s really how little ones are wired down, it’s just through the practice. So keep turning him around and he’ll get it very quickly. And then of course having gates on the stairs when you’re not prepared to just sit on them, which I presume you have got.

Cass: Yeah, well actually, we’re currently in rented accommodations so our landlord’s got to cut them in. But we’ve had that conversation because I was at Max’s, I feel so strong the ones that just go against the wall. I can see him rustling them down. So we’re getting the ones that screw into the wall.

Meg: Okay. And your landlord’s happy to do that? That’s lucky.

Cass: Yeah, hoping he doesn’t bring down the whole house instead. Yeah, so he is loving, I think he loves the independence that crawling has given him. And actually I’ve noticed in the last week, and whether this is related to that general sort of loving of independence, his babbling, which I have mentioned a few times with a concern that seemed to be taking a really long time and he just made these kind of pigeon noises for months and months. But now he’s having full on conversations. I’m sure I’ve heard various words coming out. Yeah, that that

Meg: Yeah, the ba, bas and the da, das.

Cass: I think he’s fluent in Norwegian actually or something. It really does sound similar to Scandinavian. But that has been quite a relief but really enjoyable as well to hear him babbling away. But it was since we went to my parents, I wondered, they’ve got dogs. Does having animals around increase babbling or is that just something that I’ve created in my head?

Meg: No, that is something you’ve created in your head. But having animals around has a lot of other benefits. One in particular is around allergies actually. So being exposed to animals early on in infancy actually decreases allergies. It doesn’t increase it because of the exposure. So, and then of course it’s just so wonderful the relationships that they have with it. Particularly if they’re good nature dogs, which is obviously very, very important that you’ve got good nature dogs around little ones.

Cass: Yeah, no definitely they’re becoming the absolute best of friends. So that’s been lovely. But one of the things I was also wondering with regards to play and things like that and looking at some of the recommended activities on the app and things like that, there are lots of things about packing away or doing certain things with toys. Everything just goes into Max’s mouth. He hasn’t got to the stage yet where he seems to be playing with a toy and the popularity of that toy tends to be more how it feels in his mouth. Will that just happen in time, or should I be encouraging him to play and not put things in? How does that work? Because I’m not sure if that’s correct.

Meg: Yeah, no it’s fine. I mean he’s exploring with his mouth, which is where he’s got more sensory receptors than anywhere else in his body. So that’s absolutely fine. There are a couple of things you should be looking out for. Is he transferring objects between his two hands? So if he’s closed…

Cass: Yes, I think he is. I’d have to pay more attention but I think so. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t…

Meg: Is he releasing things?

Cass: Yes.

Meg: Okay, all right. So quite a nice thing is to give him to play with blocks to give him a block in one hand to give him a block in the other hand and then present him with a toy in the middle and then he’s going to have to work out, he’s either going to transfer one block to the other hand, or drop one block and release and it’s that type of coordination that would be a really good idea. And then, having lots of activities of posting things in and out, and he is going to get there, don’t worry; where you put something in the box and he has to add one in and add one in and that, he’ll get there. So, actually playing those games with him would be very, very beneficial at this time. So definitely have activities that he has to use two hands with or that he actually starts to post big things into boxes.

Cass: Yeah, because at the moment if I did give him anything to put it in a box it would just go in his mouth and then if I try and take it, put it in, yes he will have a meltdown.

Meg: So then you don’t give it to him, put the box in front of him, put the object in inside of the box and then he will reach and take it out. And then so instead of giving it into his hand, pop it in the box so he starts to take it out and then slowly but surely, he’ll work out that he can actually put something back in there as well.

Cass: And it’s the same with bath time. Any toys like his boats, his watering can goes straight in his mouth

Meg: Yeah, no that’s very normal and very typical. I wouldn’t worry about that at all. Yeah, they’re just doing lots of exploration. They also tend to, aside from learning with their mouth, they self-regulate using their mouth and you know, my first born was a very, very oral child. I mean everything went into his mouth, not just in the first year of life but beyond that as well, you know, kind of he really did have everything in his mouth. Some quite nice activities for that is one is to get him an electric toothbrush because an electric toothbrush gives him great stimulation inside of his mouth and actually let him hold onto it and put the end in his mouth and that gives him lots and lots of stimulation in the oral area. So I mean that’s one of the activities we used to do with James, which he absolutely loved.

Cass: So it’s interesting you bring it up.

Meg: The toothbrush.

Cass: Because we’re not actually allowed to brush his teeth now, he has to hold the toothbrush and but he’s not obviously brushing his teeth. He’s good, but he’s not that good, but he won’t let us. So we’ve tried having two brushes both, so he has one and we have one and try and quickly get in there whenever we can. We’ve tried all sorts of things but my concern is he’s not getting a proper brushing of those teeth. Maybe once in a blue moon he might let me in for two seconds and I can give a quick…But you know, is there a trick to brushing a baby’s teeth.

Meg: Yeah, so you’re doing all the right stuff, but isn’t that a little trick? So take a flannel, like a toweling cloth and pop a little bit of toothpaste on that and just get that to go into his mouth with just wipe off his teeth with that with a little bit of toothpaste on. And that’s quite a nice way to just quickly clean their teeth so you just kind of go like cross press with the flannel over your finger. And that sometimes works better than a toothbrush because they often won’t let actual devices in their mouth unless they’re controlling them.

Cass: Yeah, I mean I say it because he’s sort of biting on the tree but…

Meg: He’s getting something from it.

Cass: If something’s happening.

Meg: No, he’s getting something from it and I wouldn’t panic too much. You know, I mean your principles should be don’t feed milk in the middle of the night excessively, which can lead to tooth cavities. Don’t give processed sugars, which you don’t do. And then if you can just get in there with a little flannel, with some toothpaste on it and then otherwise let him control it.

Cass: Okay, perfect. Thank you, and then so that’s going to be my list of questions. But he had his first ever kids birthday party that he went to this week, which was really sweet.

Meg: That’s so sweet. One of his little friends and what did they do for snacks? I’m always interested at the first birthday party.

Cass: So it was interesting, so it was a two-year-old’s birthday party. So we actually hadn’t planned for Max to eat there. As they all sat down to eat we thought okay, we’ll take Max home now and he can have a separate home. But I was quite impressed to see what I did see coming out was actually plates of crud de’ Hayes,   cucumber, pepper, plates of fruit, watermelon and that sort of thing. I didn’t see anything else but I was quite pleased to see that, you know, because those are things that we give Max as his handheld suit. So that was quite exciting to see that actually places that were hosting birthday party. Yeah, were bringing out good healthy food, healthy food.

Meg: Yeah, so a couple of tips around that group with birthday parties. The first thing is on the way to the birthday party or just before you go, like give him a nice big bowl of strawberries, or fruit, you know, and just really get him nice and full before you go so that he’s not actually hungry when he gets there. So, that’s the first thing because you can’t control and you know, this is one of the hard parts of being a mom is like you have these gold standards around your baby not eating process sugar and then you arrive at a birthday party and there’s sweets all over the table and there’s cakes and cupcakes and flings and all sorts of things. So you do want to try and make sure that they’re full before they get there. And then if you throwing a birthday party like that mom did bring out the savory foods and the other foods first so that you don’t have all of those sugary sweets coming through. And then the other thing about birthday parties, which always freaks me out is the choking risk. And actually, I mean I spoke about this in a podcast with Sammy Davis, Sammy’s a nurse who actually runs the get confidence with choking course inside our app. I don’t know have you done it yet, Cass.

Cass: I haven’t done it. I’ve done a choking course before Max was born. I did, in fact, I got everybody in the family to sit and do infant first aid and choking course

Meg: Of course. Yeah, it’s so important and there is one inside the app so if anybody’s interested do go and look it up, it’s called get confidence with choking. But in there, one of the fascinating things that Sammy talks about is just the type of foods that are risky, including popcorn, which you would never say obviously your boiled sweets, but your number one risk at a birthday party, which a lot of people don’t know is a marshmallow. I actually had a choking incident with my eldest at a birthday party on a marshmallow and he really, really nearly died. I mean we were very lucky that somebody who actually was a medic was there and really knew how to dislodge this ever increasing in size because that’s the problem with marshmallow is as they’re taken liquid, they swell. And so to get them out of him or maneuver is almost impossible. It’s not like a hard sweet which can pop out. So it’s just kind of watching those type of things of, of birthday parties and watching for the choking risk as well. So it’s more than just the sugar.

And then of course there’s the overstimulation which comes with birthday parties, which often we kind of overstay our welcome and I don’t mean the welcome from the hosts, but the welcome from our babies. So instead of having a 45 minute playtime, he kind of maybe ended, which is app approximately appropriate for his age now. We always say it’s about one year per age of the child’s life that they can actually deal with a social interaction. So if he’s one years old, it’s about an hour that he can interact with a friend and be happily interacting before he has a meltdown. If he’s two, it’s two hours. So at about nine months he’s probably doing about 45 minutes. And you know, very often by the time they reach the end of that 45 minutes they are overtired, overstimulated, over sugared and that’s when the meltdown happens. When you pop them back in the car seat they kind of arch their back and scream and the tantrums happen.

Cass: Yeah, luckily I think because it was that little bit older that they weren’t really playing with him so much. There were a couple of other babies there but he knows, but he coped quite well. But one thing I had hoped is that on the way home he would have a little power down. There was none of that. So, he probably was a bit overstimulated, which is why he didn’t have that little power down.

Meg: So did you just put him to sleep early that night?

Cass: Yeah and we have really been having to do that most nights because he just isn’t interested in that afternoon sleep.

Meg: No, he’s nine months old. So this is your classic cusp age where they dropped from three sleeps to two sleeps. So is he consistently on two sleeps now?

Cass: Pretty much, yeah. He is today, safely he’s with the nanny’s day. They’ve had a wonderful day at the zoo but he woke up a bit early from his lunchtime sleep. So he really should get that afternoon sleep in

Meg: Which he probably will when she’s driving home. He’ll get that 15 minute in her.

Cass: Exactly. She’s turning to time it so that she is driving when that’s due.

Meg: Perfect.

Cass: But the other days, we haven’t had it. So he’d been going up and kind of getting into bed at about six o’clock, which has actually been just over three and a half hours in the afternoon.

Meg: That’s perfect.

Cass: Yeah, and he’s been fine. We did have a, in fact, this week, he did have a night where he had to sleep. He ended up sleeping in our bed because I’ve actually never heard him like that before. But he was just really sad in the middle of the night, it was quite heartbreaking.

Meg: Depression, anxiety.

Cass: Usually he’s sort of, get me my milk. But he just was lying there cuddling his cuddly toy, just whimpering and sort of every now and again just sort of an actual, just really sad crying. And it wasn’t even…I mean it was in that he just wanted to hold my hand but it wasn’t like he would scream when I’d walk away. He just sounded a bit sort of sad.  And that I couldn’t…I was so tired. So he ended up, it happens coming into our bed and I was a bit worried but he’s gone back into his room absolutely fine and it was quite nice in the morning because we both were sort facing away from him and then we just got this little stroke on our back and then we turned around, there is just this face grinning at us.

Meg: Wonderful little one, very precious.

Cass: But yeah, it’s not a habit we plan on getting on with as I say, he luckily does seem to…I was a bit worried he’d wake up in the middle of the night the next night and think like I’m back

Meg: No one, one night won’t do it. But you do have to watch it obviously, but I think that one night won’t do it. No. Good Cass. Well, it’s been an interesting month, my word. It’s been lovely catching up and hearing about his advancements and how he’s cruising, but now actually crawling more than cruising, which is fabulous. So yeah, I’m excited to hear your news next month.

Cass: Thank you very much, Meg, thanks to you.

Meg: Excellent, Cass. Thanks a lot. Cheers.

Cass: Bye

Meg: Bye.

Outro
Thanks to everyone who joined us, we will see you the same time next week. Until then, download Parent Sense App and take the guesswork out of parenting.