I have become one of those annoying Mothers that answers "How old is he?" in months instead of years, oh dear. I thought beyond 1 year, I'd move these monthly updates to 6 monthly updates, but Archie is still technically a baby, and is still learning too much to write about in the space of four weeks, let alone half-a-year, so I imagine I'll keep these up for a little while longer.

Sleep

Well, we had a couple of weeks over Christmas (coincidentally when Archie wasn't at nursery) where he was completely healthy and sleeping well. Almost the minute he returned, he caught another bloody cold! He's ok in himself but now has a cough that's been keeping him up most nights. He's back in our room so that we can keep an eye on him and intervene if he has a massive coughing fit during the night, but thankfully the last few nights, things have improved. For a few days, he was awake most of the night and we were exhausted, but recently he seems to have one coughing explosion around 11/12pm, then goes back to sleep until around 7 so we're getting there!

Naps have changed a bit this month, he's generally going down easily in the morning and sleeping for 1½-2 hours and having a late nap (3:30-4pm) for 30-45 minutes. He usually falls asleep in the car on the way home from nursery in the afternoons, or goes off in the pram if we're out & about.

Food

A has decided he now hates everything he previously loved to eat so we've had to change things up again over the past couple of days. His cold affected his appetite for a little while, and ever since he's been a bit fussier and wanting actual food instead of mush. He's been refusing his pre-made dinners (cauliflower cheese, bubble & squeak) in favour of sausages, mash, baked beans and spaghetti. It's great being able to take A out with us for dinner, he's able to eat from the kid's menu instead of us having to rush around trying to grab any food we have that doesn't require heating up or defrosting. He's so much more interested now in 'normal food' and is leaving the baby gloop behind, another sign he's growing up too fast!

A still has 2 x 9oz bottles a day, one in the morning and one at night. We had to backtrack on the cow's milk as it started to give him chronic constipation (that little screwed-up painful face made us feel awful!) so we've recently been slowly re-introducing it, 1oz at a time. He's now having 4-5oz formula, topped up to 9oz with cow's milk. Soon, we'll think about dropping A's morning bottle and giving him milk in his cup with breakfast instead. Speaking of cups, we bought A a new non-spill cup with a straw and he now actually drinks out of it! Finally, the battle is over. He's been drinking so much water recently out of his cup, I'm so proud of him.

Things I don't want to forget

• Archie gives kisses now in his only super cute way - I've always kissed him on the head so when you ask him for a kiss, he leans his head forward onto your lips, so sweet! Recently, he'll push Winnie to our lips as well so we have to give Winnie a kiss too.
• When eating, occasionally A will hold food out to us and share it which is adorable, especially when he does it with food we know he loves and actually wants for himself.
• I've been trying to teach Archie how to touch nicely rather than grab and claw at us, so I've been running his hands over my arm and praising him for being nice! He's still a rowdy little monkey but if I ask him to stroke Mummy's arm, he does it.

A's first time seeing snow & one of his tantrums

• A's been having more & more tantrums this month - usually when we take something away from him or he doesn't want to stop doing something, or when he's seen his bottle but is waiting for it to warm up. We shouldn't laugh but it's hilarious seeing him have a little strop!
• Although not alot, we had our first real snowfall this month and A got to watch it. I didn't think he'd really care but he stood at the window for ages watching the flurries and seemed to be intrigued. Looking forward to some proper snow so we can take him out in it and make snowmen, especially now he's walking.
• We play a game with A where he lifts his arms up and we tickle him, then he keeps reluctantly lifting his arms as he knows he's going to get tickled, so cute.
• A's become pretty cheeky now, he's starting to purposely be naughty even when we tell him 'no' because he can see our reaction, little monkey.

Appearance

It's difficult to notice as I see him every day but when I look back at pictures from a month ago, he seems taller and slimmer now (that'll be all that walking), his hair has grown loads and is now constantly getting knotted and stuck together with food or anything he can find to rub into his hair.

Mood

My boy has been poorly again for most of this month, we've probably attended 3-5 doctor's appointments but he's just got a crappy cold that he can't shift, apparently babies can get anywhere from 7-10 viruses during the first year alone and they can attack one after the other. Luckily, it's not affecting his mood (except at night occasionally when he gets upset & frustrated that he can't sleep), and we have his 13 month immunisations on Monday, ahh. We've had to cancel twice this month due to A having a fever at the time so I'm hoping we can actually follow through with them this time, though I'm really not looking forward to it now that he knows exactly what's going on.

Likes/Dislikes

Liking baked beans (he will pick & eat every single bean off of a jacket potato and won't even attempt eating anything else until they're all gone), blueberries, sausages, peas, poking people in the eye (I'm not convinced this is accidental), playing hide'n'seek and running away & disliking coughing, being changed/dressed (this is getting really tricky!), when we try and stop him throwing his food out of the highchair or chucking his toys on the floor, being strapped into his car seat/pram.

Milestones

• For Christmas, our lovely neighbours purchased a singing bear for A and when you press his nose he sings "Put your fingers on your nose, on your nose.." and after singing it to him a few times, A has learnt to put his finger on his nose (or our nose) when we sing the song to him.
• Little A walks everywhere now and he's so good! He'll walk around the room, back and forth just to practice and he's started to bend over to pick toys up and stand back up without falling over. Over the last couple of days, he's even been pushing himself up to stand from the floor without using anything to pull himself up so he's almost a pro. We had our first trip to the supermarket this week where we let little A walk and he did a great job (fell a couple of times but not badly), the only problem is he tends to walk in the opposite direction to what we ask him.
• Pointing. A points at toys or his cup when he drops it and looks at us to ask us to pick it up, the lazy bum, and he'll also point at things he's curious about, such as the light as if he's asking us what it is/what it's called.

Photobombed by Ginny

• Archie has become hugely attached to Winnie this month (as you can probably tell by looking back through most pictures featured in this post, and the last few posts). He used to only have him at night, but now carries him around during the day as well. It was worse when he wasn't well, and he wouldn't even let me take him away when he had a bath so Winnie had to have a bath too. Luckily, Mummy might have a sneaky spare..
• A can high five if we ask him to, this week he's been high-fiving everyone from Auntie Hannah to Nanny Donna!
• New additions to the vocabulary this month: Lalalalala (singing), doddle-oddle-oddle, Nana & shouting/making loud noises to grab our attention.

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