It’s crazy how fast this time has gone. It doesn’t feel like that long ago that we nervously brought Isabelle home. We were scared and worried about how we were actually going to raise a baby. Now she’s suddenly a five month old! It doesn’t even feel like that long ago that Rachel was pregnant. But then and again, that’s just life. No matter what you do it still manages to go by so quickly.

I know it won’t be long before Isabelle will be talking and running around the place. She’ll be off to school, having a boyfriend (or girlfriend, either way is good), getting pregnant and then I’ll be dead. It will all happen eventually. The main thing is that I enjoy it all as it happens, and so far, a bout of postnatal depression aside, I’ve done my best to enjoy it.

Every week Isabelle seems to develop in some way. It’s only really been this week that’s seen her take huge strides in her movement. Now we can place her on her play mat and watch her as she rotates herself around trying to get whatever toy it is that takes her fancy. I wouldn’t quite say she can crawl yet, but every now and then you turn around and the next thing you know she’s a little further along than where you placed her. I’ve even written about ways to help with tummy time, as that seems to be all we’re doing at the moment!

Handling a Baby’s Fear

We’ve also bought some foil. Well, it’s baby foil stuff that they use at baby groups to lift over their heads. I know that hardly sounds exciting, but thus far, Isabelle has cried every single time. I’ll admit it’s only been three times, but still. So, rather than just accept that she doesn’t like it and move on, we’ve bought it. Now, every time we go in the play room, we do something like this:

I know, you don’t have to say it, she doesn’t look impressed. But she is slowly coming around to it. In the house, she’ll happily grab it, or watch you rustle it. She’ll even let you shake it over her head. Just don’t do it in baby group! For whatever reason, she still doesn’t like it when there are loads of others around and you bring out the foil. Welcome to having a baby, I guess.

I know she’ll get there, it’s all about finding something that they don’t like and keep reintroducing it until they’re much better. It’s all about time, patience, and positive association. If you make it a bad experience every time then they’ll just get a negative association from it and it’ll be much harder to bring them around.

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