The Bedtime Cometh

[ailbhe]

Linnea's bedtime has been creeping later and later - it's actually after 8 pm again now. Waking is still at 6:30 ish. Her daytime napping is down too - 20-40 minutes total. And she and I have yet another cold. Wow, I am too tired for this... I did the boring old collapse thing again today, though not until after 16:30. I napped on the floor while she climbed me - the only really awful bit was when she put her whole weight on her heel in my ear.

I read a book I've never read before, which doesn't happen often - it took three days, which is a bit slow compared to books I've read before, but it was quite enjoyable. "A Nice Cup Of Tea And A Sit Down" apparently. Made me want a lot of biscuits.

Also, every morning since 1st May I have had a yoghurt with my breakfast. So far, Linnea has shown no negative reaction, but my digestion is a little upset and I'm tired and I have a cold. I can't tell whether that's the sudden reintroduction of dairy into my diet, or the cold, really. I'm pretty sure the stomach upset is the sudden reintroduction of live yoghurt into my diet. I'm open to recommendations of good, unsweetened, unflavoured dead yoghurt - I've been buying Yeo Valley Organic Full-Fat for so long I no longer even consider making a choice and have no idea what to choose if I did.

Dancing and climbing and putting on clothes are Linnea's big things, I think. They're the newest things I can think of, anyway. She puts her poncho on and off, and is having a real go at her sandals - she now opens the velcro at both ends before putting them on heel-to-toe, but she knows that's wrong and gets cross. The poncho is easy. She also had a go at the matching panties that came with a dress I bought her for her birthday (like she cared - but oh! I do like dresses for nappy changes) but couldn't quite manage both legs at once.

My only comparison for this is me - I allegedly put on somebody else's panties correctly at eight months, but I think I shan't worry yet about Linnea's possible retardation. Although various people are getting all excited by her lack of language skills... Soon I may look up one of my books (the ones she hasn't read yet, yes, I know) to see when is "normal" for language. I know that my family wasn't normal at all, and certainly she has almost no motivation for it, since I can read her mind. She signs things to Rob that she just shouts at me for - like milk.

Oh! Funny story! Yesterday evening, at her bedtime, Rob signed "milk" to her, to see if she was ready for her bedtime feed. She climbed up on his lap, poked his shirtfront with her finger, and leaned over to me signing madly, "milk! Daddy's a liar! Milk!"

(The sign for "Daddy's a liar", or "false advertising", is primarily a facial one. It won't be in your book of signs).

Comments

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

Felicity has absolutely no idea about putting clothes on at all - she will push her arm through a sleeve if I have started her off, but that's it.

She says: - 'hiya', 'clap'(she can say it but won't do it!), raaaaaaay (for hooray) and 'ish' (for fish). I think this is pretty average for a one year old - Freya was saying more but she was a very early talker.

I love the milk signing story - can just picture it!

[k425.livejournal.com]

Great story!

YoungBloke shows no interest in dressing or undressing himself (except to pull his arms in or out of things) but he plays dressing up at nursery.

As for language, the girls his age at nursery suddenly starting saying words like chair and bubbles and Jack about two to three months ago. Jack sticks with yeah, ta, hiya and his recent acquisition, baby. He's 18 months and I think that's fine - the books say he should be saying about 20 recognisable (to us at least) words but he isn't. He understands sentences like "take it to Daddy" and "let's go up the stairs", and that's a good start.

Yoghurt. How about a plain Greek-style one?

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

At the 18 month development check, as long as the child is saying 3 words, they don't worry! At least, they don't in our area. With Freya I made a list beforehand, just out of interest, and she was saying 103....

[ailbhe]

I *think* Linnea says Hiya or Hello, but that could be maternal bias. She definitely says Didi for drink. And Muh muh for milk. And Mam-mam for Mammy. And Da! for Ta. And possibly Dad-dee-dad-dee for daddy, but that's hard to know. She used to say cat, but got confused when people tried to get her to say it when there were no cats around.

And dabba dabba for conversation. A lot. Emphatically. She never stops talking!

18 month development check?

[mrs-warwick.livejournal.com]

does this depend on your area? Is it an automatic thing like the 8 month check? Rhiannon is 21 months and not had one...not that I'm worried about her development.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about it. It sounds like her language skills are just fine. They told me the really important thing at this age is whether she understands you. Grace is 14 months old and now has about 20 words, but she exploded into them all at once; the first eight were within three days of each other. And that was when she was just past her first birthday; before that she could say "up" and that was about it. They start talking when they're interested in it, as far as I can tell. Grace understood us long before she started to speak herself.

Re: 18 month development check?

[ailbhe]

They don't do one at 18 months here - 8 months and 2 years.

[pauamma]

She climbed up on his lap, poked his shirtfront with her finger, and leaned over to me signing madly, "milk! Daddy's a liar! Milk!"

*splort* That's priceless! :-)

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine is an American Sign Language translator, so she taught sign to her son pretty much from birth. He didn't talk much until he was a bit over 2 years old, but he communicated very well through sign up until then. He still can sign, just doesn't see the point since he can yell.

I've never felt so stupid as I did when he was trying to ask me for something and I didn't have a clue what he was signing. The look he gave me of "you're so STUPID" was too funny :-)

[heraldis.livejournal.com]

No real language here at almost 15 months. A couple of "words" I suppose, she can sign milk, occasionally signs bird, and says "hiiiiide", "boo!"
Well actually she says "aaaaah" "di" but we know what she means.

Does Wheeee when throwing a ball count?

Linnea is so advanced in everything else, she'll be jabbering away in her own good time, no doubt :)

Re: 18 month development check?

[k425.livejournal.com]

I think it's based on area. We actually saw our HV last week, when YoungBloke was 18 months, and she said there'd be a check sometime before he was 3 - unless I was worried. As we'd chatted about how he was doing and she wasn't worried I didn't see any point in panicking!

[ailbhe]

I don't think signing encourages them to talk any more than they would anyway, no - but that's hardly the point. It does enable them to communicate before the fine motor control in the mouth develops enough to enable them to talk clearly.

Of course, I wasn't issued with a control-group baby, so I can't really tell.

[ailbhe]

Wheee! when throwing a ball definitely counts. We can't quite throw balls yet - at least, not if we care which direction they go in.

[mrs-warwick.livejournal.com]

I think Rhiannon was the same, (trying to remember what she was like before Christmas). For a long time she had one sign that did duty as bird, duck, milk, animal.... Then around Christmas time there was an explosion in both her signing and speech and she went from two or three to lots.

Now we even get 'kick' when she's playing football.

She was helping Paul kick the ball the other day - by picking his foot up.

[heraldis.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are supposed to say the word at the same time. Our signing teacher said that baby signing is simplified Makaton, if that's possible!