Isabelle @ 8 Months

Our little girl has reached the 8 month mark in a blink of an eye!  How time flies!

The milestones she has attained from 7-8 months (reference from Babycenter):

• Sits without support
• Sits up on her own from all fours
• Drags object towards herself
• Experiences stranger anxiety strongly.  Whenever someone other than her Daddy and Mummy is carrying her, she will cry loudly.
• Stands for a few seconds while holding onto something
• Begins to understand object permanence
• Says "mama" when she is angry
• Holds her bottle for a while
• Crawls on her tummy.  Still trying to figure out how to crawl on her fours.
• Can follow the direction of my finger when I point to something
• Picks things up with thumb-finger pincer grasp
• Starting to sign "more" when we show her the puffs.  When I signed "milk", she attempts to open her palm, and appears to be trying to figure out how to imitate me.
• Enjoys glazing at her reflection in the mirror

Her nap times are erratic.  She takes short naps, then stays awake for the rest of the day, even when she displays signs of tiredness like yawning or scratching her head.

She loves snacking on her puffs.  We have tried the Happybellies puffs and the Gerber puffs.  She likes both equally. 

Her first teeth appear to be emerging.  I noticed a faint white line where her middle lower incisors are, just last Saturday. 

She has also displayed a fiery temper when we take away something that she is holding.  In this aspect, Hubby and I agree that Ian has been much better.

New Food Introduced @ 7 Months

Our weaning journey with Isabelle has been a slow one.  She is slow in accepting new tastes and textures, and till now, she still prefers smooth, yoghurt-like consistency, to slightly lumpy food.

Food that had been introduced this month:

• White rice: I introduced this staple first so that I could mix in the vegetables later on.  Somehow, vegetable puree mixed into cereal did not sound very tasty in my opinion.  Isabelle preferred her porridge blended, or cooked into a very, very smooth consistency.

Here is the porridge, mixed with the organic carrots bought earlier.

• Avocado: A wholesome, super baby food.  So glad that she liked her avocado and milk puree.  So far, she had not wasted any drop of it!

• Organic Tofu: Tried to mash it into smaller pieces, but she would not swallow them.  So, I had resorted to blending the steamed tofu and mixing the juice into the porridge.  In this way, she could accept it.

• Green peas: We happened to have a pack of mixed vegetables in our freezer, so I picked out the carrots and green peas from the pack, steamed, blended, and mixed into the porridge. 

• Organic millet: So far, she had not been taking well to the millet porridge.  I had some success when I mixed into plain rice, or when I blended the cooked porridge into a very smooth consistency.

• Organic apples: Hubby first blended the raw apple to feed her directly, and she rejected the new taste.  We tried a few more times later, on different days, by scrapping a little to feed her and she had gradually started to accept it.  Yesterday, we steamed the apple before blending, mixed in a little Frisocream, and she was able to finish all of it.

• Organic bananas: Hubby had been scrapping a little bit of the bananas to feed Isabelle, and so far, she had liked them.

• Mango: We tried blending a little mango with water, and she totally rejected the taste.  Subsequently, we cut off small bits and fed her directly, and she seemed to like it better this way.  But perhaps it could be due to the fact that when I cut the small bits for her, I had made sure that it was sweet and not sour.

• Egg yolk: I added half of a hard-boiled egg yolk into her porridge.  Unfortunately, she did not manage to finish the porridge.

• Organic pumpkin: Just like carrots, she was able to accept the taste.

I have also started to add pork muscle meat into the porridge to enhance the taste.  As she is such a small eater, I cut the pieces into half for each meal.


Feeding Isabelle porridge is now a nightmare for me.  She is spitting out most of the time, unless it was blended to a very smooth texture.  *Sigh*

Isabelle In A Bumbo

Our bumbo chair was a hardly-used piece of baby item in the house. With Ian, he was always trying to get out of it (he could hardly sit still on any chair). We did not put Isabelle in it most of the time, and now, she could sit steadily on the floor. Hence, Hubby urged me to sell it off.

Here is a shot of Isabelle in it, before we say goodbye to it for good...

Gym For Isabelle

I attended a free trial lesson at the Gymnademics with Isabelle in February and had signed up for their classes, with the hope that more physical activities with our girl would help in her motor skills and physical development, as she appeared a little slow in this aspect.

The class started first with flash cards showing a group of words, followed by the instructor reading out bits of knowledge on the topic.  Then, there was the music appreciation part, where there was singing accompanied by flashing the lyrics on cards, and also exposing the children to the keyboard and the notes.

In every lesson, the babies would practise hanging on a bar that was attached to the wall.  Isabelle did not like this activity much.  She would start to fuss once she was brought to the bar.

Next, we would go out on the exercise mats and do some balance activities with our babes.  Isabelle really liked these as she would get to swirl around in the air.  After the balancing exercises, the babies were allowed to practise crawling on the ground or through their 'hurdles'.

The class would end with the Chinese part of the flashcards and singing, if the Chinese teacher was around.

The Weaning Journey @ 6 Months

New food that Isabelle has tried at 6 months:

• Frisocrem rice-based cereal: At first, Isabelle did not take well to the taste of solids.  She would spit out the cereal.  We perservered for a few days, before she could finally accept the taste. 

• Pear puree pouch by Happy Baby: Almost totally wasted.  Perhaps we had introduced a new food to her too soon, before we had established feeding her solids.  She rejected the new taste, and we only managed to make her eat a little by mixing the puree into cereal.

• Organic carrot: Surprisingly, she took well to carrots.  Just before she turned 7 months old, I purchased baby carrots from NTUC, blended them and mixed into her usual cereal.  She loved it.

I also began to let her drink plain water, as we began to let her eat the cereal.  We recycled the bottle from Ian's era, but had bought a new set of spout for Isabelle.  As expected, she rejected the taste of water during the first few tries.  But as we persisted, she had slowly began to take a few more sips.

It had been much more difficult trying to wean Isabelle into solids, as compared to Ian. 

She has always been a small, fussy milk-drinker.  And now, she is a fussy eater. :(