Anna – 4 to 6 months old

4 months old

Anna started to move when she was lying on her back. She kicked her legs up in the air and moved her bottom when they landed on the floor. It didn’t move her far in terms of distance but turned her around in a circle.

She reached out to touch objects for the first time. We showed her the tummy time pillow with the dangling yellow plastic ring and fabric ribbons sticking out from one end. She slowly reached out her little right hand grabbing and touching it. But she was still quite clumsy and missed the objects sometimes. We could see that she couldn’t tell the distance between her hands and the objects. She started to use her left hand a bit more too.

She finally found her thumb. She started by sucking any part of her hand which she could find to put in her mouth. She sucked mainly the three middle fingers when she was really hungry and the index finger when she was slightly hungry.

Laughing came along at this stage. It was so adorable to hear her laughter. She laughed when I made silly noises and laughing sounds.

She had her first holiday to Brighton. It was lovely to show Ann the sea for the first time from Brighton pier and let her stand on the pebble beach.

We took Anna to the swimming pool. She seemed to enjoy it, and did some good swimming motions with her arms and legs. She was very tired afterwards though with really weak muscles for a few hours after.

5 months old

“I’m a little teapot” nursery rhyme was her favourite. Whenever I sang the song and did the action, she found it very funny and kept laughing. This song was often used to lighten her mood.

The little one learned not to open her mouth for things that she didn’t like. We tried to give her some calpol for her fever, but she kept her mouth shut and turned away.

She could push her head and shoulders up very sturdily when she was on her tummy. She could also sit up straight without support for about 15 seconds. She started to blow bubbles from her lips and make a brr sound. Her favourite toy was the activity triangle.

6 months old

Her power of concentration was amazing. She could look very hard at one thing for quite a while. She wore a frowning focusing look when she did it, which was quite cute to see.

She really liked to explore different surfaces and materials by opening and closing her little hands. Sometimes it made squeaky noises as her nails scratched the hard surfaces. She loved to play with my clothes when she was fed. She would grab my shirt, pull and then release it.

Anna’s hand coordination improved a lot. She could use her right hand to grab objects accurately with a swift movement when I showed them to her.

She started to love tummy time and no longer protested. This was probably because she became very good at it. She could spend an hour playing on her tummy without complaint. She started to move a lot on her tummy too. She turned around in a circle and moved backwards by pushing her bottoms up.

It was quite funny that she enjoyed sticking out her tongue for a couple of days. It was quite a long way out, not just a bit.

She hadn’t responded to her name yet, but she would turn to us if we used the calling voice to talk to her.

She became a bit clingy, especially when she wasn’t well. When she was smaller, I could leave her play on the playmat for a good 45 minutes to an hour. But at this stage she wouldn’t be happy if I was out of her sight for 10-15 minutes. Sometimes she didn’t need to be held, but was happy playing as long as I was next to her.