What’s He Like At One?

So N has just turned one and what a fantastic year it has been. Our lives have changed for the better so much (other than the evenings where he wakes up so much!).

If you’ve read my blog for a while you’ll have seen that for the first six months I wrote posts about how he was developing. I stopped doing that but figured I’d do it for when he is one…

Sleeping

He is a great sleeper on the whole. We think he might be hyper mobile and being a great sleeper is a symptom of that. Apparently he needs more rest as he has to use more energy to do simpler tasks like climbing to a standing position. Plus, me and Clare are good sleepers so that’ll help! He can quite easily go from 7pm to 9am if we let him.

However, of late he has been going through a leap, having digestive issues and teething. As such, our evenings have often consisted of putting him to bed, running around sorting stuff out downstairs and then heading up and waiting for him to cry out. Most of the time it’s just go in, give him his dummy and leave. It’s just we have to do that a fair few times so it’s easier to be upstairs. However after about 10pm usually he sleeps through until we wake him up (normally anyway) so that doesn’t affect our sleep at least!

So, overall, he’s a great sleeper thankfully. Mustn’t grumble!

Eating

He’s a bit of a picky eater.

He loves his carbs. Toast, bread, potato smiles, chips…loves all that. His favourite carb though has to be a Yorkshire Pudding with gravy. He adores them!

Although he does enjoy eating he can be quite picky sometimes, especially for his tea. Sometimes we will go to quite a bit of effort preparing something really nice. Then we put it in front of him and he turns away and cries, and tries to shove it away with his arm. He just refuses to try it. Generally when he does eventually try it he really enjoys it, but at times you can’t even get him to try it! Awkward baby!!

Then, sometimes he will be happily eating his tea and just grab food and drop it over the side of his high chair to see what happens! The cheeky monkey!

However, we’ve started sitting him in a normal chair at a small table now to see how he gets on. He’s doing well and patiently sits there to eat. Then when he has finished that’s it, no waiting around, he wants down and to be off so you’ve to be on your guard!

Physically

So as I mentioned earlier we are wondering whether he is hyper mobile like his Mummy and Daddy.

If he is then our research suggests he will be a bit slower at developing physically as it takes so much more effort for him to do stuff than other babies.

Having said that he is crawling really fast (don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby crawl as fast as him when he’s motivated!), can easily pull himself to stand and cruising along furniture.

However, he always like to hold on with two hands when walking. He hates holding on with one hand. This is a sign of being hyper mobile too. As such he hasn’t got the confidence to stand up by himself yet. He has very strong legs though!

He has six teeth that have broken through now. Took a while for the first one but we are getting there. They’re his front six (four top and two bottom). They’ve caused him such grief but at least they’re coming through now.

Speech

He’s doing really well with his speech. His first word was “Daddy” (usually “Dada”), and shortly after came “Mummy”, more often “Mama”.

Other words he says include:

• Nana
• Cat
• Dog
• Yes
• Baba
• Hiya
• Bye

Along with his speech he is really starting to recognise people now so he knows who Nana is, he is not just saying the word. He seems to love his family and can’t stop smiling at them all.

Overall

He’s doing really well overall. He’s a happy little boy which makes our lives so much better. He is just as happy playing with his toys by himself as he is playing with other people.

He’s also a bit flirty with women he sees out and about! Gives them a little cheeky grin, maybe reaches out for them, then looking all shy. It never fails to get a smile and “aww!”