Thursday, January 31, 2008

Look at the resemblance.

I was showing some photos today when I was totally struck once again by the resemblance between Laetitia and her papa. I cannot find a photo that match the exact expression to do a better comparison but she really does look like her papa. When I look at the photos of Etienne I totally see Laetitia.





What do you think?

Monday, January 21, 2008

Sleeping habits

I just want to blog this down as a record (should I forget in the future) about how Laetitia's sleeping habits were developed. I have to admit though that a large part of our success is due to her pleasant personality more than actual "sleep training". Laetitia slept in our room in a little bassinet until she was almost 2 months old before she was moved to her cot in her room. And to let her get used to sleeping in different "environment", I used to let her nap on my bed and her cot as well during the day. But for nighttimes, from two months old, she has always sleep alone in her room.

As a baby, Laetitia had been breastfeed all the way up to 11 months however, unlike what most people says about breastfeed baby not sleeping through the night, she started to sleep through the night (from about 10.30pm to 5.30am) at exactly one month old. She was napping throughout the day too.

From there, it gradually moved to a more pronounced routine of going to bed by about 9pm and waking up for a feed around 6am by the time she was two months old. Now once in a while, maybe once every three or four days, she would wake up in the middle of the night for a feed. At that point, she was feed around 6 times a day (e.g 6.30am, 9.30am, 13,15pm, 15.15pm, 18.30pm, 21,30pm). Napping continues.

By the time she is four months old, she was no longer walking up in the middle of the night for a feed and would happily sleep through 8pm to 7am (and sometimes stretching to 8am/8:30am) with an average of 5 feeds a day (about 3 1/2 hrs interval per feed). At this point, I try to fix a routine for her naps. If I didn't remember wrongly, she napped 3 times a day until about a year old and then it became twice a day, once in the morning about 2 hours after she woke up and once in the afternoon around 3pm.

From that point now, she goes to bed by 8pm and sleeps for almost 12 hrs every night. And now that she is almost 22 months, she sometimes goes to bed a little later (but still before 9pm) and continues to sleep for 12 hours overnight. And she naps once a day, usually after lunch around 1:30pm for one to one and a half hours.

At some point after six months, I did practice what was taught in "Healthy sleep habits happy baby". I would let her cry for a while when she protested about going down for a nap or going to bed at night. For example, I would let her cry for 5 mins, check on her, tell her I love her but she needs to sleep, leave the room and if she crys, let her cry for 10 mins, repeat the process. Usually I never need to go into the room more then twice. Of course during the times when we travel or she is sick, everything goes out of the window but so far, she has been able to adjust very well to changes.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Laetitia and her friend Sophie.

As mentioned before in a previous post, Laetitia has a friend, Sophie, whom she meets once a year. However, that does not stop the two little one from hitting it off immediately every time.

Here some photos of the two darlings.
A little help from the two papas.
And they managed to hold each other's hand. This picture is so sweet. I really love it. It would be lovely to show it to them when they grow up and truly become friends.
And finally, just a photo of my little one (with Sophie and her papa in the background).

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

She loves to sing.

As mentioned many times before, Laetitia loves to sing, and I captured a few videos over the weekend with my handphone. Just want to share two of them, one of her singing in English and the other in French.

My bonny lies over the ocean...


Petit Papa Noël

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Sweet bedtime routine.

For a while I have been putting Laetitia to bed using the routine of dinner, bath and stories. Recently we started to spend some time together in the bigger bed before I put her down inside her cot and I must say it is such a sweet and intimate time for the both of us.

We would lie in bed together and usually she will put her arms around my back and say "calin mummy" (hug mummy). We would talk about her day, sing some songs together and I will plant some kisses on her face and her nose and she will start to do the same. The biggest fun for her is to try to kiss me on my lips and sometimes the naughty bean will attempt to lick my face! Of course she will burst into laughters when I realised what she did and goes "yucks". And I would always tell her 'I love you Laetitia" and in reply she will say "I love you, Mummy". OH...... in her cheekiness, she would sometimes repeat after me and say, 'I love you Laetitia". LOL. Sometimes we do this to and fro for a couple of minutes. All in all it's about 10 to 15 minutes of loving time spent together before she gets put into her cot and have some stories told to her before she sleeps.


I know sometimes it's nice to be able to put her to bed and just leave the room but for now, I really enjoy this precious moments.

Here's some photos taken recently.

On the train to Treuzy-Levelay with her papa. We were on our way to Damienne and Gilles who are the god-parents of Sophie's dad, Fabien. We spent some fabulous time at their house last year and were invited for lunch on New Year's eve. It was really wonderful seeing them again. And great catching up for Sharon and I.

With her friend Sophie (whom she meets once a year). The last time was December 2005 and this was on New Year's eve.

Finally, just being cute. ;p