Dear Sophia: 13 Months Old

Dear Sophia,

You are a 1 year old now! You’re personality is shining through and we are loving watching you change. The pudgy little limbs you used to sport have been replaced by toddling, long legs and busy hands. You’re so aware of everything that’s going on now – you don’t miss a trick! Here’s what you get up to at 13 months old…

Eating

We’ve done it – we’ve finally done it! We’ve found a food you don’t like; green beans. Which is a bit of a blow as I have nearly a whole bag of frozen green beans in the freezer so I’ll have to get creative with disguising them in food! You’ve been trying them, making a face and taking them back out of your mouth. It’s the first food you’ve ever not liked so that’s not too bad going.

Other than that, you’ve been continuing to eat all we give to you. You have 3 meals and usually 2 small snacks a day which seems to suit you well. You are completely off bottles now and have a warm drink of milk in the morning and evening. Overall we’re so happy with how you eat. Baby led weaning was by far the best choice we could’ve made for you!

Development

This month has seen a big change as you can now…

• Walk! You now toddle around and you’re so pleased with yourself and we are so proud of you!
• Four teeth. You have two teeth on the top and two on the bottom. You look ever so grown up when you are smiling now. You still love to brush you’re teeth too.
• Understand speech. You understand hello, goodbye and goodnight and respond by waving. You understand when we are talking about mum, dad or smudge and look in the right direction. If I say ‘Where’s Smudge?’ you look around the room until you see him, then you wave.
• Naps. You are slowly dropping from two naps a day to one which means mummy has to work twice as fast to get everything done. Now you usually go down after lunch and sleep for a few hours.

Five Favourites at 13 Months:

Favourite toy: You love your push along truck at the moment. You go up and down the room like Speedy Gonzales! Though you enjoy walking on your own you seem to really enjoy pushing your little truck along too.

Favourite book: You had a sound book form Uncle Pat for your birthday that you’ve really been enjoying’'. You like to press the buttons to hear the sounds play.

Favourite food: You’re favourite meal is spaghetti bolognaise at the moment (I’m going to do a post soon on an average week in your tummy – showing which foods you eat).

Favourite activity: Opening and closing things or getting objects in and out of boxes, cupboards, baskets etc.

Favourite thing to do or say: Giving things to people. You like to present people with your toys and food and look at them with a big smile when they take whatever you’re offering.

You’re such a jolly and happy little girl and you seem to be growing up before our eyes at the moment – time goes too quickly!

And that’s what you’re doing at 13 months, our beautiful toddling little sweetpea.

Lots of love from Mummy and Daddy.xxx

Toy Storage

As Sophia is growing, so is her collection of toys. I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that she’s losing interest in them despite them being age appropriate. We obviously can’t afford to supply a constant stream of new and different toys (which I don’t think would teach her good values anyway). I think it’s a case of having too much choice.

So this morning I decided to sort her toys into four piles. I made sure there was a good range in each pile and that each contained at least one ‘favourite’ toy.

I’m going to have a four-week rotating system where each bag will come out on a Sunday and she’ll have a week to play with the toys before they're put away and the next bag comes out. Hopefully only seeing certain toys every four weeks will help her to play a bit more purposefully with them! She’ll have access to her books and toddle truck all the time as I think they’re important.

We store Sophia’s toys on the bottom two shelves of our bookshelf as she can see all the toys and choose which she wants to play with.

The toddle truck holds her books and she enjoys taking them in and out.

I usually use the big bowl to contain her smaller toys, just to keep them neat but from now on I’m going to fill it with small manipulatives. At the moment it contains these small Christmas and animal knitted figures which I was given last Christmas. The kind of things I’ll put in here are things like blocks, small bean bags, giant beads, natural objects such as large pebbles, pine cones, large sticks etc.

To the right of the shelves lives her treasure basket and a bag of library books which she can only look at when supervised (otherwise she’d chew on them!).

I’m hoping that this system will work a bit better for us!

Discovery Bottles

Sophia is into everything at the moment! She loves playing with new and interesting objects so I decided to make her some fun and inexpensive discovery bottles.

I washed out some ordinary, clear drinks bottles and filled them with various things. Some ideas are…

• Dried rice or pasta - you could even add food colouring to make it more fun
• Bits of ripped up foil – the sound the foil makes is quite soothing and the reflections of light provide an interesting sensory experience for your baby
• Beads – making a musical bottle
• Bells – these would be perfect for a festive bottle along with some glitter
• Cut up pipe cleaners – different colours and lengths
• Off-cuts of different types of ribbon – these can be bought very cheaply on ebay
• Pom-poms – different sizes and colours
• Oil and coloured water – the separation of liquids will intrigue your baby
• Water beads – these can be picked up in florists or home ware shops
• Shower gel and small objects – you could use tiny animals or sequins to float in the clear and colourful gel

You can use just about anything in the bottles to stimulate little minds. For older children a nice idea would be to add in objects beginning with a certain letter to promote their literacy skills or numbers and shapes for some maths development. They really are very versatile and budget friendly!

**Safety note: I would recommend gluing the bottles shut and checking them regularly to make sure they are safe.**