One thing
has struck me in watching Milly work out the right sequence of movements that
get her from her front to her back, and that is how easily we take for granted
the our ability to move around. Milly
has had to learn how to position her arms so they aren’t in the way as she
rolls, but are there to catch her when she gets over; which leg to move in
order to pull herself over; how to arch her back to lift her shoulder off the
floor; and how to do it all in reverse to get back onto her back. The other important thing to learn is how to
avoid landing flat on your face on the way down. This, unfortunately is something that
everyone has to learn the hard way.
Milly certainly did, but happily she learned this quickly and was soon
making controlled landings on her front.
While Milly’s upper-body strength
took a little time to develop, she would only be able
to hold her head up for a little while once on her front.
As soon as she would start tiring, her head would go down on the floor,
and she would begin to get frustrated.
Unfortunately, frustration would bring a lack of clear thinking, and she wouldn't be able to roll herself onto her back.
This meant that we went through a period where she could roll from her
back to her front, from her front to her to her back, but it would only be on
the rare occasion that she could put it all together and position herself how
she wanted.
The
beginning of the rolling process showed Milly that by rocking herself from one
side to the other, she was able to wriggle herself towards anything she
wanted. This caused a few heart-stopping
moments when, left safely in the middle of our bed, she would move herself
towards one of her toys as soon as we turned around, and we would find her off
towards one of the edges. Needless to
say, we have to keep a close eye on her now (I’m sure she already has a few
places eyed up for when she is fully mobile!!!). One of the great joys of Milly learning to
roll has been the games we can play with her to encourage to roll over. Strategically placing her favourite toys out
of her reach to give her something to aim towards seemed to yield the best
results. It was also quite amusing to
see her working out what was needed to get her to go that final inch. The first few times that she rolled over, she
must have had a cough which jerked her onto her front, because she went through
a period of fake coughing when she got onto her side, to help her get
over. Watching that was really
funny. But eventually, as she continued
to grow and learn, she has now mastered this art, and gets enormous pleasure
from rolling over and over.
An
unfortunate drawback to Milly’s new found ability, is that she has figured out
that it is a good way of keeping herself awake.
Almost every bedtime involves a tour around her cot as she strives to
stay awake. A few nights ago, giggling
could be heard over the baby monitor, and on inspection, Elaine found Milly at
the top of her cot, wrestling with her soft toys, having a ball!!! Milly has now taken to sleeping on her side,
which bought its own problems for the first few nights. I seemed that Milly would get comfy, fall
asleep, and then involuntarily roll onto her back, or her front, which would
come as a shock, and she would wake up panicked. Hopefully she has now passed this stage as
she becomes more familiar with her movements!!!
In the last few
days, Milly has started to put together the beginnings of a ‘commando’
crawl. At the moment, it is completely
inefficient, and she very often pushes herself backwards rather than forwards,
but there is certainly the beginnings of a crawl. For a few weeks, she had been moving her arms
and legs but going absolutely nowhere, but she has started to move her arms and
legs together now, and is slowly starting to drag herself forwards. Her determination to reach certain toys seems to
have no bounds!!!
