Twelve weeks old

It's 12 weeks since Stella was born and she's learning lots of new tricks. Stella usually wakes for the day sometime between 6 and 7. I do what I can to keep her quiet until 7, when Tim's alarm clock goes off, but usually the whole family is awake before then. One of the great things about having Stella in our bed is that when she does wake in the morning she is full of beaming smiles and will happily lie with us and kick around until we get out of bed.

Many mornings either Tim or I will take Stella into the shower with us. She seems to love the sensation of the water on her back and head and it's certainly a much easier way to wash her than a baby bath. We don't use any soap yet as the pediatrician said it was good for her skin to colonise with bacteria. I'm sure we'll have to change this approach once she starts getting really dirty!

Once Tim has gone off to work Stella and I get on with our day together. Stella still sleeps quite a lot in the day, up to about 4 hours, but when she's awake she still loves to kick around in the baby gym or under the mobile. She spends hours looking at her fists and putting them into her mouth. She's also just starting to grab and feel things of interest around her and bring them to her mouth as well.

Stella loves playing along when I do my yoga exercises. She particularly likes flying baby, where I put her on my shins and fly her above my head. She also likes lying under me when I do cat pose and finds my dangling hair most amusing. She's very good at sitting on my knees when I do my warrior stances. Altogether a great little assistant. Her neck is getting stronger and stronger and now we hardly need to hold her head at all.

I usually go out at least once a day, either to meet a friend, to take some photographs or to do some errands. If Stella is really restless and I haven't got an outing planned I'll often just put her in the sling and take her to the lovely supermarket over the road. She loves looking at all the brightly coloured packages on the shelves as I wander through the aisles. For weeks I took her over there and she was asleep before we got through the door, but now she's much more alert and charms all other the customers and shop staff.

We're still able to take Stella with us pretty much anywhere we want to go in the evenings. In restaurants we will often plonk Stella on the table next to us where she loves to look around and kick away. Sushi Taro nearby is particularly good for Stella as we can put her on the tatami mat next to where we sit to eat.

We are learning however, that sometime between 7 and 9 Stella is ready to go to sleep for the night. If we're at home I'll take her to bed and feed her and she'll usually fall asleep no problem. If we're out with friends we'll put her in the sling and she'll fall into a pretty deep sleep if we're lucky. If we're not lucky, she'll give us a very sad face and some tears and we'll feel extremely guilty about keeping her away from her bed!

Most nights Stella wakes me up once sometime between 3.30 and 5.30. A couple of night she's slept for 7 hours in a row, but unfortunately I haven't managed to grab the same 7 hours. We're still practising at that.