Hi girls, I'm back in the northern hemisphere as of 5am yesterday morning. We had a really lovely time away with a hot Christmas, lots of family gatherings and little bit of beach time. The flight over was good, as I mentioned before Flora was an angel and coped really well. She has really blossomed while away, we're so proud of her. She can now pull herself up to standing, crawls quite proficiently and she is making a whole bunch of new sounds as well. She is finally saying 'dada' much to my DHs pleaseure as she would only say 'mama' before. She was really good with being handled by all sorts of different people as well. Mum and dad looked after her a few times and said she is really easy so that's nice to hear! It was nice to have a few hours off now and again, we went to the beach, out for dinner, drinks, shopping etc. Flora was a bit funny about the beach at first but got used to it more and seemed quite happy there by the last day. The water was a bit cold for her though, and the sun is so harsh we didn't take her too much really. But it was really nice for me to take her to the beach near where I grew up it was very special.
So she was up a lot at night for the first few days but it settled down to twice a night for most of the holiday. Now that we're back it seemes to be going the same way - she was awake every 1.5-2 hours last night. She settled after feeding but I'm conscious that I need to try cutting out the night feeds soon as I'm back to work on Tuesday. However at least she was asleep mostly and not wide awake at night, jet lag might not be too bad hopefully. The trip back was brutal - 8.5 hours to Hong Kong, a 6 hour stopover with no stroller (they told us there were complimentary ones at the aiport there but there weren't) and a very overtired Flora. The second flight was OK she slept for the first half of it (6 hours) and then was awake on and off for the last 6 hours. So we got to Heathrow at 5am, and our stoller didn't make it over. It got lost in Hong Kong airport somewhere and so we made our way home on the tube with Flora in the sling. Luckily she slept for most of the tube journey (which is 1.5 hours to our place), when we got to the other end we walked home through icy cold rain and darkness. Ah what a welcome back to blighty hey!
In other new my brother's GF had her 12 week scan just before we left and everything was looking good. My brother, who was quite shocked and a bit scared by how quickly she fell pregnant, seems to be really getting happier about the idea of being a dad now as well. He is so brilliant with babies anyway so I'm really thrilled for them. I really like his GF as well, (didn't know her at all before), we spent a lot of time with them.
So that's my holiday update! thanks for reading
I'll put some pics up shortly.
Cocoa - Best of luck finding a job. What happened about that analyst position? I am seriously thinking of doing CC as well soon, I'm back at work Tuesday and I can't be getting up 3-4 times a night. I don't think Flora needs the food so much either so its good to hear you got off to a good start with it. Tell me, how are you actually doing it? i.e. what's the procedure? Hope M gets better soon as well.
Hive - Flora doesn't really have tantrums like that, but she does have massive meltdowns sometimes when I'm changing her, she has done for months now and I'm not sure why. She also can have a meltdown at feeding time if she doesn't like something or I'm too slow or she's tired.
Is there another sleep regression around 9/10 months??
she's hardly eating anything again - even milk. I was worried about her losing weight so stuck her on the scales, I seem to have the only baby that continues to gain weight when ill and when crawling/cruising all over the place! She's 22lb 8oz now. 
She actually opens her mouth for it now, still dribbles most of it our, but it's still progress!
