12 Weeks
My sweet baby is 12 weeks old today. She won't really be 'three months old' until Monday so I'll try and get some pictures up on the kids' blog by then. The first six weeks or so of her life really dragged but the last month has flown by. We've reached the point where I feel mostly recovered and she is starting the turn the corner from the 'newborn' stage into being a real baby. This month she has perfected the art of smiling and does it often, especially when she wants food. Occasionally she'll even add some cooing, and the other night we heard our first excited giggle from her. We've set up a little play area for her in the living room with some toys, and one of those is a mirror that I often catch her smiling at. She's also starting to tentatively reach out to grab at some of the toys.
This month Baby P has also become a champion sleeper. She is proof that babies are shaped by nature just as much as nurture. Suddenly she started sleeping long stretches at night and now we can usually put her down at 10 and see her again at 7. Her daytime sleep is still somewhat disordered but we're starting to get a consistent morning nap each day that lasts almost an hour. I have learned from my two previous kids that it's worth doing some gentle 'sleep training' at this point and I think it's working. When she is calm and not overtired we usually put her in her bed and she will put herself to sleep after wiggling around a bit. She's also figured out how to get her fingers in her mouth and suck on them, and sometimes will put herself back to sleep sucking them. Since S-Boogie is still sucking her thumb at six-and-a-half I have mixed feelings about the finger sucking, but she doesn't like the pacifier and I know that babies who self-soothe often sleep better. The fabulous sleeping is truly a blessing and a miracle because I know it's the main thing keeping me from slipping into craziness again. Bedtime is still rough and she has many attacks of the evening fussies, but I can forgive that much more easily when I get a full night of sleep most of the time.
Nursing is still going along all right and I am proud of the fact that we've made it twelve weeks so far. I'll be honest and say that I've never enjoyed nursing that much. It's just always a little uncomfortable for me and the impreciseness of it keeps me a little nervous. I recently switched to feeding Baby P on just one side at a time, and now I sometimes worry about her not getting enough. But I was having an oversupply problem and she was starting to have frequent projectile vomiting from eating too much at a time, so the switch was a good idea for both of us. If I sense that she's really not satisfied then she can have more from the second side, but for right now smaller, frequent feedings seem to be the way to go. Since she spends nearly nine hours sleeping at night I think she needs more feeds during the day. Generally she seems content and is growing well, which is all the proof I need that things are working as they should be. Hopefully the next few months will be just as smooth as this last one was.
This month Baby P has also become a champion sleeper. She is proof that babies are shaped by nature just as much as nurture. Suddenly she started sleeping long stretches at night and now we can usually put her down at 10 and see her again at 7. Her daytime sleep is still somewhat disordered but we're starting to get a consistent morning nap each day that lasts almost an hour. I have learned from my two previous kids that it's worth doing some gentle 'sleep training' at this point and I think it's working. When she is calm and not overtired we usually put her in her bed and she will put herself to sleep after wiggling around a bit. She's also figured out how to get her fingers in her mouth and suck on them, and sometimes will put herself back to sleep sucking them. Since S-Boogie is still sucking her thumb at six-and-a-half I have mixed feelings about the finger sucking, but she doesn't like the pacifier and I know that babies who self-soothe often sleep better. The fabulous sleeping is truly a blessing and a miracle because I know it's the main thing keeping me from slipping into craziness again. Bedtime is still rough and she has many attacks of the evening fussies, but I can forgive that much more easily when I get a full night of sleep most of the time.
Nursing is still going along all right and I am proud of the fact that we've made it twelve weeks so far. I'll be honest and say that I've never enjoyed nursing that much. It's just always a little uncomfortable for me and the impreciseness of it keeps me a little nervous. I recently switched to feeding Baby P on just one side at a time, and now I sometimes worry about her not getting enough. But I was having an oversupply problem and she was starting to have frequent projectile vomiting from eating too much at a time, so the switch was a good idea for both of us. If I sense that she's really not satisfied then she can have more from the second side, but for right now smaller, frequent feedings seem to be the way to go. Since she spends nearly nine hours sleeping at night I think she needs more feeds during the day. Generally she seems content and is growing well, which is all the proof I need that things are working as they should be. Hopefully the next few months will be just as smooth as this last one was.
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