Lucy is THREE Months

 I am THREE months old!

I like: Mommy and her silly sounds or laugh, grabbing my elephant toy on my play mat, the time after I wake up from a good sleep (whether in the morning or after a nap), my fingers/fist, the swing (for a small-ish amount of time), a binky for sleeping, bicycle movements with her legs, watching the fish tank, and when we help her stand and sit.

I dislike: being cold, being hungry, being tired, and being left alone in one spot for too long

I am now: No weight check, but she was almost 12 lbs. around 11 weeks. She's in size 1 diapers and went from 0-3 month clothes to 3 month clothes towards the end of the month. 

A Typical Day looks like: Once we switched to bottles and napping independently she got on a schedule REAL quick. Here's what she prefers:

She wakes up between 7:30 and 8 AM

7:45/8 - she has a 4.5 oz bottle. Gets a diaper change, her probiotic, and changed into her clothes for the day (she's a spit up queen so I take her out of her pajamas as soon as possible so she doesn't ruin those).

8-9  she plays on the swing, play mat, in her boppy lounger, or whatever will make her happiest.

9-10:45/11  nap time. Once I see her yawning and starting to rub her eyes we went from swaddling her in a thin blanket, turning off the office lights and turn on the fan and lay her in the pack n play baby bed thing and then wrapped up in the thicker blanket and given her a binky. Towards the end of the month (once I went back to work and Larry took his last leave) she had outgrown the baby bed part and we felt she could be unswaddled so we would turn off the light, lay her in the pack n play, wrap the blanket around her under her arms, give her the binky, turn on the fan, and give her a kiss. Within 5 minutes she's usually out (sometimes it takes a little longer if her arms are feeling particularly wobbly).

11:00 - next 4.5 oz bottle and diaper change (if needed, if not I do it before the next nap)

11:00 - 12/12:15 play time (swing, tummy time, play mat, whatever works).

12/12:15-2 nap time. Same routine as before.

2 - next 4.5 oz bottle and diaper change

2-3:30 play time

3:30 - 4:30 nap time. Same routine as before.

4:30 - 5  play time w/mom while daddy and girls go downstairs to work out and play.

5:00 - next 4.5 oz bottle

5 - 5:30/6 play time

6 - 6:30 small nap time (just to get her to be chill till bed time).

6:30 - 7:15 play time

7:15 she gets a 3 - 3.5 oz bottle (all formula)

7:30 get ready for bed. This includes a bath on Sundays and Thursdays to start. Then we change her diaper, put on the owlet, put on pajamas, put on the sleep sac, swaddle her, lay her down and give her the binky. I'm happy to report that the waking after 1 hour ended around the 11.5 week mark...I was SO relieved her night time sleeping is getting better! Oh and she's our first baby that stopped needing a bottle at bedtime the quickest. I'm SO happy we haven't had to stress about stopping that, she did it all on her own!

She does good throughout the night. She tends to grunt a lot between midnight and 1 because she has gas and if she starts breaking out of the swaddle I'll give her a binky (at the beginning of the month if she broke out of the swaddle we were in trouble!!). She then is good until 4 AM (later that moved to 6 AM). She's usually broken out of the swaddle at that point so I would change her diaper and feed her 3 oz (all formula). After that I'd re-swaddle her and lay her down with the binky again (she needs it after feedings or she spits up...guaranteed), then she's good until 6 AM. She'd start grunting at that point so from 6 - 7:30 I'd just sleep lightly to keep replacing the binky if she needed it (if she's moving a lot, her fingers are teasing her, she's waking up, or she's starting to break out of the swaddle). I tend to go to bed around 9 so I can get as much sleep as possible. Once I went back to work and Larry took over (I slept in the guest room because Larry needed to be in front of the fan and we didn't want to move that so guest room was my only option) she started sleeping better throughout the night. She'd be unswaddled by the 12/1 AM grunting time and he'd give her the binky, which would need to be replaced off and on until 2. Then she'd be good until 6 and he'd just do the binky until morning time and we'd pick up feeding her around 8 AM and it worked great. I'm still in the guest room for another week and I'm a little nervous to be back in the bedroom to be on binky duty haha.

This Month: We made a BIG improvement on napping, I'm SO relieved that the little girl took to bottles really well and has taken the binky for napping. She fought napping for the first couple days we tried it (which we had to go to Marie's for lunch the first day so it makes sense that would be harder for her), but once she realized the routine she looks forward to it and only fusses because she wants to be asleep asap. I think it also helped her realize the bedtime routine was for sleep (since it was similar to the napping routine), she stopped screaming and crying when we took her to the bedroom and only fusses when she's really ready to go to sleep. 

Once we switched to bottles, after a few days, she went from waking up at 4 AM to 5 or 6 AM. I was giving her the binky to help stretch her sleep as long as possible, but usually in the 6 AM hour she would get fussy and just wanted to eat. She then started breaking out of the swaddle and the binky only helped so much so she went back to needing feedings around 4 AM (which worked because I'd fill her up and then she'd be able to sleep until 7:30/8 better). Then once I went back to work she actually went back to sleeping through the night for daddy. She still needs to binky replaced quite a bit, but doesn't actually need a feeding AND would be broken out of her swaddle. We still swaddle her to put her to bed, but I'm thinking that's going to change soon.

I did forget how exhausting getting up in the night to pump can be so I ended up giving that up after a few days. It was too hard when her night wakings were happening at random moments and I wasn't sure when I could get away to pump. I can't lie, I have no issues if I don't pump a lot this time. I pump every 3 hours during the day and then right before bed and then start up again in the morning. I am only pumping so I don't get my period back at this point (haha) I'm okay if she's just on formula.

It has been so much nicer to sleep in the guest room as well and knowing daddy can take over all night feedings for that day. Luckily, I'm still getting decent sleep when I am in our room.

This month I was having a hard time with missing having our Saturday night movie date nights and I've been fighting having more "me" time, but I had to remind myself it's selfish to think that way and to appreciate having my babies and the family I've been able to grow. Luckily as she'd gotten better with her sleep it got a bit easier; I know we'll get those movie nights again, I just need to be patient. The motto I've had this time around is "the quicker you rush, the longer it takes". 

Going back to work was pretty emotional. I swear I don't remember being so emotional before, but this time my last day I teared up a little bit. I'm not sure where that came from haha.

She is starting to laugh a little bit too. It's very little of a laugh, but it's SO cute and she's so silly with what makes her laugh (one day it was me bopping her on her forehead, cheeks, and chin and then laughing. Sometimes it's the sit and stand motion we do with her. It's random, but one of my favorite daily games is figuring out what will make her laugh). Oh and she's getting interested in food now. She loves watching us eat and I usually end up holding her while we eat dinner (if it's something I can eat one handed) and she loves staring at our food. I'm thinking she's going to be excited to start having foods of her own next month.

And finally, I'd like to say as we approach the end of the 2nd month, beginning of the 3rd month it's crazy to think how much has changed in just one month. The night she turned 2 months (so the 11th to the 12th of August) I was so desperate to get her to sleep better and not need to be on me that I gave her a new binky that she took right away and I was SO happy I could've cried. I was at my wits end with nights going so bad and feeling like she wouldn't ever leave my boob (they said at her checkup I was bordering having PPD...it was that stressful). I was also still doing the nurse/napping thing during the day and feeling like I'd never get a chance to workout or get things done around the house. I loved Lucy and watching her sleep, but I needed her to not need me so much. And now, here we are: she's napping independently, she's sleeping SO great throughout the night, she's such a happier baby during the day, I'm getting things done, and everything is going SO much smoother. I also started working out now and so my endorphins are back and I'm just so much happier (and she's suddenly so much cuter haha).

Update on last month's goals:

• More binky/hands acceptance: she LOVES the binky for sleeping now and I'm so happy. She can bring her hands to her mouth like a pro! However, she can't figure out what finger(s) she wants.
• Independent napping: She has this down! We started on the 22nd and while it was rough for a couple days, she had it down by Wednesday. I cannot express how happy that made me
• Be (and stay) down by 8 PM: Done! So SO happy about this one.
• Switch to bottles and add in formula: this was also started on the 22nd. It's been a huge game changer (like to a point where I'm NEVER breastfeeding ever again!) and it's been nice switching over. It almost immediately helped her night sleeping.
• Tummy Time: she hated this still at the beginning of the month, but by the end of August she was doing better with it. Only for a couple minutes, but a bigger improvement (she wouldn't stand it for a second at first, but then worked up to a couple minutes).

Goals for next month:

• Get her sleeping until 7:30/8 without a feeding and ALSO not grunting as much (hopefully we can accomplish this).
• More tummy time during the day - I'm really bad at doing this since she's hated it so much.
• Sleeping without a swaddle - I'm SO nervous for this!! It won't be until she finds her fingers better, I'm sure.
• Give her more time in the bumbo chair to get used to sitting up
• Hopefully get her starting to roll over and laugh (more).
• Work on some sensory stuff - mostly feeling new things.