Monthly Update - Month 3

My goal has been to get the 3 months update posted before Nate turned 4 months old. Well, Nate turns 4 months old tomorrow! Yes, it's taken me a little while but this is just a testimony to the fact that time really is flying by for us. It's been a wonderful few months and we wanted to get some of these written down for friends and family and for posterity sake. I'll try my best to get the 4 months update out quicker!

Week Nine

Milestones
Nate probably won’t be crawling or walking for a while but he’s been getting his leg muscles ready. Whenever we placed Nate on his tummy, he made crawling movements with his legs and scooted backwards a bit and would stand up straight and take little “walks” up our legs and belly. Nate also started noticing his toys and hitting them with his hands pretty well. Nate started licking his fingers as well. He didn’t quite have the finger sucking figured out but he seemed to enjoy bringing his fist to his mouth and licking along the fingers. We also put him in the bumbo seat for the first time. Nate leaned to one side a bit but seemed to do well sitting in it for short periods of time. He is also learning to balance himself pretty well. Brandon would hold him up by Nate’s rear end and balance him in the palm of his hand. This always made mommy nervous but both Brandon and Nate seemed to enjoy it very much.

We also have been enjoying talking and cooing with Nate quite a bit and it was especially fun when he started trying to imitate/mimic noises that we made. Nate also developed a whiny cry. He no longer cried hard every time but he would look at us and whine/talk when we would hold him as though he was complaining about something.

Growth
Nate started wearing 0-3 and 3 month clothing this week. Along with his clothes, he also outgrew his size 1 diapers after a box of 216 diapers.

Nighttime Sleep
At week nine, Nate started to stretch his nighttime sleep a bit longer and would do at least one 5-hour stretch during the night. This was certainly a welcomed progress especially for mommy!

Family Visit
Nate finally got to meet the rest of the Averill family over the MLK weekend – uncle Mike, Aunt Jeny, and cousins Katey and Seth. This was a very long awaited meeting, especially for cousin Katey, who had been looking forward to meeting Nate ever since we told her that I was pregnant with Nate last March. Their visit came just a day after Nate received his 2-month shots so he wasn’t his usual happy self at first but he warmed up to them quickly. During their visit, uncle Mike even got Nate to mimic him and say “uncle”. We all had a wonderful time and we hope to visit them in North Carolina soon.

Week Ten

Milestones
During the week of January 25th, we noticed that Nate started chuckling and giggling more and even laughed on the 28th. We definitely loved hearing the little guy’s chuckles and laughs and can’t wait to see and hear him do this more regularly. Also, Nate still hasn’t really found his fingers yet but he’s starting to suck on his hands more and more.

Bath Times
Not really sure what’s going on but we had a bit of a difficult time with bath times this week. Nate seems to still enjoy his bath and would even smile and coo during the bath, but shortly after coming out of the water, he quickly turns all red faced and starts wailing at the top of his lungs. I don’t think it’s because he’s cold because I keep the bathroom pretty toasty with a space heater but not sure what it could be. Perhaps he gets so relaxed and sleepy during the bath? He continues to cry while he is being dressed and swaddled but falls asleep pretty fast and hard afterwards. Perhaps we should be giving him a bath at night instead of midday! As far as bath schedules are concerned, we are trying to give him a bath three times a week now (Tues, Thurs and Sat).

Waketimes
It seemed like Nate’s ideal awake period right now is about 1.5 hours. When he is put him down after longer stretches (between 1.5 to 2 hours), he acts overtires, cries harder and takes much longer to fall asleep. We’re also learning to “read” for Nate’s tired signs better. Various books I’ve read encourages you to put a baby down for nap by 3 yawns during early months. That worked great for several weeks but Nate has stopped showing such early infant signs of sleepiness. Now when he’s sleepy his eyes get this mellow and watery look to them. If we wait for the yawns, he’s typically already overtired and turns into a pretty fussy cranky baby.

Nighttime Sleep
It seemed like Nate decided to put himself on a schedule. Starting on 25 January, he started going down for the night around 8 or 9 pm after a shortened late afternoon nap of about 45-60 minutes. He would then do one 5 to 6+ hour stretch, then a 4-5 hr stretch before getting up around 630 or 7 am to start the day. It’s not a bad time to start the day so we’re probably going to stick with it for now.

Week Eleven

Milestones
Nate has started laughing regularly and seems to enjoy being tickled. Not sure if he’s become more ticklish or is just reacting excitedly to what we are doing to him but he always responds with the cutest little laugh or a chuckle.

Growth
It seems like Nate may have gone through a growth spurt during this week because he seemed extremely sleepy and hungry for about 2 or 3 days. Mommy was especially excited about it because it coincided with mommy’s birthday and Nate slept 9.5 hours and had to be woken up at 630AM so he wouldn’t go too long without nursing. Although he didn’t continue to sleep that long at night, it still felt great! As far as nursing goes, he’s still continuing to nurse every 3.5 hour intervals and has an average of 3 to 4 bowel movements a day now.

Nighttime Sleep
Nate kept waking up after going down for the night, which was a bit unusual for him. He seemed to want to stay up and would look at us and smile and coo, even though he seemed tired. So on January 20th, after ruling out all possibilities, we decided to let him cry for a while. His cry started off as a whine and escalated at 10 minutes. Mommy was just about ready to give in and get him but then he started winding down. At 13 minutes, he had fallen asleep and stayed down for the rest of the night! We were not planning on starting sleep training for another week or so but this was very encouraging. Nate also started stretching his night sleep by about ½ hour increments per night and would sleep 7.5 hours by February 2nd and would continue to do 6 to 7 hour stretches at night from then on.

Naptimes
Nate started falling asleep easier for naps as well. On January 31st, I swaddled him and held him for a while before the morning nap. I was primarily holding him because he had the hiccups but then I noticed that he was starting to dozing off.  I quickly put him in the crib and let him cry for 5 minutes. I went over and patted his back without picking him up and he fell asleep in about a minute or so and stayed asleep for the rest of the nap. Hope this pattern continues!

Acid Reflux
We noticed that Nate was being bothered with increased acid reflux symptoms again. He started to not eat as well again, arch his back and be extremely fussy while eating. He would also cry for extended periods of time and would be difficult to console. We spoke to Nate’s pediatrician and he suggested that we increase the Pepcid dosage to 3ml three times a day from twice a day.

Week Twelve

Milestones
This was another eventful week for Nate. Nate seemed to notice his hands more and more and is learning to use them. I held out a rattle toy in front of him and he reached for it with his right hand and grabbed it gently and felt it with his fingers. He also reached for our faces and touched them. It’s certainly exciting to see how he is developing week to week like this!

Nate is also working on strengthening his arm muscles! During tummy time, I counted 6 or 7 mini pushups in a row. He did this effortlessly with a smile on his face and was fixed on a toy set in front of him. All the hard work seems to be paying off as well because by the end of the week, he turned over from tummy to back for Brandon several times! He’s not always in the best of moods when he’s doing this but hopefully he’ll learn to enjoy them more and more.

Nate also continues to laugh a lot and it’s such a joy to see. Nate especially loves it when Brandon holds him up in a flying position or gives him a smurfle on his neck.

Eczema
I took Nate to his doctor’s office to have his skin checked out. I was seeing various red patches on his body that didn't look like the eczema on his face and shoulder. The doctor took a look at it and confirmed that Nate had a very mild eczema on his face, shoulder, stomach and back area, which could be treated with 1% hydrocortisone cream and regular moisturizer (recommended Eucerin or Aquaphor). The patches on his extremities were something different (and I can't remember what it's called!) Anyway, the doctor suggested bathing less frequently, which could irritate or worsen both of these things so we’re planning on bathing him just twice a week or as needed and wash his face, hands and neck area daily in the morning.

Growth
We had Nate weighed while we were at the doctor’s office and we were excited to learn that he was at 13 lbs 8 oz. It was a relief to know that he was continuing to gain weight because he hasn’t been eating as well when he is bothered by acid reflux. It seems like the increase Pepcid is helping for the time being and some of the symptoms have subsided.

Bottle Training
We’ve been continuing to give Nate a bottle at least once a day but Nate is still not taking to it very well. He did take about 1 oz from a bottle after the doctor’s visit but he didn’t take it again after that. We’ve tried various bottles and it seems Nate tolerates the Playtex Drop-ins the best but that’s not really saying much since he just gums on it instead of actually eating from it. I was a bit relieved though to see that he can at least eat from it if he really wanted to because I have to be away for about 7 hours or so on the 17th, which means that Brandon will be home with Nate for two feeding session. 

Nighttime/Sleep Training
Well, the big news this week is that we began sleep training! On Sunday, 7 February, we decided to let him “cry it out” because he seemed to be fighting sleep in our arms more and more. Brandon and I were bracing ourselves to hear Nate cry for an extended period of time. Nate started to cry, as it was expected, but fell asleep after just 8 minutes of crying! Then the next day, we put him down again awake and he didn’t cry at all and fell asleep pretty quickly and did this again after the 3 AM feeding. Again on Tuesday night, we put him down and he seemed very awake and was staring into the camera (yes, we have a video monitor and we love using it!). He was fidgety for awhile and even looked like he was going to scream but he never made a peep and fell asleep within 5 minutes or so. We could not believe how easy that was and we were both very relieved and proud of our little guy!

Naptimes
Then on Tuesday, we decided to try sleep training for his naptimes as well. The only difference is that we decided to sooth him until he looked drowsy and then put him down, whereas at nighttime, we were putting him down awake. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Nate fell asleep on his own each time for the naps AND stayed asleep for his naps all day! I don’t know if it’s related to sleep training or getting him down before he gets overtired, but he’s been sleeping very well and waking up happy from his naps since then! This means that mommy no longer has to watch the clock after putting him down for a nap and wonder if he’s going to make it past 10 minutes, then 30 minutes, then 45 minutes and I can shower or eat with a peace of mind. Gosh, it’s such a great feeling and I certainly love it!

We’ve also noticed that when Nate gets tired, he starts licking his right hand and twirling his hair with his left hand. Once we start seeing him do this, which is often at about 1.5 hours of waketime except for his early morning nap for which he still only lasts about an hour or so, we start getting him ready for his nap. This seems to be working very well so far. It’s so fun getting to know how to serve the little guy like this and I often enjoy singing him the song “Getting to Know You”…although I only know about two verses or so! I should look it up on iTunes and learn the song if I’m going to keep singing it to him! =)

Swaddling
Along with sleep training, we decided to try to unswaddle Nate and put him on his stomach for his naps because we’ve heard that babies tend to sleep better this way. He did very well for the morning nap but he was pretty upset when he woke up and did not seem to want to go back on his stomach again. So we tried to put him down on his back unswaddled for the subsequent naps but that seemed to keep him awake to have his arms free. After watching him on the monitor for awhile, we decided to try swaddling him with one arm out and he seemed to do better with that. We continued to keep him swaddled for night sleeping.

Week Thirteen

Milestones
Nate is really getting quite good at tracking things with his eyes. There’s no longer a delayed reaction but he follows things with his eyes right away. We’ve also noticed that he’s enjoying looking at his reflection in the mirror. We have a playmat with a mirror attachment and Nate enjoys lying under the mat and just staring up at it and smile.

Bath Times
Nate is enjoying his post bath times again. I’m not completely certain that his meltdowns were related to him becoming too relaxed and sleepy during his bath but in an attempt to make the process quicker, I have started washing his hair at a different time. I’m continuing to bath him two times a week, give him a daily face/neck/hand wash in the morning and wash his hair every two or three days. It’s actually working out well for the time being because it allows me to really give his head a good scrub to try to get rid of the cradle cap instead of rushing through it. It’s not easy to get to his scalp since he has so much hair!

Diapers and blowouts
I’m officially done with Pampers diapers! The Pampers Swaddlers were great early on because they are so incredibly soft. However, I’m finding that with Nate getting bigger and his output getting a bit more “forceful” and increasing in volume, it’s just not keeping things inside the diaper anymore. I was cleaning up an average of two or three blowouts a day! So I switched to Huggies Snugglers and I love it so far! It’s not as soft as the Swaddlers but the elastic in the back is definitely worth it!

Bottle Training
February 17th has come and gone and both Nate and Brandon survived! As I’ve mentioned previously, we’ve been trying to get Nate bottle trained for this day because I knew I had to be gone from the house for about 8 hours, which meant that Brandon needed to feed Nate with a bottle two times. Unfortunately, it ended up being a pretty rough day for both Brandon and Nate. Brandon tried several different bottles and even a medicine dropper to try to get Nate to eat. Nate eventually took about 3 oz from a bottle but Brandon had to hold him and walk around the house in order for Nate to eat from it. Needless to say, both Brandon and Nate greeted me at the door eagerly when I arrived home. We’re all glad that’s over for now!

Nighttime
We noticed that Nate was having a hard time going down for his 4th nap around 530 to 630 pm. He would cry excessively and seemed to be fighting sleep and when we did manage to get him to fall sleep, he would wake up early from his nap. We were wondering if he was overtired so we tried to put him down even earlier but that didn’t work either. So on the 18th, we decided to try to drop the 4th nap and just keep him up longer until he started getting sleepy, nurse him and put him down for the night. The result was that he slept 9 hours straight from 820 pm to 530 am, woke up for a feeding and then fell back asleep until 9 am! I also talked to some seasoned moms after this and learned that it wasn’t unusual for babies Nate’s age to shorten and drop the 4th nap. Well, we’re grateful and blessed to have friends that are seasoned parents and are always so eager to help us with our many questions!