3 months old

So many good pictures this month it was hard to choose!

Ellie turned 3 months on October 26th.  The month started off well enough.  Then things begin to go downhill in early November.  She began to get more fussy.  She wanted to be held for naps. And then night time sleep went to crap.  I guess we hit the 4 month regression a little early!

Sleep:
In the beginning of the month, Ellie moved her bed time back to 8:30/9.  Thus her first feeding time moved up to 5/6.  Up for day between 7:30 and 8:30.  Not bad at all.  One overnight feeding was fine. 

Then the wheels fell off.....
Early November - wants to be held for naps

November 18th - sleeping through the night, hah! Ellie gets up about 8 times mostly between 2:30 and 5:30
19th - similar amount - 12:30 to 6:30
20th - 4 times between 2:30 and 3:30.  Once more after that 
First time I gave her the paci, next I fed her a little until she started dozing and switched in the paci,  She woke up after a few minutes, but didn't want to eat again.  She was just staring at me in my arms, so I put her down.  She cried after a few minutes and Jeff went in to give her paci. She passed out until 6-ish for a quick paci replacement.  Up at 7:30 to eat.  Put her back in her crib - not sure if she slept or not. 

This combined with increasing trouble getting her go to sleep and stay asleep for naps had me throwing in the towel.  I started letting her cry a bit.  At nap time I'd put her in the crib and let her cry a few minutes.  On November 21, I let her cry in her crib until she fell asleep for a nap.  I put her down swaddled and drowsy with the pacifier.  Once the pacifier fell out she cried for 5 minutes.  Just as I was about to head up she quieted down.  For the next 10 minutes she alternated babbling and whimpering.  The she started screaming.  I lasted 3 minutes before heading up.  I gave her 2 minutes of snuggling and comforting to calm her down.  I laid her back down, there was 5 minutes of crying and then all was quiet.  She napped for about 45 minutes.  I was so proud!

Of course, it was still up and down after that.  Sometimes I could get her to nap in her crib easily, sometimes it took multiple tried and sometimes it was still in someone's arms (or in the car or the shopping cart or at Grammi's).  If it was easy, I would put her down swaddled and after she lost the paci and cried for a few minutes I'd run up there and pop it back in.  She'd hike her legs up, let the flop to roll over on her side and go to sleep.

At night, she still often nurses to sleep.  If not, she'll suck on her pacifier and want snuggling and bouncy while slowly drifting off.  She doesn't sleep through the night much anymore.  Sometimes at Grammi's.  She wakes up for paci re-insertions and some nights won't go back down without a small feeding.  Not sure what we are going to do when we have to give up the swaddle.  Probably should break the pacifier reliance at the same time but she'll probably be lost without those 2 major cues that it's time to sleep.

Feeding:
You can tell by those chubba cheeks that she is getting plenty of food!  She goes 3-3.5 hours between feedings during the day (mostly) and then eats more frequently in the evening to tank up for the night.  When she's away from me and taking bottles she takes 5-6 ounces mostly but as little as 3 and once as much as 8 (!).

Development:
-blowing raspberries/bubbles: she did this one day and then nothing.  But then she came on strong!  She can soak herself entertaining herself with this activity!
-vocalizations: she can be pretty loud!  We have the classic "ah. ghee" and goo goo/cooing type stuff.  She also squeals and gasps.
-working on rolling: she flips her legs up and falls to either side.  She can't fully roll over yet though
-tummy time/head control: she's great at holding her head up.  She has increased her tummy time tolerance.  She will do any where from 10 second to 10 minutes, ha! 
-laughing: we have laughter!  I'm not good at identifying when baby laughter begins.  She's been giving a 'heh' kinda sound that I guess is laughter.  Her first real giggle came on November 25th after she had given me a rough, cranky, clingy day.  She and Claire were in the bath and Claire was being silly.  Ellie likes nothing better than watching an animated Claire!  Can't wait til she decides to do it again for us!

Events:
recovering from our Seattle/Chicago trip in October
first Halloween!
baptism on November 3rd
visit to Stone Mountain

Pics!:

3 months, hooray!

Tummy time champion!

Our sweet girls

Sleepy time...on the couch?

Hey!