William at 3 Months

Sweet. In one word, that sums up this little baby. He's just a sweet little boy. He has been full of smiles and now he coos and has started to laugh. I love having these little baby conversations with him. I'll hold him propped up on my lap and will talk to him and then pause and sure enough he'll fill in the pause with some sweet coo. It's fun seeing his little voice start to emerge. He is definitely growing and I feel like he's already really filling out the 3-6 month clothes I've put him in. I just got all of those sizes washed and organized and now I feel like he might not stay in them too long. Switching out the clothes sizes is my least favorite baby chore I think. I guess it's just that...a chore. Finding all of the right size/right season clothes and then washing them, taking the smaller size out of the drawers and packing them up and then putting away all of the new bigger sizes. Uggg, it just takes me forever and feels overwhelming. I'm thinking I might be doing it a lot more than every 3 months as the labels say if William keeps packing on the pounds! His eyes are also bright blue and remind me a lot of Henry's. I'm thinking he might also have blue eyes?? Patrick joked the other night that he's starting to wonder if he's the father. I said if that's the criteria, then I'm not so sure I'm the mother either. Ha! It would be funny if we, two hazel-ish eyed people, ended up having two blue-eyed boys.


Just in the past few weeks I've really noticed a change in his awareness. When I'm feeding him he gets really easily distracted by anything around us. If I'm eating he stops to watch me take a bite; if someone else is in the room he stops to watch them walk by; he stops to admire pictures on the wall; and always stops to watch big brother Henry. He's just really aware of what is going on now. It's great because he's really interacting and awake more, but it's tough because he's also moved out of his newborn falling asleep constantly throughout the day-ness. Because of that I started laying him down awake for his naps a few weeks ago and have had some ups and downs. The first few times were tough, he just cried and cried and I ended up picking him up feeling like a failure when he conked out in my arms. So I waited a couple of days thinking maybe he just wasn't ready and then tried again, trying really hard to time it right--after he ate, was changed and started showing signs of being sleepy. He's done well---he usually lays in his crib for a few minutes, then starts to fuss at which point I go into his room and give him his pacifier (he'll only take it if he's upset) and then he sucks on that pretty vigorously and falls asleep within a couple of minutes. But that hasn't been for every nap. There are days that I must totally miss the timing and his crying only escalates more and more at which point I pick him up and rock him to sleep.

His schedule has been that he takes a couple of shorter naps in the morning (only about 30 minutes each--short!) and then a long, marathon nap in the afternoon--3-4 hours. A lot of afternoons I wake him up after we eat dinner around 6! And just in the last week he's been having an earlier bedtime- I feed him around 7:30 and then he's out for the night usually--until around 5 or 5:30. The nap trouble is that when he falls asleep on his own, he's on his back and those are his shorter naps. In the afternoon I put him down on his tummy if he wakes up after 20 or 30 minutes and only then is it that he'll sleep those long stretches. So he definitely naps better on his tummy. So my trouble is that he doesn't like to be on his tummy if he's awake so how do I get him to fall asleep on his own (which he does on his back) but get him to sleep for a long stretch? Maybe it will get better when he can roll over and can choose to lay whichever way is the most comfortable for him. I feel like sleep issues are the most stressful ones with babies. I remember always feeling that way when Henry was a baby. I'm anxious to have William on more of a schedule so that I'll know what to expect. I'm also still not confident with his naps and laying him down awake, so that feels stressful too. I'm feeling the old 'I don't want him to feel abandoned' feelings. Oh and I don't know what I would do without our Snugli baby carrier. I literally stuff that in my diaper bag and bring it with me every where. I use it every week grocery shopping and usually weekly at the children's museum, too. I love having my hands free, and having my baby happy. It works out really well for us both.