Lilah Rose at three months

I wasn’t sure I was going to keep up with these posts, but I’ve had so much fun recently re-reading the monthly updates from when James was a baby, that I’m going to try!

Lilah turned three months old a few days ago and I can’t believe she’s officially out of the newborn stage. It is truly amazing to me to look at how much she’s changed in only three months. I feel like her little personality is already shining through so much and it’s really fun to see.

Personality

Lilah is so sweet and happy, and is seriously the most easy going baby ever! As long as she’s fed and rested, she just smiles and babbles and watches the world around her.

She loves to have little conversations, and it’s my favorite thing she does right now. She is pretty quiet if she’s laying by herself, but if one of us makes eye contact and starts talking to her, she starts babbling up a storm. It really seems like she’s trying to have a conversation and it is the cutest thing ever!

She loves to suck her thumb and is really good at self-soothing that way right now, which is great. The other day, we were at a music class with James and she was laying on a blanket. I guess she got tired because she just popped her thumb in her mouth and went to sleep, surrounded by toddlers playing rhythm sticks. So funny.

Development

A couple of days after she turned 3 months old, Lilah rolled over from her back to her tummy.

She has been trying SO hard to do this lately, and she finally made it! She’s also been trying to roll from tummy to back, so we’ll see if that happens soon. Then there’s no stopping her lol.

Because of this though, we stopped swaddling her, so I’m hoping this doesn’t mess with her sleep too much.

She has also gotten really good at bringing her hand to her mouth this month so that she can suck her thumb.

She has also been practicing grabbing / hitting the toys hanging from her play gym. She also loves her Skwish and works so hard to bring it to her mouth.

Sleep

I don’t want to jinx anything, but she has turned into the best sleeper.

We did try to prioritize helping her learn to sleep independently from the beginning, but I really think most of it is just her.

She gradually started sleeping for longer and longer stretches at night and now sleeps through the night or close to it. She goes to bed around 7:15-7:30 and either sleeps all the way until 6:45-7 or, more often, wakes up once between 4-5:30.

She doesn’t have a real nap schedule yet, but she goes down for all of her naps very easily now. I just sing her one song, put her in her bassinet and she sucks her little thumb until she falls asleep.

She usually takes 4 naps a day, though sometimes 3 or 5. We are often out for her second nap, so she sometimes takes that one in the baby carrier, but otherwise sleeps in her bassinet. I’m thinking of moving her naps to her bed in her room soon, but haven’t tried it yet.

I also want to mention the app Huckleberry, which my sister in law told me about and I love!

It lets you track your baby’s sleep and gives recommended windows when your baby should go down for his next nap. I don’t necessarily follow that part – I watch Lilah to see when she’s tired, but it can be helpful as a general guideline, especially if you have a really happy baby who doesn’t have a lot of sleepy cues.

It also shows summaries / trends for your baby’s sleep. For example, I can see that while her naps seem really different every day, she almost always naps between 4 hours and 4 hours 15 minutes total, the breakdown just varies. I find it interesting!

Routine

I’ve started waking Lilah up around 7 if she’s not awake yet. This ensures she can get a good morning nap in before we need to go anywhere, and lends some degree of predictability to our day.

I wake her up and she nurses and then has some play time with my husband before he goes to work and then she just hangs out. She usually starts yawning after an hour or so, sometimes a little longer, and goes down for a nap around 8:10.

Her nap can be anywhere from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours. She generally takes one long nap a day and three shorter ones, but I never know which will be the long one. Sometimes I have to wake her up if we need to be anywhere, which I feel terrible about! It can be hard to balance her nap needs with our need to get out of the house.

After she wakes up, I feed her and we go to the park, library, a playdate, etc. many days. I’m trying to have one or two days a week where we just stay home though so that she can get better sleep. I honestly don’t love staying at home all day, but I know this phase of many naps is short.

It has been fun to see her “wake up” more this month. She often stays awake for a while at the park, staring up at the branches of an old oak tree or watching the older children. Whenever she starts to get fussy, I put her in the carrier and she goes to sleep.

We usually make it home around noon, and this part of the day can be hectic. If we’ve been out, she and James generally both need to eat so I quickly make his lunch and then feed her. I get him ready for his nap and she often needs to nap soon after, so it can be a bit rushed.

We always spend the afternoons at home, often in the backyard. Lilah and James both love being outside, as do I!

I bring a blanket out for her, and James and I “make soup,” which is his current favorite backyard game, or play in the sandbox.

My husband gets home around 5-5:30 and I finish making dinner before we do the whole bedtime routine. I feed Lilah, sometimes give her a little baby massage, and read her a couple of books. She really likes books with pictures of babies right now. I then put her to bed and see her again in the morning!

These next few months are going to be busy and I’m trying to soak in all of the tiny baby vibes I can right now before the time flies by!

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