Darcy 3 Months

Oh this sweet baby. I just love her. Three months old and doing pretty well. Still some sleeping shenanigans, but other than that, everything is a-okay. 

At 3 months old Darcy weighed 12 lbs which is the 31%. She was 24.25 inches tall with is the 82%. Her head circumference was 15.5 inches which is the 47%. I thought that the height measurement must have been off (we don't typically have tall children, but it held true to her next appointment).  

These sweet month pictures melt my heart. I love photos of my baby. 

Big yawn. :)

Happy girl. :) 

She was developing just great. At her check up the doctor said she was advanced for how well she could push up her chest and head (maybe a month ahead developmentally), which didn't make me happy, Stay little baby! As long as is reasonable. :) 

We still don't give her baths regularly, but when we did the new sink came in handy.

These girls just love getting down by this baby and giving her a lot of attention. 

Or holding her. She spit up a lot so burp cloths were super important to have close at hand.

Bear ears hat.

Gotta stare at that light and ceiling fan. She loves, loves the ceiling fan. It is so funny to catch her giving the ceiling fan a big, beautiful smile. 

She was starting to be an easier smile all around though. 

Everyone loves cuddling this sweet nugget. (Our kids tell us she's not a nugget!)

She loves being held to go to sleep. Thank goodness Daddy is working from home right now and can enjoy extra cuddles while she is tiny. 

Post nap stretches. We just love how arms fly up when she gets unswaddled after sleeping

This photo of her sleeping in the cradle was one of the first times she slept in the cradle for a long time. The swing was her bed for a couple months. 

So like I said, the only issue we had with this angel at 3 months old was her sleep schedule. There were a couple of issues with her sleeping. First, she wanted to sleep in the swing, which was okay, but not ideal. But within 5 minutes laying her flat her eyes would pop open. 

Then there how she went to sleep. I was starting to have to rock her or bounce her to sleep to get her to go down for a nap. We tried getting her to take a binky which didn't stick at all, but we gave it a go. 

An aside here, we are so curious what her hair color is going to be--sometimes it looks red, sometimes blond, sometimes light brown. It is going to be fun to watch what happens. 

Another issue with her sleeping is when she was doing it. I really shouldn't complain, she was sleeping an 8 hr stretch at night, which is fabulous. The less great part was when she was doing it. It started to just get later and later. It started at 10 something but gradually moved later and later. The latest it got was a handful of night when she went to bed at 3:30am! More often it hovered around 2 am when she would actually stay asleep. When I would lay her down before that she would be awake again within 5 minutes, even in her swing! But eventually it would just stick and she would stay asleep for the 8 hours. 

This was hard on John and me. We like going to bed at the same time and having somewhat similar schedules (full disclosure I like to sleep in more than he does). Instead he would go to bed about midnight and get up with the girls in the morning and get them on online school. Darcy and I would eventually wake up in the morning and sometimes I would eat breakfast with them while they ate lunch. 

I complained to the pediatrician about this and she encouraged me to have her cry it out. I knew I couldn't do it without the support of John so I made him stay up late with me to listen to her cry. I couldn't be the cruel parent to make her cry by myself. We decided we didn't want to make her go through two sleep trainings so we decided to make her switch to the flat cradle and make her go to sleep earlier. 

The first night she cried for an hour and a half and didn't really fall asleep. (Holland slept in Miriam's room for this so she wouldn't be disturbed by the crying baby in her room.)

On the second night, she had to cry for about 45 minutes and then she fell asleep for the whole night. On the third night she fell asleep after 15 minutes and from then on it was only about 5 minutes if at all. Plus she was sleeping in the cradle too! It was a miracle! Hallelujah! 

It helped with naps too--we can just wrap her up and lay her down (most of the time). Sometimes she needs to be rewrapped with a diaper change after a few minutes. 

Another aside, there are so many clothes that Holland wore that now Darcy wears like this Lil Sis shirt. When did my baby Holland get so big? It wasn't that long ago that she wore these same clothes! 

One day when I was exercising, I looked over to see this little sweetheart munching on her hand.

And then from pushup position it was fun to look over and see these toes poking up. :) 

We all just adore her, clearly.

She was not very cuddly. So when she would fall asleep cuddling me I started taking a photo everytime because I loved it so much. 

What a sweet happy baby. 

Everyone wants a turn to hold our little darling.

Daddy gets the best smiles and giggles. At this point it felt like a lucky thing to get a laugh (well really it still feels like the best thing ever to get a little laugh out of her). John still gets the best ones. Darcy just lights up when she sees him. 

Nursing while trying find something to play with. This picture doesn't show this, but what she ended up doing was figuring out that she really likes to put her hand in my mouth while she nurses.

Check out  those lashes.

Hand in mouth, grabbing her foot. This was definitely a milestone of this month. Grabbing a foot. 

Although by this month she was starting to suck on her hands like crazy. 

Starting to be less of a newborn. This was the first time I recognized her laying flat and also resting her legs down. She normally kept them curled up in the air. 

Sleepy baby snuggles? Yes, please!

Yeah, she found two feet!!