Timothy's Third Month

Last month was ending just as Timothy was wrapping up his 8th week Wonder Week leap! We enjoyed all the exciting new things he was learning, but the sleep disruption was frustrating, and inspired me to read "Precious Little Sleep" at the recommendation of a friend who has two kids. It was amazing how well it worked!

I wasn't wanting to do a "cry-it-out" method, but I liked her suggestion of "fuss-it-out," where we'd just let him fuss a bit for 5 minutes, and then go comfort him. Well, after snuggling and bouncing a bit to help him get sleepy, I put him down "drowsy but awake" and he only fussed for 3 minutes. We have still never had him fuss longer than 5 minutes going down for a nap, and at bedtime he usually doesn't fuss at all. This helped so much with the 20-30 min nap problem! He now takes at least 45 minute naps, and sometimes a whole hour and a half or two hours! 

He even gave us 4 nights in a row of only waking up once! (March 9-12) But now at 3 months, he's definitely going through a growth spurt, and has been getting up much more frequently. I'm really hoping he goes back to sleeping soon! Probably just in time for the famous 4-month sleep regression to hit and mess it all up all over again! Haha! Nothing ever stays the same for long with a baby.

"The Monkey Butt" outfit is one of our favorite footies!

We've had fun introducing sign language to him this month. Baby sign language is a really exciting tool for babies, because before they can verbally communicate what they want or need, they can sign it! My mom did baby sign language with my younger brothers when I was a kid, and we also taught a baby that we provided in-home daycare for when I was a teenager. It's so much fun to see a baby happily communicating what they want! He's not ready to sign back yet, but he looks very intently at my hands when I sign to him, and he's definitely starting to understand what they mean. I can't wait until he signs back! Probably will take him another couple of months, but once he starts signing back I'm going to start adding to his repertoire! Currently, I only sign to him "milk," "more," "all done," and "change diaper." (Check out the TalkBoxMom YouTube channel if you want to see the signs!)

His hand control is continuing to improve, he has a monkey that hangs from his car seat handle that he loves to play with in the car, and he's grasping his fruity teething toys and successfully stuffing them in his own mouth! The strawberry seems to be his favorite. He also blows a lot of bubbles now. And he's finally started giggling! He's had three different episodes where he just thought something was hilarious and laughed for a good 2-3 minutes straight! It's so cute and funny, but we haven't figured out how to trigger it yet, he seems to just randomly become amused enough! 

Sitting up is still his favorite, and just recently he started wanting to stand more, and even turned the sit-up game we'd been doing into the next level, pulling himself up to standing while holding my hands! I can't believe how fast he's growing. 

He still loves being worn, I like wearing him around the house while I'm doing chores if he's fussy in the late afternoon/evening, and Matt usually wears him when we walk (which has been mostly cold lately, so he's bundled up in a hat, and gets zipped into Daddy's jacket too!

We finally made it back to church this past Sunday, and he did really well. We also finally got his birth certificate stuff done! As a home birth, that can be a little difficult, but they actually didn't look at any of the proof they required us to bring! Typical bureaucracy. At his 3-month check up he was 23 inches long and weighed 13 pounds, 14 ounces! 

I'm going to switch to just doing monthly photos now, because 13 weeks was the day after 3 months, and the photo shoot attempt is getting to be too much work every week. We get plenty of cute shots at other times!

Timothy is such a treasure! It's been a whirlwind 3 months, I can't believe we're already out of the "fourth trimester" and our little newborn has turned into an active, happy, adorable and incredibly sweet and precious baby! He seems so alert and loves interaction. He's changing so quickly! It's exciting to watch.