My little man - 3 months old

He absolutely melts my heart. And he is so good natured. And pretty low maintenance. He's a good eater - obviously - a little on the slow side when it comes to nursing, but I got time. This kid LOVES his carseat. Like if he takes a nap in his carseat, it's a guaranteed great nap (3+hrs). Oftentimes he's a little shy to keep eye contact for long. His smile/squeals are so sweet and generally pretty easy to get as long as he has a full tummy. He's a good sleeper now (wasn't always - see next paragraph) and will sleep 12 hours at night with one wake up for a quick feeding. And maybe it was just a fluke, but last night he slept all the way through the night - no feeding, which makes for one happy momma! He takes about 3 naps a day now. He still shows no interest in a binky.

Past sleeping issues: His first month and a half was a breeze - newborns sleep so much. By 2 months, he was taking little cat naps all day long and it was wearing me out. He would only sleep for 40-45 minutes at a time and it was taking him a long time to fall to sleep. He hated sleeping in his pack n'play in our room and was waking up a lot at night. The doctor reassured me that he was getting plenty to eat (remember, he was over 15 pounds) and that he shouldn't need to wake up at night. He suggested that I let him cry it out and that once I got him to sleep more deeply at night then that would carry over to his daytime naps.

I felt like it was a little early, but I had to remind myself that it's not about an age, but his weight. So the second week of December, we moved him to his own room and crib and let him work it out ... sort of. I put a time limit on how long I'd sing to him and hold him swaddled and then I try to put him down; it's about 10 minutes or so. I'd let him cry during the early evening hours if he woke up, but I went in if he woke up in the middle of the night with what I thought was an "I'm hungry!" cry - all the other cries were more protest cries. It made a huge difference and he was able to sleep much more soundly at night after just a few days. Daytime naps were still spotty, but he started taking fantastic naps in his carseat, which was interesting. Then we went to Utah for two weeks and he did pretty good. He woke up once, sometimes twice at night (I didn't stress since we were out of town) and his naps were still spotty, unless he was in his carseat and then they'd be pretty good. When we got back to Arizona, I started being consistent about letting him fuss for awhile if he wakes up too early from his naps, and now he'll usually fall back to sleep for a bit. It's much better. I still hate to hear him cry though. I get tense and am not as patient with Rachel. But it works, as long as I'm consistent in my responses. I usually don't let him cry for longer than 30 minutes or so. It was much different with Rachel, but that's because we waited until she was 7 months old, so she protest cried for much longer than that at first.

Pictures taken - 3 months old.

Thanks, Ellen for all the cool presents and all the diapers. Lovies!