Aisling’s third month was fairly uneventful for us as a family, but it flew by nonetheless!
I started training for a 6-mile race in October, to help motivate myself to get back in shape. Doug immersed himself in work and the intricacies of making artisan coffee. So I ran early every morning while he watched the baby and made me coffee to sustain me thru the rest of each morning. Win-win!
Aisling took some great developmental leaps this month! She began to have excellent head control when sitting and being carried, was tracking objects and people, began to whack things with her hands (on purpose!), started to squeal in delight, coo, and was smiling up a storm. I think that since we don't have a stroller or an infant seat, we held and carried her so much that her core strength and social skills caught up quickly. She became very social and responsive, in general. She was never a particularly fussy baby; my secret worries that maybe she wasn’t fussy because she was brain-damaged or something else horrible began to be reassured.
She was sleeping well, usually waking twice during the night to eat at about 1-2am and 5-6am, and then up for good by 7:30. It’s common for breastfed babies to wake this way, so I wasn’t worried about it.
This is the age when it used to be customary to add rice cereal to bottles, and sometimes even start solid foods in order to try to get babies to sleep through the night. But recent studies have shown a strong correlation with feeding rice cereal and increased rates of obesity, and diabetes. Rice cereal is just simple starch powder that turns immediately to glucose, and otherwise has no nutritional value outside of the iron fortification, which is also questionable. Also, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Academy of Family Physicians all recommend waiting until 6 months at the earliest to introduce solids, including rice cereal. So we’re waiting, and enjoying our “exclusive breastfeeding” until then! I am riding the borderline of Type 2 diabetes, and Doug struggled with his weight as an adolescent, so there’s no need to start slipping down that path with our girl when we know better.
Anyway, sleep wasn't a big deal. We swaddled her to sleep most nights, and usually she took a pacifier to fall asleep, but suddenly at the end of the month she started hating being swaddled and hating the pacifier and just putting herself to sleep.
One nice development was that since Aisling was getting such good head and body control, I could now nurse her lying down, which meant that I could bring her into bed and snooze while she nursed in the middle of the night. It’s amazing how our instincts and anatomy cause us to curl ourselves around the baby when nursing this way. I was never afraid of rolling on her or having Doug roll on her because she was nestled in the curve of my belly with my arms guarding her. I would wake up in about 30 minutes to a full sleeping baby, and put her back in bed. Many families bedshare with their babies and toddlers all the time, which we don’t want to do, but it’s nice to be able to compromise.
She basically doubled her birth weight by the end of August. She grew out of all of her newborn clothes, and very quickly the 3-month clothes got snug! She blazed thru size 2 diapers and was into size 3 by the end of the month.
The third month flew by, and so far the fourth month has, too! More about that in the next post. And then we'll be all caught up!
I started training for a 6-mile race in October, to help motivate myself to get back in shape. Doug immersed himself in work and the intricacies of making artisan coffee. So I ran early every morning while he watched the baby and made me coffee to sustain me thru the rest of each morning. Win-win!
Aisling took some great developmental leaps this month! She began to have excellent head control when sitting and being carried, was tracking objects and people, began to whack things with her hands (on purpose!), started to squeal in delight, coo, and was smiling up a storm. I think that since we don't have a stroller or an infant seat, we held and carried her so much that her core strength and social skills caught up quickly. She became very social and responsive, in general. She was never a particularly fussy baby; my secret worries that maybe she wasn’t fussy because she was brain-damaged or something else horrible began to be reassured.
She was sleeping well, usually waking twice during the night to eat at about 1-2am and 5-6am, and then up for good by 7:30. It’s common for breastfed babies to wake this way, so I wasn’t worried about it.
This is the age when it used to be customary to add rice cereal to bottles, and sometimes even start solid foods in order to try to get babies to sleep through the night. But recent studies have shown a strong correlation with feeding rice cereal and increased rates of obesity, and diabetes. Rice cereal is just simple starch powder that turns immediately to glucose, and otherwise has no nutritional value outside of the iron fortification, which is also questionable. Also, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Academy of Family Physicians all recommend waiting until 6 months at the earliest to introduce solids, including rice cereal. So we’re waiting, and enjoying our “exclusive breastfeeding” until then! I am riding the borderline of Type 2 diabetes, and Doug struggled with his weight as an adolescent, so there’s no need to start slipping down that path with our girl when we know better. |
| Daddy's fed up with picture-taking. But he's so comfy! |
Anyway, sleep wasn't a big deal. We swaddled her to sleep most nights, and usually she took a pacifier to fall asleep, but suddenly at the end of the month she started hating being swaddled and hating the pacifier and just putting herself to sleep.
One nice development was that since Aisling was getting such good head and body control, I could now nurse her lying down, which meant that I could bring her into bed and snooze while she nursed in the middle of the night. It’s amazing how our instincts and anatomy cause us to curl ourselves around the baby when nursing this way. I was never afraid of rolling on her or having Doug roll on her because she was nestled in the curve of my belly with my arms guarding her. I would wake up in about 30 minutes to a full sleeping baby, and put her back in bed. Many families bedshare with their babies and toddlers all the time, which we don’t want to do, but it’s nice to be able to compromise.
She basically doubled her birth weight by the end of August. She grew out of all of her newborn clothes, and very quickly the 3-month clothes got snug! She blazed thru size 2 diapers and was into size 3 by the end of the month.The third month flew by, and so far the fourth month has, too! More about that in the next post. And then we'll be all caught up!
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