Size
Weight: 11 lbs 12 oz (almost double her birth weight)
Height: 25”
She’s wearing her 0-3 footed pjs for the last time this week. I should be happy she’s growing well but it’s so nostalgic to pack away the things that used to be so big on her.
Such a serious face for someone in a bikini.
Sleep
The biggest change in Edie’s development is definitely her sleep. Life with Edie used to be all about trying and hoping for sleep. At the peak of her sleeplessness, I’d spend an hour to get a 20min nap, and nighttime took anywhere from two to four hours to get her asleep. Now we know it was because she was constantly tired, but at the time we just wondered why our once easy baby was so cranky all the time. I wanted to wait till Edie was older to sleep train, but when we looked at her development and our limited resources (i.e. I was highly sleep deprived and mildly depressed), we decided to go for it at 3.5 months. Edie now falls asleep on her own for naps and nighttime, no rocking or holding “required” (i.e. it doesn’t soothe her; she usually gets annoyed and arches her back.) The carrier used to be gold for naps, but she doesn’t sleep very well in it anymore. For the night, Edie sleeps from 5/6pm to 7/8am. She wakes up to eat (6hrs, 4hrs, 3hrs) but goes right back to sleep.
A month ago I was still wondering how to implement a bedtime routine since Edie’s sleep was all over the place. But somehow it just worked one day and we’ve been doing the same thing every night. Read, bath, nurse, sleep sack, song, and crib. It’s not always in that order but I don’t think it makes a difference to Edie. Most days I don’t even finish singing one song and she’s sucking her fingers and ready to hop into the crib.
For naps, it’s lights out, sleep sack, then crib. I try to sing a song but again she doesn’t seem to care. It takes 2min to put her down for a nap. Naps are usually 30min to an hour, so there are many naps throughout the day. Cabin fever hits me once in awhile, but for the most part I don’t mind being stuck at home. Compared to our days before, this is a walk in the park. Her wake up whimper is now a nasally “erh erh” sound; no more of the screaming cries.
Edie’s sleepy signs are hard to read so I’m always second-guessing myself. She also seems adaptable, i.e. she may want to sleep after 45min but can last 2-3 hours without turning into a monster. But we try to keep those days to a minimum. Now that she sleeps better, Edie rarely gets cranky and crying almost never happens. The improvement from 3 to 4 months was totally unexpected. I keep repeating over and over to Kelvin, “I can’t believe she’s asleep”! On most nights it still feels weird that I have so much baby-free time.
It's funny how much I miss her after she's down for the night.
Talking
Edie started coo-ing just before 2 months, but since then she’s also discovered her voice, complete with vocal range, volume level and all. As mentioned here, she’s the most animated and vocal when alone in her crib. She has the sweetest voice and I love listening to her when she wakes up each morning. We taught her the command open to ensure a good latch when she was a newborn, but now she produces this growling “arrrrwram” sound whenever she opens her mouth. She does this even when she’s half asleep during her night feeds. Edie used to only talk to her daddy. She’s not as selective anymore, but when she’s with me she addresses the general room, and when she’s with daddy she looks at him intently and responds like they’re having a real conversation. They’re pretty cute together. On days when Edie learns new sounds her sleep seems to suffer, but in general her day sleep isn’t consistent so who knows if it’s related.
Chatting up the white ceiling.
Feeding
Edie has never been a big eater and most feeds she will only want to nurse on one side for five minutes or less. I feed her about every two hours unless her naps are longer. I used to worry a lot about how little she eats but she seems to be growing steadily. I always think if she’d eat more during the day then she could last longer at night, but Edie is not on board with this plan.
Feeding battles were still happening regularly up to two weeks ago, but now Edie will let me feed her and not scream bloody murder. My milk supply is much more regulated so we are both much more comfortable. I guess it took just over three months for my body to adjust, and for Edie to be big enough to handle the fast letdown.
I never thought I’d enjoy breastfeeding, but I really am. I love being able to cradle her and hold her close. Her face nuzzled against me, her five little fingers grabbing onto my t-shirt for dear life. When Edie’s awake I can still hold her in cradle position but she shifts left and right to look around, and when she sleeps she doesn’t like to be rocked, so feeding is when I get to baby her. It’s silly but I find myself tearing up a lot when I nurse; Edie keeps getting bigger and bigger and I miss her tiny newborn self already.
Thanks mama, but I'd rather eat my fingers.
Manual Dexterity
At 3 months, Edie found her fingers but could not get them into her mouth consistently. Now that she’s a pro, finger sucking is her number one past time. I often have to pry her little fingers away to feed her, even for night feeds. She can grab objects and puts them in her mouth, but I’m not sure if she does it on purpose or if the objects happen to be in the path of her hands en route to her mouth. We never noticed how much she wanted her fingers before, but looking at videos of her newborn stage, she was constantly trying to do that! 
Her first toy is a little rattle.
Routines
Routine? Hmm, I try to do the eat-play-sleep routine, but the short naps make it harder to follow that order. Edie wakes up around 7am (+/- one hour) but the rest is unpredictable. If we’re at home, she gets tired around 45min to an hour, and if we’re out she’ll fall asleep in the carrier after about 1.5hrs. For some reason, being in the car seat for a long time tends to make her really upset. At least the last two times that happened, we came home to a very cranky and hungry baby that refused to nurse. My guess is that because we have one car, I rarely went out with her during the week, so the carrier is much more familiar than the car seat. We usually go out for a walk once a day.
Dressed for our daily "field trips". Can't wait till she can stay up longer!
Temperament
Edie seems to be very independent, especially in the sleep department. She likes to people-watch but doesn’t interact with strangers very much at this point. She is the chattiest first thing in the morning and in the late afternoon. She still loves being on her change pad and gets very hyper, as if she was doing jumping jacks lying down. As soon as we hold her in a sitting position, she gets completely still; doesn’t talk, doesn’t move; pause mode in effect. She smiles easily with mom and dad, well let’s be honest, with dad. As soon as she sees him she just flashes the biggest grin! At four months, Edie is once again an easy baby.
Skyping with grandma and grandpa.
I am enjoying my role as a mom more and more. A lot has to do with my extra mental and physical energy because of Edie's sleep improvement. But part of it is just time. I was (still am) so ignorant about life with a baby. It's a steep learning curve, especially since I didn't read a single baby book before Edie's arrival. I've learned that hindsight can be as discouraging as it is useful (just like forums!), so I'm going to try my best to keep notes of this year. It'll be a riot to look back on my days with Edie. Alright month 4, bring it on.
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