Four Months

Today the bean turns four months old. While she's still so little, it nevertheless feels like we've come a long way from when we first brought her home from the hospital.

Thankfully, breastfeeding is no longer much of a challenge—except now we need to get Beia to focus on eating rather than looking around. She's discovered her surroundings and is often more interested in what's to see than what there is to eat.

She's also starting to put herself on a regular sleep-eat-play schedule. We no longer have long periods of sleep during the day, but usually two or three hour intervals when we can spend some time playing together. Whereas Beia used to hate tummy time, she's now quite good at it—occasionally entertaining us by rolling over (tummy to back) one way or the other. As her head control has developed, she is also expressing an interest in sitting up. Just this week, we have started sitting her in the boppy pillow so she can practice holding herself up. Come night time, we've settled into a bath routine that gets her to sleep by about 7:30pm. She usually doesn't wake again until around 3am, so this gives Steven and I time for dinner together—as well as time to workout, watch tv, or finish us some work before heading to bed by 10pm. After the 3am feeding, Beia usually will sleep for another three or so hours until it's time to get up for the day around 6:30am. Daylight Savings Time has thrown us off a bit, but not too badly.

Beia is also proving to be Chatty Cathy—moving from gentle cooing sounds to having full fledged conversations and laughing. We're not sure what she's saying, but she obviously has a lot to talk about. She has also discovered the pouty lip look and already knows how to use it.

This weekend we have her four month appointment where she'll be weighed and measured. We are taking bets again on how much she'll weigh, as that was one of our first concerns with her. It's not an issue now, with her muffin top hanging over her diaper, but it's still fun to speculate. We're hoping for a solid 12lbs.

March (in Like a Lion)

These past few days Beia has enjoyed both her first snow day and her first picnic. On Friday we were treated to a winter wonderland--best enjoyed indoors. Convenient, since Beia does love to sit on the window ledge and watch the street below. We dressed her in a polar bear themed outfit (thank you Aunt Beth and Uncle Rob) which seemed appropriate for the day. We were just happy that the outfit made it through the entire day without any mishaps (read: spit up or poop explosions, necessitating an outfit change).

Then this weekend the temperature shot up into the 50s, and we enjoyed a walk along the piers. We brought along a picnic lunch to eat while Beia napped in her stroller. It was a bit chilly but beautiful overall. We're hoping for more picnics now that the days are getting longer and, hopefully, even warmer.

Wonder Woman

In an effort to keep Beia entertained (and quiet), we've taken to moving her around the apartment. We often "stand" on the window ledges and watch the cars drive by below. Or we go visit Beia's friend Beia in the bathroom mirror. She seems to like Beia a lot. When we don't feel like walking around, we play Wonder Woman. Beia loves the high vantage point ... And Steve tries to remember to keep his mouth closed, lest any drool dribble down.

Sleepytime

Last night was the night we decided to start "sleep training" Beia. I don't know if what we did is technically considered sleep training though, since we can't figure out what sleep training actually refers to. Getting baby to fall asleep on her own? Getting baby to sleep through the night without waking? Getting baby to fall asleep for the night at a specific time? Who knows? Regardless, after skimming a few articles and having a few spotty conversations about the topic, we dove in and tried this:

Beia always eats around 6:30pm and then again around 8:30pm. In between the two feedings she gets quite fussy, but after the second feeding (which includes bath time) she will fall asleep for the night. By "night" we mean the longest stretch of sleep she will have in a given evening. Usually this ranges anywhere from around 4hr 45min to 6hr 15min. We pray for the latter.

Anyway, she is usually good about getting to sleep after we feed her as she is pretty tired by then. In addition, she's been practicing getting to sleep on her own during nap times. So we thought that perhaps Beia was getting overtired by the time her 8:30pm feeding rolled around and that maybe—just maybe—we could move UP her bedtime AND get her to sleep longer as a result. Wishful thinking, we know.

So last night we did Beia's bath during her 6:30pm feeding, and put her down for the night immediately after. Although she didn't fall asleep right away, she only minimally fussed and eventually fell asleep within the half hour. She did wake up and squirm and fuss for a bit around 8:30pm (presumably since she was used to being up at this time), but she fell back to sleep after I went in to check on her. Then she slept. And slept. And slept. She didn't wake up again until around 3:45am, which is her usual middle of the night feeding time. At that point she'd slept 7hr 15min! HURRAY! PROGRESS! Of course at that point I went in to feed her (after all, we saw "eye balls") and then she went to sleep again, until her normal wake up time of about 7am.

What a good, good little bean. We hope it continues and will try again tonight. Cross your fingers...

Exhibitionist

Beia loves the changing table. This is a good thing since she hates a
dirty diaper and we are always changing her. During a recent crying
fit we found that the only place she would calm down was on the
changing table. She just lay there contentedly watching her projection
movie that we play her there. Odd but true and we weren't going to
question it.

In addition to being on the changing table, Beia loves to be NAKED on
the changing table. She's all full of smiles and happy sounds when
she's lying there naked. It's a good opportunity for us to admire her
ever expanding belly (note the muffin top pooch-ing out over her
diaper) and her Sneech-like belly button (due to the red spot right in
the middle).

Roll-y Poll-y

This weekend Beia figured out how to roll over from her tummy to her back. There I was, talking with a friend about how we'd have to stop swaddling Beia once she learned how to roll, and then she did it as if on cue! She must have been listening to our conversation. Luckily we've since found out that we only need to stop swaddling once she can roll from back to front, which is harder to do. For now we keep waiting for Beia to recreate her newest party trick. So far she's only done it four and a half times, but hopefully with practice she will be able to roll regularly. We think she looks pretty happy about it too.

Tonka Sheep