12 wks!

[expat-mama]

Hi mamas! Hope everyone and their babes are doing well!

DS will be 12 weeks tomorrow I definitely feel like we've crossed a threshold lately- DS is FUN! He sees everything around him and interacts with it! He can DO some stuff, sort of. DH and I are just loving it all so much- who knew being parents could be so much fun. What a change from the first two months.

Konrad and my dh and I all went swimming for the first time this weekend and it was so much fun! We had such a good time on Friday that we decided to go back on Saturday. It's finally cool enough (30-35) here to enjoy being outside during the day again. Konrad loved the water and dh and I loved watching him experience it all for the first time.
Last weekend we went to an aquarium where they have this tunnel that is inside a tank, so you are surrounded by the water and fish and DS loved that too. We stayed in the tunnel for about 30 minutes until I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head! He was talking to all the fish and we got some great pictures of him with a shark in the background.

How are your around 3 months old babes doing??? or should I say WHAT are they doing???

[MJB]

Edie is a few days younger than your baby. She's 13+ lbs. now, and very interested in the world. About 10 strangers a day comment on how "alert" she is. She likes to face out in the mei tai so she can see what's going on. She can squirm a surprising distance forward on her belly and can sit up for about 20 seconds before she topples over (my others sat unassisted at 4 mos. so I assume she will, too).
She's a real mama's girl lately and is not happy with anyone else for long. As soon as she sees me she smiles. Even at night, she wants to sleep snuggled up to me and not daddy, despite only nursing once a night. I don't mind. I love her so much. I waited my whole life to have a daughter, she's our last baby, and just so incredibly perfect and sweet.

[nervousnelle]

Originally Posted by MJB

She's a real mama's girl lately and is not happy with anyone else for long. As soon as she sees me she smiles. Even at night, she wants to sleep snuggled up to me and not daddy, despite only nursing once a night. I don't mind. I love her so much. I waited my whole life to have a daughter, she's our last baby, and just so incredibly perfect and sweet.

Exactly this! Doesn't it just make you melt into nothingness, and yet at the same time fill you with such confidence and empowerment? It does me.

My baby girl is 14 weeks and, like you said, Expat, they're just so much FUN these days. I was just thinking yesterday how interactive and playful she is now. Sometimes when I'm really tired I miss the sleepy days, but for the most part I feel like game is ON with her and I love it! She wants to grab and hold her Whoozit, shake her toys, stare into the mirror, mimic our faces, coo and "talk" back and forth.. I can't get enough. She's really into feeling different textures. She nods her head to music and loves to move! She likes when we take her hands and feet in our hands and bounce and sway with them. She loves to recline in the Boppy or on my lap and read books over and over and over. She also loves to peek her head out of the wrap and peer at the world, like a little turtle.

It's fall here and such snuggly babywearing weather. It's also dry so my new best friends for her are California Baby calendula cream for body and face, calendula body wash and shampoo, and the non-talc powder because the only moisture in the air seems to trap itself inside her dipe.

Happy times.

[mummy marja]

Baby boy just turned 3 months! He's 15 1/2 lbs and 26.5 inches long! Very strong upper body, and even likes to stand with support. Absolutely loves his hands, sucks on them constantly! He's starting to spend a little more time on the playmat or in his swing, but not much--he's an in-arms baby. He's in the wrap almost all day long. This is ok with me as long as I'm able to keep myself filled up too. My back and shoulders ache sometimes. I've been doing a few minutes of yoga each morning and evening, and shoulder rolls throughout the day, which helps.

We just had our first hard frost last night, so cold weather is on its way. Good thing I have a winter coat that fits around the wrap!

I haven't had him in for a well baby check up, but I think I will soon just to establish a relationship with the NP. I won't be vaxing him, at least not now.

He doesn't like tummy time, but I'm not real worried about that because my first 2 were the same, and it didn't affect their development negatively.

I'm super happy with how easy he is to take out. I was worried that he would really affect our ability to attend homeschooling stuff but he's just so happy in the wrap that it's easy. The kids love him, love having him around and are a real help to me too.

[ArtsyHeartsy]

Our baby girl is13 weeks, also an in-arms baby. She will sleep on the bed, I usually nurse her down (I am really loving my Kindle app on my phone these days) but no matter how asleep she seems she will startle or wake up within the half hour. If I wear her she will sleep for HOURS. It's just crazy. The weird thing is that she sleeps basically through the night mostly in her co-sleeper just fine!

She was in NB sizes for a long time and now she has sprouted and just about passed up a whole size suddenly. She doesn't fit 3mos sizes, and has been wearing some 6m sizes. I have tons of clothes she never got to wear because it was too warm, all she was wearing was little bubble outfits and shorts. Last week it was still in the ypper 90's, hundreds. This week...Fall.

We also get a lot of happy/alert comments when we go out, she loves looking around, just like DD1. She's very expressive so when she's mad she screams like she is in pain, it's very stressful and trying but she makes up for it with her happiness. I left her with my SIL for about 15 minutes just to run my nephew to school and came back to her screaming and my SIL all choked up and teary eyed. I felt so bad! She really won't stay with anyone, or even let many people hold her yet. She sticks her bottom lip out and starts crying. It's super cute.

She HATES the carseat. She screams almost the whole time we are driving anywhere. She is also not a fan of tummy time or really anything that involves not being held or played with. She loves staring at things and will sit there listening to my older dd (6) read her a book. It's adorable!

I get sorta sad when I think that she may be and probably is our last. Actually my husband insists she is. I want to cherish every second with her, and I don't want her to grow too fast, I'm so happy I could take this semester online.

Oh, and she laughed for the first time the other day, just because I tickled her palm! It was SOOO cute!!!

[expat-mama]

Starting a Growth Spurt???

The past few days have been insane around here!
DS has been eating like a maniac- the first few days he was just plain angry at my boobs for not having enough milk for him and now I seemed to have caught up to his demands and my milk overfloweth and he is happy.
He has been nursing every 2 hours during the day and every 3 hours at night. Exhausting!
And we just recently got into a great napping and sleeping routine and that's been shot to hell. He won't nap for more than 10-20 minutes at a time during the day and is a real fusspot. At night he has been passing right out after a feeding instead of the usual 10-30 minutes of bouncing we have to do. Another weird thing is that he has been making all sorts of noises in his sleep! He usually has a few cute sighs, some sucking noises and a few sleep babbles, but he has been laughing in his sleep (SOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE!) alot as well as crying in his sleep a bit (heart breaking!) and making some loud vocalizations that are really surprising and totally wake us up- kind of like loud yelps. Weird.

This must be the 3 month growth spurt? I hope it passes soon. It's been fun but...

[somegirl99]

DS is almost 12 weeks now, definitely much more interactive and fun. He gets really "chatty" with us, especially after pottying or sometimes when trying to get him to sleep. Not really grabbing toys yet but he has swatted at them a couple of times.

He has been wanting to sleep a ton lately...and if he doesn't get his full nap because he doesn't sleep as well in the wrap, or the car ride is too short, etc., he gets cranky.

He's definitely got a long torso and stubby legs. He's been wearing the 3-6 mo onesies, I don't bother to fasten them at the bottom which is good because most of them are way too short (not just because of the CD), but I can't find any pants that fit, they are too long. We have one pair of babylegs we've been using a lot lately.

[lrgs]

Glad to catch up on what everyones LO's are up to.......I can't believe how fast these baby's are growing!

A is 2.5 months old now....had her weighed last week and she was 14 pounds now (up almost 6 pounds from her birthweight of 8lbs 3oz). She's about the same size as her big sister was at this age but M had a pound head start at birth and was longer so A is a little chubber.....lots of leg rolls, chins and big cheeks! She's so cute. She's rolling front to back and is such a smiley, talkative girl. I remember with M I had to break out my best material to get smiles but A seems to find almost anything really amusing. So far she is a pretty happy and laid back baby.......very different from big sis who was fussy and spirited from day 1. We really only hear from her if she's hungry or tired.......knock on wood. She loves her swing and her playmat......I'm amazed at how content she is......again, knock on wood. Her carriers are a toss up, sometimes she loves them and we get big sleeps in them, other times, not so much.

Her sleep is still hit and miss......one night she slept 8.5 hours and another night 9.5 but last night was up every 1.5-3 hours so I'm not sure if she was just teasing me with the long sleeps. Yesterday she napped for 3.5 hours and today we were lucky to get 45 minutes......so, no real routine here yet.

[majazama]

so nice to "hear" from yall. nak..

[Terrilein]

Hmm, I came in to post today ds turned 3 months on Saturday and that everything is ok over here. But I went to weigh him today and it seems that he's slowed way down in the weight gaining department. He's gone from 85th % to just below 50th. I'm quite surprised actually because he eats All.The.Time. We're not due for a well-baby-check-up until the 17th (Oct. 17-Nov. 17 is our time window for the next check-up) I dunno, DP seemed aghast at my suggestion of nursing him more. No matter, I'll do it anyways, but if ds doesn't want to nurse . . . And it's not like I don't have enough milk either. I keep forgetting to use my pads and leak like mad everywhere. And quality-wise it's pretty fatty stuff. I could just try out some nursing tea. It can't hurt. The last thing I want is a ped pressuring me to give him a bottle. But I don't think this ped is like that.
Otherwise, I'm really depressed about my body. I started a course 2 weeks ago - Rückbildungsgymnastik - which every new mom can participate in and your health insurance must cover to get things back where they belong. I practice the exercises at home where I can. I go for walks when I can. I've got a stepper that I jump on whenever I can. Basically I'm getting some kind of exercise in every day but it seems like I'm just getting fatter. I haven't lost a single pound yet and my upper arms seem fatter. I don't know if I'm retaining water there or what. I do know that I've got milk ducts up through my arm pits so maybe that's causing lymphdrainage problems??? I don't know. DP isn't being terribly tactful about it either. It seems like he wants me cook him up some opulent meals and then sit and watch him eat and drink his highly caloric German beer, and give me grief because I'd like to drink a coke. No matter that he'll disappear for hours every few days to take advantage of the good weather and go for a bike tour while I get to sit at home and wait. I'm feeling pretty crappy. I've got more energy now, but my frustration level just went right up with it.

[Surfacing]

Terrilein

It's so nice to read everyone's updates and love of their babies!