3 Months!

Josiah turned three months on the 13th and is no longer officially a "newborn." And you know what? I'm not sad about it. To be really honest, the newborn stage is the hardest for me. Don't get me wrong, I love my babies at every age, but when they are newborns everyone is still adjusting to a new baby, and he is adjusting to life outside the womb. At three months, I understand him more and can adequately (most of the time) distinguish between the "I'm just really fussy" cry and "I have a dirty diaper and you need to change me NOW" cry.

Here are some other things I love about this age:

• Awake longer. Newborns are SO sleepy, but now Josiah is happy and content for about an hour. Usually, at the hour mark he begins to fuss and that is my cue to lay him down.
• Smiles and "talks" to us. I LOVE interacting with my children and Josiah is such a happy and "chatty" baby. He loves it when we talk to him and usually gets very excited. Seeing his sweet smiles make my heart melt.
• Great naps! Around 10 weeks, he began to take great naps. I would lay him in his bed and he began going right to sleep with no fussing. He normally takes 4 naps a day for around 2 hrs.
• Sleeps through the night! Around 9 weeks he began sleeping about 7 to 8 hrs, but between 10.5 to 12 weeks he hit his 3 month growth spurt and was sleeping around 6 hrs (I'm certainly not complaining about 6 hrs!). Thomas ate more during the day and continued to sleep all night, while Josiah ate the same during the day, but couldn't last as long at night. Right at 12 weeks, he began sleeping 8 hrs again and now is consistently sleeping from 10:30pm to around 7:30am. I'm beginning to move that 10:30pm feeding back and eventually would like his last feeding to be around 8pm. It will happen sometime in the next couple of months; I'm not in a big hurry.

I honestly think that Josiah does so well because we are on a routine. Our basic schedule is eat-awake-sleep or the acronym EASY. It has worked great with both of my boys and I really think it helps to regulate their metabolism. I do what the ole' wives tale says not to do: Wake a sleeping baby. Why? Because I want him to eat during the day and sleep at night! The only time I woke him during the night was when he was tiny and I wanted to make sure he was getting enough.

Well, it is time to go wake my sleeping baby. I'll post some new pictures soon of our sweet three month old boy!