Through the Eyes of Linz: Kaitlyn's Fourth Month: Thanksgiving and Christmas

This month Kaitlyn really found her hands and feet. Especially when she has her socks that have a big bow on them.

She has rolled over (stomach to back) a couple times, but continues to hate tummy time for more than a few minutes. Once she decides she's done, she puts her head face down into the mat, splays her arms out to the side, and cries. She also pedals her legs and sometimes comes close to rolling over when she's mad, but usually the splayed arms keep her from rolling.

She does consistently roll onto her side from her back. Usually she grabs her toes, then rolls to her side. I think if she wanted to roll all the way over to her stomach she could, but she hates being on her stomach, so why would she?

She's gotten much better at hanging on to her toys, and loves to put them in her mouth. She will suck on her fingers, or the hand of whoever is holding her. Unfortunately, she only wants to chew on a pacifier, so she won't keep it in her mouth. I got some different types of pacifiers from friends at church, but she pretty much always does the same thing. She loves to suckle, so I still have hope that she will take a pacifier instead of me.

This month was probably the most difficult when it came to sleep. She would take one or two naps, an hour or two each. Two two hour naps was an awesome day. But then she started making bedtime go on forever. It would take us several hours to get her to go to sleep (and stay asleep). At some point we moved her to her crib, which she didn't bat an eye at. Things didn't get worse, but they didn't get better.

Once asleep, she ideally would sleep for around 4 hours. Sometimes more, unfortunately, sometimes less. When she wouldn't go down until 11 or 12, this put us around 4 in the morning. I would nurse her and try to get her back to sleep. Usually she'd fall asleep, but as soon as I lay her down, she'd wake up. Out of desperation for sleep, I started using a three strike method. If I got her to sleep and tried to lay her down three times, I gave myself permission to put her in bed with me and sleep like that.

Family beds work for some people, but it was never something we wanted to do. I do not sleep well when she's with us, and she doesn't sleep as soundly either. But in comparison to not getting sleep, it's better. There was about a two week period in this month where she would not even sleep in our bed. Those were really bad nights where I'd send my sister a Facebook message (so I didn't wake her with a text) asking her to come early the next day when Stephen had to work. Knowing I only had to make it to 8 or so and then she would come rescue me so I could nap for a couple hours is what got me through. She has saved me many days, and Kaitlyn loves her Auntie Megan.

At 3 months (November 26th), Kaitlyn weighed 10 lbs 13 oz. We started doing monthly weigh ins instead of every two weeks because she is growing consistently, she's just small for her age. At 3 months 3 weeks when we had her 4 month appointment (December 18th), she weighed 11 lbs 8 oz, was 24.7 inches long, and had a head circumference of 40.9 cm. The doctor said her weight was the 8th percentile, according to the WebMD app I have, it's the 14th percentile. But her height is in the 76th percentile and head is in the 57th percentile. Since she's meeting all her developmental milestones, her low weight just needs to be watched.

She's still in 0-3 month/ 3 month clothes, but they fit well. So I expect we'll be moving up sizes by the time she hits 5 months. Mid-month we moved up to size 2 diapers, mostly because we ran out of size 1 and we thought we were close to when she'd need to move up.

Here's our month in pictures:

Thanksgiving