Gerrit: 3 Months

January has been a crazy month! Andrew spent a good part of his time off of work for the holidays clearing out junk from our upstairs rooms. I would have preferred to help (since it was mostly my craft room that needed help), but Gerrit was eating every 1-2 hours during that time. Which is a big part of why January started as a crazy month. Gerrit was nursing non-stop pretty much all day, and that 5 hour stretch of sleep we had gotten? Ha, LONG gone. He was back to waking every 2-3 hours at night.

We managed to squeeze him into that onesie! ^

Age: 3 months on 27 January 2015
Weight: 15.5 lbs (a guesstimate done a few days after 3 months)
Height: 24″ as best as we could measure
Teeth: none
Clothing Size: 3-6month and 6 months
Diaper Size: size 2
Milestones: smiling!

Sleeping: Ugh, the month started rough! I don’t know if it was just a growth spurt or his 2nd “wonder week” (which is supposed to happen around 8 weeks… but closer to 11 weeks for Gerrit based on his due date), but Gerrit was a restless sleeper. I felt like I was up all night, and he was on my boob ALL THE TIME. I had been tracking Gerrit’s sleep to look for a pattern, but I gave up out of frustration. His stretch of 5 hours that he had done a few times didn’t happen again which left me feeling disappointed. By 5 or 6am, Gerrit would fuss every 20 minutes or so, and I would end up bringing him into bed with me. We both would sleep then, although I don’t think I slept very soundly.

Gerrit’s naps slowly seemed to disappear too. Not only would he not let me put him down after he fell asleep, but also he went back to catnaps! He would fall asleep while nursing, doze for 30-45 minutes, and then he was wide awake. I had no idea when to put him to bed at night, because I felt like he had to be exhausted all day. We ended up just doing bedtime about an hour after he woke up from his last nap. So it usually happened between 8:30 and 9:30.

We also started a bedtime routine. It’s very simple: bath followed by reading “Goodnight Moon” then getting swaddled and nursing to sleep. We only do a soapy bath every other night to avoid drying out his skin, but I think I will start adding lotion to the routine soon.

Eating: Going well for the most part. I feel like my supply has started to regulate, finally, which makes it easier for Gerrit to eat. I thought he would start stretching out feedings, but he started out the month eating all the time. Even by mid-month, he was rarely going more than an hour and a half between feedings. But some of those feedings seemed like snacks and comfort nursing. As much as I wanted him to put himself on some sort of schedule, I couldn’t stop feeding on demand. So good chunks of my days went to nursing. And holding him while he napped, which I mentioned in the sleeping section.

About halfway through the month, Gerrit started having massive spit-up episodes too. Due to the amount, I would call it vomiting, but it just flows out of him and doesn’t seem to upset him. But the amount! It’s SO MUCH! It seems to happen when he is cluster feeding or staying on the boob for a long time, nursing while trying to fall asleep. I try to keep an eye on it, but we get one of these big spit-up moments about every other day.

By the end of the month, I felt like nursing was sometimes a struggle again. Gerrit would eat great at night… but he was obviously still getting up at night to eat! I know that’s pretty normal, but I feel like he needed to eat at night because he wasn’t eating well during the day. I would read things like, “When in doubt about baby crying, offer the breast,” but Gerrit would fight me most of the time. He would eat best as he was falling asleep, but I would struggle to get him to that sleepy point.

Mommy Update: Overall pretty good. I was frustrated and tired when Gerrit was nursing all the time and being fussy. I was sure I was doing something wrong. But the more I brought it up with other moms, the more I heard the same thing: it was normal. Incessant nursing? Restless sleeping? Typical behavior for a baby in his 3rd month. The babies who sleep through the night and eat every 3 hours like clockwork? Not normal! 🙂

Gerrit being attached to me 24/7 has affected my days quite a bit. He and I have some days where we sleep til 10 or 11 in the morning. I wasn’t getting much done around the house because of his frequent nursing, and sometimes dinner wouldn’t get made until 10 at night. Add trying to pack and move? It was a stressful month to say the least. My diet has been mostly processed food, which I hate, but I hope to get back to good meals soon!

Best Moments: Seeing Gerrit start to smile!

I kept seeing other people post photos of their babies (who are younger than Gerrit) giving big smiles… and I couldn’t get anything out of Gerrit! Sometimes he would get close to smiling, and then it would vanish. Andrew & I think we might just have a serious little guy, but he smiles more every day.

At the end of month three, Gerrit started to really pay more attention to books I read to him, especially Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Likes & Dislikes: I decided to start doing this now that Gerrit is displaying more personality.

He definitely likes standing up! When he’s fussy, this will usually calm him down. I think he enjoys naked time too, because he’s always happy when he’s getting his diaper changed.

He dislikes going to sleep! He will really fight it sometimes. He also dislikes being left alone. If he can’t see us, he usually lets out a little yell. If I’m still in the room, I try to keep talking, but he seems happiest when he can see me.

Memorable Events: Well, the first big thing that happened once Gerrit started his third month was saying good-bye to 2014 and hello to 2015! Gerrit did not make it up until midnight, but here was his first photo of 2015:

Another big moment was getting his first passport! That was quite the event… it wasn’t a stress-free day, but it went fairly well.
Other than that, the month was mostly spent getting ready to leave England. I’m sure Gerrit didn’t know what was going on, but it was pretty stressful for us. I did have Andrew take a picture of me & Gerrit in front of his first house, even though he spent less than three months in it:
His last week of being two months old was spent in lodging on base. We did our best to keep things as consistent as possible!