12 Week Summary

Tomorrow Becket will be 12 weeks old! That's basically 3 months even though three months will technically be on November 15th. When he was first born and I was struggling to figure everything out, I remember I kept telling myself to make it to 3 months and we would have it down. Well 3 months came faster than I could have imagined! And for the most part I think we've got the kinks worked out. He is a happy, healthy, chubby baby and I couldn't ask for anything more than that!

Eating
This kid obviously doesn't have a problem eating. I usually feed him before work, he eats three 6 oz. bottles while I'm at work, then I feed him 3 times before bed, and usually once in the early morning before he wakes up. That's 8 times a day. I'm hoping that soon he will go down to 7 times a day and just eat more at each feeding. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to feed him. I don't know because I'm not usually the one to give him a bottle, but I think a bottle takes him a little bit longer. It makes me wonder if he actually drinks more with a bottle than nursing. It's easy to just keep going until the 6 oz. are gone, but with nursing as soon as he stops or gets a little fussy I just assume he is done. There is no way to tell though!

Sleeping
We're still figuring out what will help him sleep the best when he is at Shanda's house during the day, but at home he goes down for naps easily and sleeps great. I'm still swaddling him and it really calms him down once he gets tired and cranky. I tried letting him take a nap with one arm out and he seemed more restless than normal. I'm not sure how to know when to stop swaddling, but it works for now so we'll just keep at it! He usually goes to bed around 8:30 and wakes up at 4:00 am to eat and then wakes up for the morning at 6:45. He has had one night where he slept straight from 8:00-6:00. I'm not sure what was different about that day, but I wish I knew because it was awesome!

Skills

He is definitely doing a great job of smiling! He'll smile for anyone, and I just love it. He has a giggle/grunt laugh he has done a couple of times, but not very often.
He prefers to be standing on my lap more than anything else. Once his legs get tired and wobbly he'll sit down, but if I try to hold him like a newborn he gets really mad.
I'm struggling a little with tummy time. He doesn't like it, and when I can get him to do it for more than a minute or two he spits up everywhere! Then he can't hold up his head for very long and smears his face in it. It's horrible and I don't like doing it, but I know it's important.
Beckett is a chatter box when we're talking to him. He is really quiet and content when he is in his swing or laying on the floor, but when we talk to him he talks right back. Everyday when I get home from work we lay on my bed and he tells me all about his day for a good 10 minutes or so.

Clothes
He is wearing 3-6 month clothes. I've started stocking up on 9 month stuff because I don't think it will be long before he will need them!

Diet
I'm still not eating dairy. I had a few people, including my doctor, mention that if it's just a dairy intolerance he would probably be fine with yogurt. I tried some and that was a bad idea. The weird thing is he has been fine with hard cheeses. I'm not going to worry about what the exact reason is, as long as I know what I can and can't eat that's enough for me! If I give up nursing earlier than I planned it will simply be from my massive craving for ice cream.

Work and Breastfeeding
I wasn't sure I was going to nurse at all and then it turned out to be better than I expected. Then I wasn't sure if I would continue once I started work, but that has been easier than I expected also! I was overwhelmed with all the dos and don'ts of pumping and storing milk at first, but now that I'm in a routine it hasn't been bad at all. It's actually nice to take a few extra minutes out of my work day for a break! I will definitely continue to nurse him until he's 6 months. At 6 months I'm going to start some solids and I'll decide if I want to begin supplementing with some formula. I don't really know why I would though. Nursing is so convenient, it's better for him, and it's cheap! My plan is to continue until he is a year, but we will see how it goes!

What I Wish I Knew
I was going to write a post on what I wish I would have known at the beginning and how I would do things differently, but I could only think of a few things! I wish I wouldn't have been so worried about getting him on an exact schedule, but focused more on keeping the rotation of eating, staying awake, and then sleeping consistent. I wanted so badly to know exactly what to expect every day, but with a growing baby it's likely to change quite often anyway! Now that he has established that routine, and is sleeping great at night, I'm not worried so much that every day is a little different. The second thing is I wish I would have began pumping and stocking up some milk for when I returned to work from day one. I waited until we started bottle feeding him around 6 weeks and by then my body had adjusted and it was hard to increase my milk supply. I was able to make it work, but I was up pumping in the middle of the night several times and I could have avoided that if I began pumping at the beginning. Because eating dairy is a super common problem for lots of moms out there, I wish I would have started a dairy free diet when he was born. Then I could have slowly tried dairy and it would have been obvious if it bothered him or not. He was so grunty and gassy I just assumed that's how newborns were, but now I feel horrible looking back and realizing that what I was eating was bothering him! Now I will know for next time.

Schedule

Some parents have their babies scheduled down to the very minute. Beckett's schedule is far from that. It's flexible and a little different everyday, but it usually goes something like this:

6:00- I wake up and get ready

6:45- Wake Beckett up, feed and get him dressed

7:15- Drive to work

7:30- Sleep

8:30- Eat

10:00- Sleep

11:00- Eat

12:00- Sleep

1:30- Eat

3:00- Sleep

4:00- Drive home from work

4:30- Eat