Progress

Often, it helps me to reflect on how far Emily has come since her first few weeks home. In those early weeks, she didn't have anything resembling a schedule.  She ate and slept whenever she wanted, which was probably what she needed, but drove me a little crazy! By about two months, though, we had her settled into a nice routine, eating every three hours and taking 4 naps during the day (as well as sleeping 9 to 10 hours at night). A few weeks ago, when she was around 3.5 months old, we changed her schedule yet again and she now takes a morning nap from 9 to 11 am, an afternoon nap from 1 to 3 pm, and a short evening catnap from 5:15 - 6:15 pm before bedtime at 8:30 pm. She's eating five times during the day, and seems happy as a clam (most of the time)!

Also, she's made great progress in the last week with her sleeping. Until this point, Eric or I would have to rock her to sleep before putting her down, and she usually slept best in her swing (especially for naps). A few nights ago though, she woke in the night about an hour and a half after falling asleep, and started crying. Eric and I both thought it was time to leave her for a little while, knowing that she was not hungry and had a clean diaper - she was only tired and needed to sleep as she hadn't napped all that well during the day. We went in to check on her a few times, comforting her but not picking her up, and though it took 45 minutes of crying on and off (which felt like an eternity), she eventually put herself to sleep and stayed that way for the whole night. Since then, we've realized she's capable of doing this most times, and we now put her down awake and in her crib for her naps and at night. She's responded by fussing for a few minutes sometimes (or not at all other times) and then drifting off to sleep! What a huge step - she's learned to self soothe! I'm sure that we'll have setbacks and there will be times she cries for quite awhile before falling asleep or times when we break the "rules" and pick her up to comfort her, but it's fun to realize how much she's growing!

Also, there are lots of things that make her giggle now, the most interesting being when someone coughs. The other day we were driving in the car and I coughed, and she thought it was hilarious. So now, if she's fussy, I fake a cough and out comes a big smile!

She turns four months old tomorrow, and has her well baby check up at the doctor's next week where we will learn about all sorts of new challenges for the next few months, including introducing solid foods! Sometimes it seems like she's growing up way too fast, but I look forward to all the fun things to come and can joyfully reflect on all the progress we've made thus far!