Betsy: 3 & 4 Months

A little before Betsy turned 3 months old things were really taking a turn for the better. She was happier, finally smiling and cooing instead of screaming. We were experiencing much less of the grumpy girl we’d known. Sleep was still pretty good at night, naps were getting better. Then things started to take a nosedive right around 4 months. Growth spurt? Who knows. Up every 2-3 hours at night, still not napping well. But she remains happy at least some of the time. So I am thankful for that. I’ve told a few people that if I’d actually written a 3 month post, it would have been written with a lot of happiness, full of exclamation points. Instead I write this post a little bummed that while things are much better, things are still awfully tough.

At Betsy’s check up she weighed in at 14 pounds 9 ounces (72%) and is 16.5 inches tall (75%). Not that this is surprising, we knew we had a big baby on our hands.

Betsy just made the transition to size 2 diapers. She is wearing mostly 6 month clothes. Some of the 3 month things still fit, but barely. I have so many clothes that she only wore once and some not at all. Thankfully I have a good friend due at the end of February who will be able to put some of those darling items to some good use!

She is rolling front to back. Back to front is fast approaching. If we leave her on her back on the floor, she often helicopters around to get different views of the room.

She loves her brother and he loves her.

She is a social girl and loves to get up close and personal.

Sleep is a challenge. Earlier this week she slept almost 9 hours in a row. Last night she was up every 3 hours. Naps are a crapshoot. Sometimes she’ll go down without a peep. Other times (like now, as I type) we fight back and forth for an hour and by the end of it she is more tired than when she started from crying and I am worn out and just plain mad. It’s not fun to be mad at a 4 month old, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. She’s not crying just to make me angry. So I just end up being mad at no one but at the same time mad at everything and everyone. Then I feel like a bad mom for being mad and for letting it effect how I react to Ben, Carson and Betsy, and poor sweet Ginger who really gets the short end of the stick. It’s going to get better! At least that’s what my sweet husband tells me when I get overly irritated with our girl.

So far she isn’t good at taking a bottle. In fact, she’s only taken a bottle twice. So we’re working on that by trying it more often (much to Ben’s dismay) and trying out different bottles.

We spent Christmas in upstate New York because Lisa and Randy welcomed Kasper Dennis right before Christmas. It was a great time, but with two sick kids it was also challenging.