Dear Nolan: Months 1 and 2

Dear Nolan,

This past week you hit the two-month mark! How’d that happen? I did these monthly updates for your brother and sister so I’m making my best effort to do them for you as well. They might be shorter (third kid problems) but I’ve loved being able to look back at theirs so I want to do the same for you.

At your two month appointment, which was about a week early, you were 11 pounds, 9 oz and 23 inches long. You’re the smallest of the three of you but still growing! Up from 7 pounds, 15 ounces when you were born. Here’s month 1 vs month 2:

You’re in size 2 diapers and wearing 3 month, 3-6 month and even some 6 month clothes. I’m exclusively breastfeeding you on demand and just like with your sister, I follow your lead. Since I’m working from home and with you all day, I just feed you whenever you want to eat. After an initial hiccup with not gaining weight after we left the hospital, you’re back on track and haven’t had any trouble nursing. You also sleep when you want to sleep. I know some people follow stricter schedules but this is working for us. Just in the last week, I’ve noticed you’re starting to fall more clearly into the eat, play, sleep cycle vs just sleeping all the time. On a good night, you sleep a 4-hour stretch and then a 2-2.5 hour stretch. On a bad night, you’re up every 2 hours.

You are so much calmer than your sister was at this age and I couldn’t be more grateful. You usually only cry when you’re hungry, overtired or want to be held and you typically settle down as soon as someone holds you. That was not the case with her!

You LOVE the Ergo and it’s a good thing because you spend a whole lot of time in there. You are distinctly unphased by the loudness of your brother and sister and can sleep peacefully in the Ergo while they literally scream right in your ear. You don’t mind your car seat unless you’re in it and we’re not moving. And you love your pacifier.

At 8 weeks I started to transition you out of the swaddle. You’re my first baby who liked to be swaddled so I’d never done that transition before. Things didn’t go so well with one arm in/one arm out, but you’re actually doing much better now (after a rough few nights) with both arms out. You’ve been sleeping flat on your back in the pack and play since about 2 weeks which is also different from your siblings.

During the day you occasionally hang out in the rock and play or your little chair if you can see what’s going on and when I do my workouts, you lay on your activity mat…sometimes happily, sometimes screaming. You don’t mind tummy time and sometimes take a quick cat nap on your stomach.

Your brother and sister love you, but Squish is especially fond of you. He likes to get ALL UP IN YOUR FACE and talk to you, but luckily you don’t seem to mind. You actually give him the biggest smiles out of anyone.

You don’t do a ton of cooing yet but we can usually coax a smile out of you if we try hard enough. All in all, you’re a wonderful baby and mommy is definitely soaking up as many snuggles as she can get.

Love you!