Tracking Baby #2’s First Year: 3 Months Old!

The Facebook decision‘s prompted me to think more about my blog and what I write here.  This post is about a week late because I had some thinking to do. 

Since I started this blog, I’ve worried about over-exposing my family.  I use nicknames to help prevent that, but I still worry.  I want my blog to foster connections and to document our parenting decisions for future reference.  I share things in the hopes that the information I provide will inform and guide others, as the words of others have done for me, without sacrificing my family’s privacy.

After much consideration, I’ve decided to document our newest addition’s first year.  Reasons such as: I wish I knew what to expect and when, what to look out for, and what not to worry about.  Yes, you’d think I’d know these things already as a second time parent, but no.  My memory’s not great lately and I clearly didn’t document enough with our first, Little Man.

As evidence of the lack of documentation, we also don’t have many clear pictures from LM’s first year.  We have lots of pictures of him, but not too many closeups of just him and none that document his monthly birthdays.  I’ve heard over and over how quickly time slips away while trying to adjust to life with two, so I know it’s even easier to miss out on the first year of the second child.

Littlest One was a name I came up with before he was born.  Now that I know him better and he’s not so little, I’d like to give him a new one: Little Hiccup.  I honestly could have named him this in utero as he hiccuped almost nonstop.  I didn’t know, however, that hiccup time would happen at least once a day after he entered this world.  The movie “How To Train Your Dragon” may have inspired me as well…

Here’s what I’ve relearned the past three months:

• Every baby has a distinctly unique personality from day one
• What works for another baby won’t always work for mine
• I need to trust my instincts

This is what Little Hiccup can do now:

• hold his head up almost 90* (for the past couple of weeks).
• focus in on objects and people and track them with his eyes (for the past month at least).
• participate in baby babble conversations (for the past few weeks).
• occasionally sleep one 4-5 hour stretch at night (not even close to a nightly occurrence).
• roll onto his side on the floor and completely over on a bed or couch.
• spin himself completely around on the floor within a few minutes (looks like he might be as hyperactive as his brother).
• eat about every 2 hours throughout the day (every 3 hours only happens if we go out).
• fall asleep within minutes when I hug him close and “shush” in his year, while rocking with him in the glider.

Some other noteworthy facts:

• As you can see, he’s about the length of a king size pillow now.  At two months he measured 25.5″, so I can only imagine he’s about 26-27″ by now.  Something tells me 32″ is just around the corner, which means our infant carseat won’t last too much longer.
  
• He loves his Rock ‘n Play Sleeper and it’s the only place I can get him to sleep at night outside of our bed.  It’s at an incline for when he has an upset tummy and I can rock him to sleep when he’s overtired.
  

That’s about all this sleep deprived mamma can think of right now.  I can’t wait to see what this next month will bring!

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