Claire: 3 Months Old

It feels like time is passing much quicker with Claire than it did with Annie!  Maybe life is just more chaotic with 2?  Likely!  Either way I can’t believe we are almost out of the newborn stage already, the best part of the newborn stage is they are sleeply teeny cuddle bears, she still is a tiny cuddle bear but is nearly doubled her birth weight and is a more squirmy cuddler.  I’ll love those cuddles as long as I can because cuddling with Annie feels like I’m in a wrestling match in which I’m nothing more than a jungle gym to her.

Over the past month Claire has been much more alert and the best part of the past 30 days is her smiles.  She has one of the best smiles.  They are so animated, they usually start out with her scrunching her face up, especially her nose and then it melts into a wide-mouthed smile, I just love it!  She usually is the most smiley right after she wakes up. 

Overall, even with her becoming more alert and staying up longer between naps, she starting to chill out some.  I wouldn’t label her colicky but she definitely had some fussy weeks here and there since birth that have kept us on our toes, she seems much more relaxed lately.  She still has days where she is fidgety/fussier but overall she definitely is a much happier baby than Annie was at this age and as long as she isn't overtired, she's pretty content. 

Claire is a relatively good sleeper at night.  Annie was sleeping thru the nights at 8 weeks, we are still up with Claire at night but it’s usually a fairly quick 30 minute feeding and only once.  She started going to bed at 8 pm in just the past few weeks and it’s been a nice transition, allowing me to get bottles and house stuff done before I get in bed at 10.  So getting up at night with her still isn’t too bad but I’ll be ready for her to go thru the night without waking.  We are getting there, I’m confident it will be happening soon as her stretches keep getting longer and longer at night.  With her going to bed at 8, we are still doing a ‘dream feed’ around 10ish pm before we go to bed, so technically she is up twice a night but only one of those times is her waking us up.

Claire is a little lazy bones when it comes to tummy time.  Trying to get this kid to lift her head up is not so easy.  She usually gets frustrated that I put her on her tummy and gets pretty upset about it, tummy time is pretty short lived but loves being on her back on the mat.  Those little neck muscles are still working to be improved upon.

Maternity leave is over and I went back to work on July 18^th.  I started Claire in daycare beforehand so that I could adjust her to her new schedule and pull Annie out of daycare and spend time with just her.  I was really dreading the day before Claire started but she adjusted just fine and seems to be doing well at daycare.  It was definitely harder for me to back to work this time around, knowing it’s my last baby and I’ll never have this extended time again with my babies made it harder. 

Claire has a whole lot of ‘second child syndrome’ going on.  We had her 3 month photo shoot and poor Claire gets all of Annie’s hand-me-downs and Annie was the one who got the new dress and it wasn’t even a photo shoot for her.  I just can’t justify buying Claire new clothes when we have tons of Annie’s clothes that are in perfect condition and super cute, Claire hasn’t even gotten to wear half of them we have so many.  I actually really love pulling out these hand-me downs and getting to use them again.  And as long as we don’t duplicate picture outfits, I’m good right?  

Although I'm totally wiped out and exhausted by the end of every day and I have a million things things going on that I'm never feeling caught up, I do try to drop everything and just be with my girls from 5 to 8 pm every night before their bedtimes.  When I hold Claire, I just relish that tininess that she is and knowing that I can't hold Annie like that anymore emphasizes that I need to soak in those cuddles while they last.  And I do.  And they are so, so good.  And the way the back of her head smells when I'm holding her in a cuddle is something I try to relish in as well because that's short lived too, Annie just smells like a toddler after a long day of daycare, those sweet baby smells are no longer with my 1st born.  There are just so many sweet things with Claire that I love getting to do all over again and I can't for the all the firsts to come in these coming months to share back with you all!