Madeline is 4 months old today!
June 20th, 2008I read many Mommy blogs, and several of them post letters to their babies periodically. I’m not sure how often I will attempt to do them, but I thought that Maddie’s 4-month birthday is a good day to start! Here we go…
Dear Madeline,
I can’t believe that you are 4 months old today! The time has really flown. Daddy and I still feel like we’re in a bit of a haze while we are still trying to figure out your sleeping schedule. Your nights are not quite predictable, but we’re working on it. Maybe you have trouble sleeping because your brain is working so hard at processing the world! We thought by now that you would be using your pretty dinosaur-themed nursery, but we are keeping you in our room until you sleep more. You have been sleeping in a bassinet next to the bed with a few hours here and there in the bed with your Mommy. The last several days, we’ve been trying a “Snuggle Nest” which is your own little bed that sits in our bed. We will have to give it a few more days before we know whether it is helping or not. I do know that I like having you right next to me in the bed, and it makes it easier for me to comfort you back to sleep. It’s very nice to have you close to us! We have swaddled you at bedtime for most of your life. We call you our little Maddie-burrito! A few times, we thought that we were done with swaddling, but you tend to flail around quite a bit and wake yourself up often. You are a very active baby! You’re a little Houdini and tend to escape almost any swaddle.
You are growing so much! We are interested to see how much you weigh at your doctors appointment next week. Some days, I feel like you’ve grown another inch and several pounds overnight! You were a colicky, fussy baby for about the first three months. We think that you’ve been less fussy lately, but you still have a doozy of a period at night where you are extremely MAD at the world. We do everything to try and comfort you, but you just have to sort things out until you’re calm enough to sleep. Sometimes this takes a few hours, other times it lasts only a few minutes. Despite these moments which can bring two grown adults almost to tears, we love you so much and cannot imagine life without you.
You started smiling around 7 weeks old, and your smiles have been getting bigger and bigger ever since! When you get really excited, you have a wide open mouth grin. It’s quite adorable! You haven’t started laughing yet, but we are waiting for this to happen any day. You have a variety of coos and happy noises, and you have *almost* laughed many times. When you first started smiling, your changing table seemed to make you the happiest. We could almost guarantee smiles when you were getting your diaper changed. I don’t think it was because you enjoyed a clean diaper. You don’t seem to mind even the dirtiest diapers. There’s just something about that changing table that brings you joy. I can’t tell you how many times we were tempted to strap you to the changing table and let you sleep there for the night!
Speaking of diapers, wow. You have been through a record number of diapers! When we went to visit your Great Grandparents Smith in Atlanta for the first time, you averaged almost 20 diapers a day. That’s a whole lot of poop! The quantity of diaper changes has gone down, but the diapers have gotten much fuller. Until we moved you up to the next diaper size prematurely, you were requiring multiple costume changes every day due to diaper blowouts. Fortunately, those do not happen as frequently now. You do often come home wearing a new outfit from daycare as one of your favorite things to do on the changing table is to pee when nobody is looking, mostly when you are without a diaper. You have done this your whole life.
I stayed at home with you for the first 12 weeks of your life, and I really wanted to stay at home with you longer! You started daycare and seemed to adjust to your teachers and classroom very well. My work has a very nice daycare facility right on campus and right across the street from my office. It’s very nice to be able to come over and see you anytime I want! You sometimes take a bottle from your daycare teachers, but I come over often to nurse you. I’m happy that I have been able to provide you with all of your nutrients for your first four months! It’s great to have that bonding experience with you, especially when you look up at me with your big, sweet, gummy smile.
You have changed so much in your first four months of life. In the beginning, we were just excited to see you open your eyes. Now you give us many smiles every day and have become quite interactive. Everyone talks about how strong you are! You were lifting your head very early, and you have been grabbing at anything that is within your reach. When you are laying on your back, you do little crunches, desperately trying to sit up and see everything around you. I’m sure you will be sitting before we know it! You have rolled over numerous times from your stomach to your back, though you haven’t done this for me just yet. Daddy saw it only once so far for Father’s Day. You have rolled over a few times just at the moment we weren’t looking. Your daycare teachers have seen it regularly.
I’m proud to say that I have succeeded in my goal of taking at least one photo of you every day, so far. We are trying to get a photo of you each day for at least your first year. I think it will be neat to put them all into a book and see how you’ve changed. We can already see huge changes from a sleepy, fussy newborn to a (mostly) happy, strong, interested baby. One of your first fascinations was with your own feet. You never went through the phase where you were enamoured with your hands, but you were utterly fascinated with your feet. You stared at them for hours and hours! Currently, you are obsessed with both your new Jumperoo and the remote controls for the TV. Based on your reactions so far, these things are sure to make you laugh with pure joy any day now. You are very expressive!
We love you more than you can possibly imagine. I can’t wait to see what the next four months brings.
Love,
Mommy