Our little Claire Bear is 3.5 months old now, and she is a sweet, happy, wonderful little girl! In many ways, she's even easier than Elsa was. The biggest of these is sleep. I was extremely nervous going into the month of August, because it was right around this age that Elsa suddenly decided that she didn't want to sleep at night, and had regular hour-plus screaming fits in the evenings. I looked back at my old blog posts and found the first reference to it
here. And that quickly escalated to
this by the time she turned four months old (see second and third paragraphs). By January, I reported that she was doing better, although I remember this being an issue off and on for at least two more months after that, and it continued to pop up every once in a great while until well after she turned one.
Fortunately (knock on wood) Claire doesn't seem inclined to do anything of the sort. She gets a little fussy when she's overly tired, but it's probably nothing out of the ordinary. The other night she got cranky right before bed, and it definitely recalled the good old days with Elsa—Claire kept lifting her little legs up and slamming them down on the crib mattress while crying, which was a
vivid reminder of Elsa's infant days. Elsa constantly did that exact same thing when she was Claire's age. I used to sometimes try to physically hold down Elsa's legs when she was trying to go to sleep (sadly, it never worked). But Claire has never had a bout with this that lasted longer than 15 or 20 minutes, unlike Elsa's marathon sessions. And I've been very adamant about starting Claire's bedtime routine no later than 7:30 p.m., because I think an earlier bedtime was instrumental in helping Elsa eventually calm down.
There are a few ways in which Claire is more difficult than Elsa was. The biggest of these is that Claire often isn't content to just hang out in the carseat when we're out and about, like Elsa usually was. Granted, we're out and about a lot more often this time around than we ever were with Elsa. Also, that carseat can get very warm, and during this hotter time of the year, it's likely to be a lot more uncomfortable. And anyway, I can hardly blame Claire for wanting to get out of there and actually see what's happening. We take the Baby Bjorn with us most places, in case she needs an alternate mode of transportation with a better view, or sometimes I just take her out and hold her for a few minutes, and that seems to satisfy her for a while.
She's doing a little better on her tummy these days, although she still doesn't particularly like it. She'll now last about 2 or 3 minutes on her tummy before she screams. We're working on it as much as possible.
She's doing
great with her sitting (see the video above) and is sometimes able to sit for a second or two before slowly tipping over. Elsa sat for fairly long periods of time before she turned five months old, so I'm thinking Claire will be sitting without support by the time she's that age as well. However, Claire is only just starting to put some weight on her legs and has shown zero inclination to try to roll over, so I think on those two fronts she's on the Elsa schedule as well—which means we'll be waiting a while on those. : )
We've also started her in the Exersaucer and most recently the Johnny Jump-Up. She doesn't do much with either of those yet, but seems to enjoy them anyway, and I like that she's in a standing position—hopefully it will help motivate her to put more weight on those chubby little legs. She has started hitting some of the buttons in the Exersaucer, although at this point it's hard to tell if it's intentional.
She is laughing and "talking" like crazy, and we just love her sweet smile. It brightens my day every time I see it. At this point, she seems to have much more in common with Elsa than differing from her. We'll see if things continue to shape up that way as Claire gets older.
And last but not least, I just love the relationship Elsa and Claire are starting to develop. Whenever Claire is fussing, if I can't get to her right that minute, I ask Elsa to "go talk to Claire." Elsa will lean over Claire and coo at her, and Claire completely calms down, every single time. And she smiles and laughs like crazy when she watches Elsa playing or doing something goofy. It's truly a delight to watch. : )
Our little Claire Bear is 3.5 months old now, and she is a sweet, happy, wonderful little girl! In many ways, she's even easier than Elsa was. The biggest of these is sleep. I was extremely nervous going into the month of August, because it was right around this age that Elsa suddenly decided that she didn't want to sleep at night, and had regular hour-plus screaming fits in the evenings. I looked back at my old blog posts and found the first reference to it here. And that quickly escalated to this by the time she turned four months old (see second and third paragraphs). By January, I reported that she was doing better, although I remember this being an issue off and on for at least two more months after that, and it continued to pop up every once in a great while until well after she turned one.
Fortunately (knock on wood) Claire doesn't seem inclined to do anything of the sort. She gets a little fussy when she's overly tired, but it's probably nothing out of the ordinary. The other night she got cranky right before bed, and it definitely recalled the good old days with Elsa—Claire kept lifting her little legs up and slamming them down on the crib mattress while crying, which was a vivid reminder of Elsa's infant days. Elsa constantly did that exact same thing when she was Claire's age. I used to sometimes try to physically hold down Elsa's legs when she was trying to go to sleep (sadly, it never worked). But Claire has never had a bout with this that lasted longer than 15 or 20 minutes, unlike Elsa's marathon sessions. And I've been very adamant about starting Claire's bedtime routine no later than 7:30 p.m., because I think an earlier bedtime was instrumental in helping Elsa eventually calm down.
There are a few ways in which Claire is more difficult than Elsa was. The biggest of these is that Claire often isn't content to just hang out in the carseat when we're out and about, like Elsa usually was. Granted, we're out and about a lot more often this time around than we ever were with Elsa. Also, that carseat can get very warm, and during this hotter time of the year, it's likely to be a lot more uncomfortable. And anyway, I can hardly blame Claire for wanting to get out of there and actually see what's happening. We take the Baby Bjorn with us most places, in case she needs an alternate mode of transportation with a better view, or sometimes I just take her out and hold her for a few minutes, and that seems to satisfy her for a while.
She's doing a little better on her tummy these days, although she still doesn't particularly like it. She'll now last about 2 or 3 minutes on her tummy before she screams. We're working on it as much as possible.
We've also started her in the Exersaucer and most recently the Johnny Jump-Up. She doesn't do much with either of those yet, but seems to enjoy them anyway, and I like that she's in a standing position—hopefully it will help motivate her to put more weight on those chubby little legs. She has started hitting some of the buttons in the Exersaucer, although at this point it's hard to tell if it's intentional.
She is laughing and "talking" like crazy, and we just love her sweet smile. It brightens my day every time I see it. At this point, she seems to have much more in common with Elsa than differing from her. We'll see if things continue to shape up that way as Claire gets older.
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