Athena’s 3 month update

Today my precious baby is three months old!

Time has literally FLOWN, it feels like only a few weeks ago that we brought her home from the hospital and sat staring at her. She’s grown loads, and is bang on all her height/weight lines (50 for weight and 91st for height) and last time we weighed her a few weeks ago she was almost 13lbs. Her hair is thinning (boo!) but she’s still got plenty of it for now, she’s in size 3-6 month clothes and is just in size 3 nappies. I find life with a baby so rewarding and hugely entertaining, and it helps that she’s a pretty happy baby who only cries when she’s hungry or has bad wind, which doesn’t happen that often luckily! She’s perfectly happy to be held by strangers and grins gummily at people who peer into her pram when we’re out and about. Bath times are a huge cause of smiles and giggles, and she seems to enjoy being taken swimming at the pool too.

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Things that she’s learnt to do lately…

  • lift the bottom of her dresses up over her head (aka grabbing things)
  • screeches, not loudly (yet!) and only when she’s happy (at the moment!) as it comes with the oooh sounds too
  • knows her hands are her hands, this is a recent discovery but very sweet to watch
  • sit up supported, and she holds her head up all the time now
  • turn onto her side in her sleep. I’m not sure how she does it as she only does it in her sleep when I’m not watching, and only in her moses basket, so perhaps she’s just getting leverage off the sides accidently!
  • put weight on her legs, obviously whilst being held but she’s a sturdy little thing, so I think it’ll be time for the door bouncer soon!
  • turning circles on her play-mat, her head will start at the top, and she’ll slowly work her way round so he feet are where her head started!

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Feeding – I’m still exclusively breast feeding, it’s going well, so not much to report there, other than onions make her windy to the max so no onions me for a while then! There is still no routine at all to the feeding, sometimes she’ll feed off both boobs and sleep for three hours after (normally if I take her out in the pram for a walk) and sometimes she feeds what seems like every hour or less. I don’t keep track of her feeds at all, but I expect soon they’ll fit in to some sort of pattern as a few people have said a routine tends to form automatically around 3 months, or some semblance of! She still happily takes a bottle of expressed milk from Sam when he wants in on feeding-time! A new thing she likes to do is bang the side of her head with the hand that isn’t pinned under my arm, which results in a red ear/head, so I’ve had to start holding her hand gently to stop her from doing it!

month one detail month two detail

(I’m making one of these on the 6th of each month… click for bigger as they’re high res, and I haven’t taken a photo yet today!)

Sleeping – For the last two nights Athena has slept a 7 hour stretch, woken for a feed and then slept another 3 hours. I hope this continues as last weekend we had a night when she woke up every hour and a half for a feed, and no amount of rocking would send her off, it was food she wanted! I generally put her down in her cot when she falls asleep in the evening (anything from 8-11pm) and then when she wakes up bring her into bed with me for a feed, and she either stays there if I’ve fallen asleep, or I put her back in her moses basket. Sometimes I keep her in the bed and co-sleep just because I love the cuddles (and the sweaty little head on my chest!)

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Routine – there isn’t one, apart from the vague putting to bed time. Sometimes this doesn’t happen and she goes down a lot later, dependent on how many naps she’s had in the day and how hungry she is.To be honest I’m not too fussed about creating a set routine (suck on that Gina Ford!) but we generally get up around 9am, and I find that she has longer naps when I’m pushing her in the pram than at home, which will be a delight in the winter! The rest of the day is spent in a combination of cuddles/feeding/chilling in her bouncy chair and playing on her play mat. She’s not a fan of ‘tummy time’ yet, so we’re only doing it a little bit at a time, with a small rolled up towel under her chest so she’s a little more comfortable. I’m getting more done around the house as she’s happier to be left in her chair/on the play mat for longer periods, but she’ll shout when she’s had enough and wants cuddles.

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Things that make my heart explode with love:

  • the way my cheek fits perfectly into the side of her head
  • when I go to get her when she wakes up and when she sees my face she stops grizzling and smiles at me
  • when she’s sitting on Sam’s lap with her tiny hand resting on his giant one
  • watching her wriggling around naked in her bath hammock thingy when I flick bubbles at her
  • when she looks up at me when I’m nursing her and gives me a wet milky smile, then carries on feeding
  • when she sleeps with her head on one side and her chubby cheeks make her face all squishy
  • the noises she makes, and when I make them back at her she responds and we have a ‘conversation’
  • when she does what we have lovingly nicknamed the ‘stretchy-parp’ but I am yet to capture it on video!
  • her concentrating face (eyebrows knitted and pouty)
  • seeing her in the swimming pool, staring around and not fussed about being dunked under water!

That’s it I think, we’re going to attempt clay hand and foot prints soon. I was thinking the other day about how back when I was born my parents had to just cross their fingers and hope that the pictures they took of me came out well when they came back from the photo-developers then make copies and get them sent off to friends and family to see, whereas I probably take at least 5 photos a day of Athena on my phone, and frequently share them with the world (and her family of course!)  how times change, huh? I wonder what times will be like when she’s old enough to want children?

5 thoughts on “Athena’s 3 month update

  1. Aww reading this made me smile, the photos are also just so so adorable, she’s the perfect baby! Look forward to hearing more about Athena 🙂

    Sophierosehearts x

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