3 Months Old

Dear little Nomi,

You’re 3 months old! (+ 1 week. Your Mummy is late as usual.) That’s a whole trimester in a pregnancy. Those first 3 months of a pregnancy are challenging — your body battles tiredness and morning sickness generally rears its ugly head. Then once those first 3 months are over, your body gets used to it, everything stabilises and you get into a groove.

It’s been the same story with the first 3 months of your life that have passed. Mummy here has gotten used to the tiredness and sleep deprivation associated with having a newborn AND an older child to deal with and now things are starting to fall into place. The reason why it hasn’t been too difficult has been because of you.

I look at you daily, and thank God for you — the sweetest little bub, who sleeps well, is generally good natured, and is totally the most adorable squishy little bundle ever. I also thank Him for giving you to us after Noey and not before. That he was such a handful makes us all the more appreciative of your more easy-going nature.

We’ve gotten to know you better over these past few months.

We know that you dish out your best smiles in the morning, after a full night of good sleep. On most nights, you can, amazingly, already sleep till around 5am after going down around 8.30pm. That’s a good 8 or 9 hours straight. Yup baby, you’re already officially sleeping through the night. Admittedly, I would much prefer it if you could jig that around so that you need to feed only at 7.30am/8am when you wake, but I have full confidence you’ll be doing that soon enough. Right now, I’m grateful that upon waking up in the middle of the night, you feed quickly before going right back to sleep, allowing me therefore to do the same. Now if only your gor-gor would stop waking up to bug me in the middle of the night too…

Your smiles are the reason your Papa and I make a beeline for your room in the morning, just to soak a bit of that in. You are a joy to behold.

You still sleep well, though obviously not as much as in the earlier days. Your nighttime routine is pretty rock solid these days though. The good thing is that we can generally count on you predictably going down for the night around 8pm IF we are at home. That is a big IF right there. Because if we fail to be home to initiate your shutdown sequence when you want it, you will either stay awake, meltdown and then be really difficult to put to sleep thereafter, or fall asleep in the car only to wake up when you get back and then, again, be really difficult to put to sleep. You will also punish me by waking up more frequently in the night. ALL BAD. I’ve got the message — you’ll be home before sundown where we can help it.

Your daytime sleep patterns are still a bit erratic, despite my best efforts to settle you into a routine. Some days you can’t seem to nap for more than 30 mins at a time, some days you can sleep for more than 3 hours at a stretch. Usually the latter happens when Noey isn’t at home! I’m afraid your noisy brother usually disrupts your beauty rest. You definitely need your sleep though and can be a real grumpus if you don’t get enough. We’re still trying to sort out a good daytime sleep routine for you, but mostly you can carried by Aunty M till you fall asleep, after which we will carefully put you in your rocker. I have grand plans for you to fall asleep on your own without the carrying, but I really haven’t had much success in the day time, either because it’s too bright, or too noisy from the construction near by, or your dear brother would burst into the room at an inopportune time. I’m re-thinking my strategy for the moment, so you might as well enjoy all the carrying while it lasts!

And if you wonder why there are always so many photos of you in your rocker, its because you sleep really well (or at least as well as you can) in it. The best part is that you can rock yourself with all that arm waving and kicking that you do! I’m so glad it turned out to be a good investment.

When you have enough sleep, you are most content. We can already tell that sleep is your main need. Food, not so much. I know from all the times I’ve tried desperately to wake you for a feed/shove a nipple into your mouth in a bid to encourage you to drink, only to be met with your stubbornly firmly pursed lips. I only pray that this does not mean you’ll be difficult eater! It is an answered prayer that you at least drink from the bottle well and willingly from the word go. This has made all alternate caregivers more confident about taking care of you and has in turn allowed me some time out of the house. Do keep this up ok? Having a baby who would rather go without than drink EBM from a bottle (ie. your brother) was very stressful.

I can’t believe how much time I’ve spent talking about sleep! Maybe it’s not surprising considering how your life really is about eating and sleeping at this point.

But aside from that, we’ve come to know you in the small ways too.

We’ve learnt that you can spend long periods of time self-entertaining, whether by necessity or otherwise. We’ve learnt that you LOVE diaper changes, and would lie patiently and smile once we start unbuttoning your onesie and loosening your diaper. We’ve also learnt that that moment when we open your diaper is the moment you are most likely to pee. Fortunately, we learn quick.

We’ve learnt that you LOVE to talk. And one of your favourite things to talk to is Mr Mobile-Giraffe.

We’ve learnt that you, my dear, let out the loudest farts and the biggest burps. Oh dear. You also make the stinkest diapers which make me wonder what I ate! I guess this might be because you poop rather irregularly, and can sometimes go a day without pooping at all. A stark contrast to your brother who used to poop 5 times a day for many months! We’ve learnt that when you go, it could be BIG. So we make a beeline for the changing mat to wait it out.

You’ve probably learnt that it’s better to quietly self-entertain because when Mummy gets in the picture, she’ll make you do tummy time. Not your favourite thing to do.

Your gor-gor has learnt that he really is rather fond of you, and you have learnt to brace yourself yourself for a kiss whenever he comes near.

We are convinced that your first words would be “What is Mei-Mei doing??” since that is what you hear all. the. time.

So as you can see, it’s been an awesome 3 months of learning for everybody. But one thing we didn’t have to learn was how to love you. Your Papa and I have loved you before we knew you and we only love you more everyday. Grow well little Nomi.

Love,
Your Mama