Boy, I’m not going to lie, but the first three months with a new baby were hard! I had an idea of what to expect, but you only learn when you go through the experience yourself. Looking back, it feels like time literally flew by and I can’t believe my little guy is already 3 months today.
All PS did the first month was eat, sleep, pee and poo. I was getting up every 2-3 hours during the day and 3-4 hours at night to feed him. Then I would change his diaper and get him to go back to sleep. Putting him back to sleep in the first month was so much easier compared to the second month. But the first month was hard mostly because I could barely move as I recovered from giving birth. Read all about my postpartum essentials list here. I also found breastfeeding to be quite challenging this month as well and didn’t think I would be able to do it for very long.
The first month we were doing laundry every 2-3 days and were changing PS outfits several times a day. This is because he kept peeing through his diaper. Mostly the reason for this was we didn’t know how to put on a diaper properly and the other reason was the newborn Pampers swaddlers were too small for him. Once we learned how to properly put on a diaper and switched to size 1 diapers, we only went through one outfit a day and did laundry once a week. I’m planning on doing a minimalist baby wardrobe soon so watch out for that.
The second month I found to be the most challenging. PS was still napping majority of the day (16 hours on average), but getting him to sleep proved to be super difficult. We would have to rock him for a while to get him to sleep and stay asleep. He outgrew his bassinet at 7 weeks so we moved him into his crib for night time. But, he was doing all of his day naps on the couch in the living room, although truth be told, we held him for most of them. Around 8 weeks, I noticed he would start crying loudly every time he woke up from his nap. It would sometimes take a good 20 minutes or so to calm him down which also gave me so much anxiety.
Starting from around 10 weeks I started putting PS for naps in his crib as well as for night time sleep and noticed that he was crying a lot less. In the mornings he would wake up smiling at me and when he woke up from his naps, he was crying from only a few. At 2 months, PS was sleeping around 4-6 hours consecutively at night before waking up to feed. At around 11 weeks, he even did a couple of nights of 8 hours before waking.
At 3 months, I realized the main reason of PS cries was he wasn’t napping properly. He took short naps (30-40 minutes long) and therefore wasn’t getting proper sleep. Even though he still continues to wakes up after 45 minutes from a nap. I now feed him or rock him when he wakes up and he sleeps another 45 minutes or so. This I noticed is the sweet spot for him. He wakes up happy and plays well for the next 1.5 hrs he is awake.
We also started co-sleeeping near the end of the second month. I was so anxious about doing this at first, but I realize I’ve become a light sleeper now. I wake up to the smallest sounds. Co-sleeping is easier in that I don’t have to get up from bed every time PS wakes up for a feed. Although, I’ve noticed, he is sleeping shorter increments at night compared to when he was in his crib at night-time. His longest stretch is 4 hours right now.
Also, now, at 3 months, I absolutely love breastfeeding. It doesn’t take that long, doesn’t hurt at all and I find it to be so fun to bond with PS. I remember the first month thinking I would never make it to 2 months and here I am at 3 months looking forward to trying to do this for a year.
Our biggest struggle now is getting PS to like being in the car seat. Every time we put him in the car seat, he starts crying and is so difficult to soothe. Especially, since in the car we can’t really do anything. If its a long drive, he will fall asleep, but if it’s a short ride, I try singing loudly, playing with him, but nothing really has been that effective. I would love to hear your suggestions.
As I’m writing this and looking back at pictures of PS from when he was first born, I am shocked at how much he has grown. From sleeping all the time to now playing and talking to us, it is crazy how fast he is growing. Although I am looking forward to watching him grow up, I’m really going to miss these first few months as a newborn.
