First let's take a look at how she's grown:
We had our four-month doctor appointment yesterday, and basically...she's perfect. But I already knew that. She weighs 14 lbs, 7 oz (55th percentile) and is 24 1/4 in. long (44th percentile). She can do all of the things the doctor asked about: smiles, coos, high-pitched squeals, laughs, sucks on her fingers, and puts her hands together. She's also rolled over a few times from her tummy to her back. She's only done it a handful of times, and she's only done it in front of me...but I swear she really did it. I think that some people (ahem, mom) are starting to doubt me on this.
We started sleep training with her this week. She had been sleeping through the night pretty well, then she started waking up at night crying. Our doctor says that that is the signal that she needs some sleep training: she's waking up in the night and getting kinda freaked out because she fell asleep in our arms and is now in her bed. The same sensation as if I were to fall asleep in my bed and wake up in my car - that would freak anyone out, right? So...she has to be set up to wake up in the same conditions where she went to sleep - meaning: falls asleep in her crib, no pacifier. The first night we did this, we put her down around 7:15, she cried for 15 minutes and then fell asleep, and woke up around 6 the next morning. The second night, she didn't cry at all and woke up at 6. The third night, again no crying, woke up at 6. This is too good to be true, right? Tonight she's gonna be screaming for three hours, right? No baby really does this, do they? Cora and Evaline were fairly easy to sleep train, but it still took three or four nights of pretty hard crying (if I remember right, it was for a little over an hour the first night and then gradually downhill from there). But then, there are a lot of things that make Willa a very different baby.
- Willa is pretty content. All the time. She only cries if she's hungry or tired. She can amuse herself for a LONG time, as long as she can see us. If we are out of her line of sight for very long, she will give these semi-angry high-pitched yelps until we move back where she can see us. Then she's happy again.
- She takes pretty good naps. Here this break our routine has been: up somewhere between 6-6:30, bottle at 7, nap from 8 - 9:45/10ish, bottle, nap around noon and up at 1:00ish, bottle, nap from about 2-3:30 or 4, bottle, bath at 6:30 then bottle then bed somewhere in the 7:15 range. Ian and I have had several discussions about whether it is normal for a baby to sleep this much, if she might be sick, etc. Cora and Evaline would hardly ever nap.
Luckily, we don't really have to do the sleep training stuff for the naps. We can rock her to sleep and let her go down with a pacifier. Night-time sleep, I guess, is a different kind of sleep - and the length of sleep expectation (10-11 hours rather than 1-2) is different as well.
Anyway...these last four months have been fun. In some ways its a bit sad to be leaving the really baby stage behind (Ian, I'm sure, would disagree)...but I think that life is set up so that once one stage is over your really, mostly ready to move on. I love the baby that Willa is becoming. She's the sweetest thing in the whole world, she isn't stingy with her smiles, and she's smitten with her big sisters. Who, in turn, are also smitten with her. Particularly Cora, who is definitely her little guardian angel - always watching out for her and running to her with a pacifier, a blanket, a toy or just her own silly smiles any time Willa seems the least bit perturbed.
