Baby / Lark / Motherhood

Motherhood Update: Lark at 4 months

Wiggling her way off the blanket already (and always looking to see what her big sister is up to).

Sleeping: Lark hit the 4 month sleep regression early and hard. Starting a week or so before I headed to California (I made a quick trip with Lark a few weeks ago to surprise my sister for her birthday), Lark started to wake up more in the night. Since I was going to be traversing time zones with her, I decided not to sweat it. In California she adapted fairly well, doing one 5-6 hour stretch, but then would be up about every 2 hours after that. And of course just as she assimilated to the new time, we headed right back to Amsterdam, where sleep continued to decline. After many bad weeks and things getting progressively worse, I started doing some gentle sleep training, which I’m happy to report has been working out quite well. Her naps are phenomenal, and while bedtime is still a little bit of a struggle some nights, she’s cut down her night-waking to once a night most nights (though, not last night! Gah…)

How we’re adjusting: Sleep has been a struggle for the past month, which tends to be hard on everyone. I contracted a particularly nasty case of strep (probably at least partially due to my lack of sleep) which made all of last week miserable. Luckily, having been through the whole sleep debacle before with Prim, I’m addressing issues earlier with Lark, which is proving to be helpful and less intense. (We did hardcore sleep training with Prim at 7 months after she had been sleeping poorly for soooo looong.)

Lifesavers: I recently purchased a sound machine for Lark, since I noticed that she was being woken up by every little noise, and of course then had trouble getting back to sleep. The sound machine has been amazing so far, and I think will be especially helpful when we eventually move Lark into Prim’s room. I’m sure they will inevitably wake each other up occasionally, but having the white noise helps muffle some of the noise at least.

Latest trick: Lark has rolled from her back to her belly, and is soooo close to rolling belly to back now. She has also figured out how to move across the floor a bit through a series of wiggles and kicks. It’s hilarious to watch her rotate across the blanket like a clock arm, ending up on the hardwood floor somewhere.

Sweetest things: Lark now takes all her naps upstairs in the crib (as opposed to the crib in our living room or in the carrier) and I have a monitor downstairs to hear when she wakes up. She sometimes wakes up crying, but often wakes up now and enjoys a little solo time in her crib, squealing and chattering to herself. Hearing her high-pitched calls over the monitor downstairs is so, so cute.

Favorite thing about this age: Lark is right in between the sort of “new baby” phase and the mobile phase. She’s clearly trying to move and grab things now (no doubt envious of her very busy big sister), but still maintains a lot of that “new-babyness” that’s so sweet. I love that more of her personality is coming out, but I have to admit that I really enjoy the fact that she isn’t too big or busy to nap on the go in the Solly wrap yet (it’s just so sweet, and such a short time that they do this!)