Maddie is 3 Months!

That's right, Maddie Grace is 3 months old now. Where has the time gone? In the past month, she's changed so much. She is such a happy baby now, and is so close to erupting into belly laughs all the time. She still hates tummy time, so we haven't made much progress in the rolling over department, but she has super strong legs and can support her weight as long as we keep her balanced. We got her a bumbo seat since she loves sitting up, and she is a big fan!
She's also still got a head full of hair, and her eyes are starting to lighten up a bit-we may end up with another blue eyed baby. The jury is still out on which one of us she looks more like though.
In other milestone news, she's been sleeping in her bed for over 2 weeks now! Yay! We still get our snuggle time in at naps, so I'm not suffering too much. :)
She is eating about every 2.5-3 hours (although she went through a growth spurt earlier this week that changed that) and when I'm at work she is eating 6 ounces from her bottles. Pretty soon, we'll be starting rice cereal, which I have a feeling she won't love like Kiley did, but we'll see!

As you can see, she definitely has quite the personality, and she is loving stuffed animals!

Don't believe everything you read...

Last night, I decided I had hit my breaking point. From all I've read, by 2 months, babies no longer "need" to be fed in the middle of the night, they just expect it. So after Maddie woke up at 2 am, I decided it would be best for all of us if she went to sleep in her own bed, because according to what I've read (once again) babies tend to sleep better on their own.
Ha. I put her in her bassinet, and she was not having it. I remembered though that Kiley never enjoyed her bassinet either, but did pretty well once we moved her to the crib. So I thought, ok, I'll do that with Maddie.
Once again, ha! To make a long story short, at 4 am I had finally rocked her to sleep to the point that she did not seem like she was going to wake up. I turned her mobile and nightlight on, put her down, went back to my bed, and turned on the baby monitor....and could not fall asleep!!! Maddie was sound asleep, the only noise coming from her room at all was the lullabyes from her mobile, but I was wide awake. Finally, after about 15 minutes (I know because her mobile automatically turns off after that time and it turned off while I was still awake) I fell into a very light sleep, until 6:00 when Maddie woke up ready to eat. I brought her to bed, fed her, and here it is, almost 11:00 am, and she's still sleeping soundly...in my bed!
So, moral of the story: don't believe everything you read. Neither Maddie nor I slept better or longer with her in her own bed. I'll try again soon....promise.

Cosleeping

...and why I can't give it up just yet! As most know, Maddie has been a more "challenging" baby than Kiley was. One of these unique challenges is that she HATES her bed. Her beautiful bed that Casey and I picked out so lovingly:

When we brought her home from the hospital, she was napping in her crib if we chose to put her in it, and she slept every night in her bassinet. Then she started fussing if I put her back in the bassinet after feeding her during the night, and not soon after she started screaming if we attempted to put her down at all while she was napping during the day. I admit, I didn't push her too hard in the middle of the night. With me nursing, it's a lot easier to just have her right next to me in bed so that when she wakes up I can basically just roll over to feed her. I know all the pros and cons of cosleeping and honestly, they seem to cancel each other out. If I'm being completely honest, I also have a more selfish reason for continuing to cosleep:

Just look at this sweet baby in her pajamas relaxing in bed with us!

She's just too sweet! Maddie is the biggest cuddle bug, and I love snuggling up with her at night. Plus, we have a king sized bed, so she isn't really taking up any room.
Long story short, I think I'll let her stay awhile. I'm going back to work tomorrow, so cuddle time at night will become even more precious to me.
And besides, it's not like she'll want to sleep in bed with us forever...right?