Our Journey: The Third Month

Malcolm and his attempt at thumb sucking

With each passing day the boys become more responsive, interactive , and just an all around joy. Don't get me wrong, they still do plenty of yelling, crying, and spitting all over us, but it's definitely becoming more manageable.

As the third month began, we started seeing greater neck control, and as a result the boys liked to be held in a sitting position on our legs. This lent itself to more active forms of soothing such as bouncing on our legs, and as a result the pacifier is rarely seen now at the end of the third month. Right now the pacifier is occasionally helpful at night, but around the middle of the third month the boys began to find their hand, and sometimes they even find their thumb. This has helped them to occasionally soothe themselves, although they're not all the way there yet in their coordination.

Also as a product of better neck control, we were able to get the bouncer set up for them around the middle of the third month. At first they really could only use it while we kind of watched their head and neck, but now they're pretty independent with it. They're still too little to bounce with their legs, but they still seem to enjoy fidgeting in it so that they rock and bounce slightly.

Brendan chilling in the bouncer

Smiles are a great benefit of this age. They now smile and coo with remarkable frequency, and it's almost always in reaction to external stimulation. This makes everything that much cuter and that much more rewarding.

As parents, we've been developing and branching out as well. We tried to transition the boys into their cloth diapers, which was a profound failure. They went through about ten outfits in 24 hours, and we put the issue on the back burner until they get a little bigger.

In the later part of the month I did a couple of shorter shifts at work before transitioning back to full time in early March. We also took the babies on a road trip to see their great grandparents in Arkansas. It was quite the feat of bravery on our part, and I'll post something on this specifically later this week.

Our final big milestone of the month is that we got Malcolm to sleep on his own in the crib one night kind of without incident which shocked the heck out of us! We didn't make a permanent transition yet because of the trip, but we plan on getting them both in to their own room in month four. I'll miss them being in our room though. There's something so comforting about hearing their breathing (and mildly creepy sleep-laughing) as you fall asleep. It's weird to think that there are already things that they're outgrowing--clothes, beds, and even titles. At 3 months old and just as plump and bright eyed as ever, they're now officially infants and the newborn phase is over forever!

And then the real one.

A silly one...