What a difference a day makes!  Lilly has changed so much these past few weeks.  Sunday she had her first ‘belly laugh’.  Bill was getting her ready for her bath and tickling her tummy when it happened.  I could hear it all the way from her bathroom with the water running!  Monday I got a good laugh out of her as well…too cute.

We have been working on ‘unswaddling’ her for awhile now.  Mission accomplished!  We left one arm out for about a week.  Towards the end of last week she began rolling over onto her stomach during her naps and waking herself up doing the same thing at night, so we began leaving both arms out.  It has been several days now and she is sleeping well with her arms out.  Finally!  We are slowly working on weaning her off the pacifier as well.  We only give it to her for naps and take it out once she is relaxed and in her crib.

Since being unswaddled, Lilly is rolling around like CrAzY during her naps and at night time.  She has begun sleeping on her tummy as well.  I was a bit worried about this at first (SIDS), but have been told that once they do it on their own there isn’t much you can do to stop them.  She is strong enough to move around, lift her head up, etc., so there’s nothing to be concerned about.  She can flip herself onto her tummy really easily but gets frustrated and has a hard time flipping back.  She’s almost there…we’re working on it a lot.

It seems as though we are nearing the end of ‘4 month sleep regression’.  Apparently it is quite common for 4 and 8-month-olds to go through this, and Lilly certainly has.  For about a week and a half she went from waking up once or twice to eat to waking up twice to eat and 3 or 4 additional times.  We partially attributed this to her pacifier use, but can’t be sure.  Now she is mostly back to waking up just once a night to eat.  Keep you fingers crossed for us!

Nap time is MUCH easier now.  She is fairly consistent at napping from 9-11 and 1-3 with a 30 minute catnap at 5pm (and wakes up no more than once).  We’ll see how long this lasts…

Lilly is VERY focused.  Yesterday at my ‘moms’ group she looked at each individual very intently as they were talking.  The group leader even made a remark about it.  She loves watching the other babies and the moms as well!