Grace is 4 months old!

My sweet girl is 4 months old!  Miss Grace has accomplished so much this month!

Grace is now taking two naps in her crib – hip hip hurray!  She takes her first nap around 8:30 a.m. and sleeps for about 40 minutes.  She then takes another nap in her crib around 1:30 p.m. and sleeps for about an hour.  Right now she is taking two small catnaps at around 10:30 a.m. and then again at around 4:30 p.m.  I usually just put her in the swing for those short naps, because I’m hoping that eventually those will be eliminated and her morning and afternoon naps will become a bit longer.

So I think the biggest key to our success is that I now put her down for her naps awake.  When Eli was this young I always rocked him to sleep, but I figured out with her that if I put her down asleep and she then wakes up she gets REALLY MAD and will not go back to sleep.  She does much better if I put her down while she is still awake, and then it takes her anywhere from 5-15 minutes to fall asleep on her own.  I had a hard time with this, but am so thankful that I’ve gotten to know her so well and am able to do the best thing for her.

She loves to suck on her hands and one of the things she does now to fall asleep is suck her thumb!  It is so cute, but she never does it during the day.  I just see her do it on the video monitor.  

Grace eats every 3 hours, and I would say that we now have a predictable schedule and have fallen into a nice routine.  It is amazing to look back at the newborn phase and see how far she has come.

Grace is extremely smiley and is always laughing!  She especially loves smiling at her Daddy – it is ridiculously cute!  She knows how to work him already and just puts on tons of charm around him.  She adores her brother and loves to watch him all day long.  I think a 2 year old is the absolute best baby toy you could ever buy – ha! 

She loves her activity center and spends a lot of time in there now.  Just this past week she started reaching for toys and in the last few days she started gripping some baby toys.

The two most special things I want to remember about my sweet girl is the way she smiles at me when I get her out of her crib in the morning and after naps.  She is just so happy to see me that it melts my heart completely.  Also, I just love how she holds my finger every time I feed her.  It is so sweet and I want to freeze time so I never forget those moments.

Needless to say, we adore our sweet girl and I just can’t believe she is already 4 mths!!!