Gray at 14 weeks

Gray will be 15 weeks on Sunday. He is already more than a fourth of a year old. Ok nevermind, I really don't want to talk about that.

I thought it was time for a crib update and whatnot. Gray has been sleeping like a champ at night! He is getting at least 11, if not 12 hours of sleep every night with one feeding in between somewhere. He usually goes down between 8:00 and 9:00. He sometimes still cries for a few minutes but that is getting easier on him and us. He has made several eight hour stretches and the other night he broke a record with nine straight hours!! I am hoping that becomes more frequent at four months when he can start having rice cereal. Naps were going great but he hit a major set back last week for about six days and would not sleep longer than 30-45 minutes at a time. He was going from a two hour nap in the morning and a three-four hour nap in the afternoon to that so it was pretty frustrating. I tried letting him cry it out but he persisted for way too long and it just didn't seem right for me to let that keep up. Tuesday he took an hour and a half nap and then yesterday his whole nap schedule seemed to be back on track. I know we'll be hitting lots of road blocks in the sleep department between teething, growth spurts, sicknesses, etc. but I am very excited about how well he is doing right now.

I really feel like Gray has been a different baby since he's been sleeping in his crib. He almost always wakes up happy and he has been so chill during the day. Chill would have been the last word I would ever have used to describe our boy. He is playing by himself for more and more time these days. I used to feel like every second that he was awake I needed to be interacting with him but I am realizing that independent play time is very important too so I try to let him entertain himself some throughout the day. He will also just sit in my lap for up to a half hour or more now. I read him books every day and he just sits there so content, looking at the pages. He is loving his paci right now which is also helping his chillness. I do not give it to him for sleeping because he is already doing so well and I do not want to start a battle of him losing his paci and me going in every few minutes to put it back in. I'm not saying I won't ever change my mind about that, but for now I'm sticking to it.

The car has also gotten so much better. Over the past two weeks, he hasn't cried much at all in the car and has even fallen asleep several times. This is such a big deal to me! I feel like I have so much more freedom to get out and do things without the entire day being ruined. I am trying to have him home for all naps right now so he can have consistency with the transition to his crib. That limits our time to be out during the day but for right now I feel like it's important.

Just weeks ago Gray was screaming his head off for hours and hours every day. I cannot describe how happy and thankful I am to have such a turn around with our sweet boy. Feeling very blessed, y'all!