The Beatys in Bolivia: Baby Sophia, Three Months!

As time has ticked on, I've wondered how I should write this three month post. Am I supposed to write about how she is now while currently three months old, or what I remember up until January 13 when she turned 3 months?! I think I've struck on a combination...

Posing for pictures in the outfit Jake's students bought us many months before Sophia was born

Our wild-eyed baby, playing with toys

Around 2 ½ months, Sophia became much more social! I love how she follows us around the room with her eyes/head and breaks into a big grin to see our faces. By “ours” I include her three big brothers. She realizes they are part of her adoring family!

A week before she turned 3 months, my parents and sister Emma (now 15) arrived! It was pretty neat to get to introduce them to our new family and see them hold Sophia almost non-stop. (Which she really got used to, of course. It was the third day after they left before she realized she could indeed nap alone!)

Mom showed us how much Sophia loved being read books, an activity I've kept up with her every day since. She LOVES that interaction and will generally listen as long as we’ll read!

After getting caught one afternoon in a torrential downpour that lowered the temperature, the Baby Home tias loaned us this cute "snow suit"

I thought Nana Thompson would enforce a strict regimen of “tummy time” while here, something we learned the importance of with my special needs sister Sarah, but she knew that Sophia hates it so there was none. :) I still aim for some every day, but it’s hard to find an awake, happy time when she also hasn't eaten within the past hour.

Tummy time!!

The first days of January, I felt forced to give her three small formula bottles of 1-3 ounces three different very rough evenings. Looking back at the weight chart, that must have been a growth spurt, but at the time I was seriously worried that my milk supply wasn't keeping up at all. It felt like admitting defeat even though I was still nursing every 3 hours on average. That got us over the hump, but then she began getting VERY upset at night when she was tired and cranky and just NOT in the mood for the work of nursing. We’d stick plastic in her mouth and she’d suck like crazy, wanting an easy feed. It was so frustrating to deal with that every. single. night. Till past midnight. So I stopped topping off with formula or even my pumped milk in a bottle, upped taking all the galactagogues available to me (carrot juice, chia seeds, alfalfa, papaya, oatmeal, etc.), and began fenugreek when my mom brought some down. We’re doing very well now, something I no longer take for granted!

Wearing a gift from a friend in Tennessee

The very day my family arrived, January 6, we turned a corner with nighttime sleeping. My Mom said it was because she was now 12 weeks, I thought it was due to getting enough food. Whatever the reason, she began going to bed between 10 and 11:30, waking anywhere between 5 and 7am to eat, then GOING BACK TO SLEEP!! I had started to decide that the “sleeping through the night” that she’d done since one month and one day old wasn't actually that great. She would sleep from anywhere between midnight and 1:30am till 5 or 6 or occasionally 7am…but be awake 2-3 hours on either end of that, often wanting to eat every hour. Mainly, there was no schedule. Ahh!! That was getting hard.

Another picture made for friends in Texas, thanking them for the silver rattle and sweet pillow

Also while my family was here, mom started flipping through a book she found on my shelves and encouraged me to look at it. I read “Secrets of the Baby Whisperer” (by Tracy Hogg, a British woman) years ago and remember being able to easily match up the current babies of Casa de Amor with her descriptions of five types of babies (Angel, Textbook, Touchy, Spirited, Grumpy). Taking the “Know-Your-Baby” quiz for Sophia, lots of things came together to discover she’s a “spirited baby” with all but one characteristic of a “grumpy baby”. There we go!

Spirited baby: born knowing what she does and doesn't like, very vocal, often screams, wild in the bathtub—flailing about and splashing (a fun aspect!), and the two enlightening explanations for two concerns/confusions I’d had: “Often needs swaddling to get to sleep, because flailing arms and legs keep her up and overstimulated.” (She has slept exactly one night and very few naps without being well swaddled, something I had expected her to grow out of by two months, as my Casa babies have. It is an ESSENTIAL with her!)

And secondly, “If she starts crying and the cycle is not interrupted, it’s like the point of no return, and her crying leads to more crying until she’s reached a fever pitch of rage.” EXACTLY!!!! We quickly realized she “crying it out” and calming herself down does not happen with her, no matter how much other mothers swear it is possible and even necessary. That’s just not the way she’s wired!

The grumpy type description details frequent meltdowns and impatient, upset feeding times. (No kidding! She wants immediate gratification when nursing, not tolerating a slow let-down). The world must come to a stop when she needs attention. (The author also mentions that grumpy types run off babysitters. So glad that Kaley is still with us!!)

With mommy on a rainy cool day

With daddy

Love those eyes!!

I've often asked myself how I got such a demanding, high maintenance baby who so resists a schedule, when God knew we were adopting three children at the same time. But now I just as often wonder if He did that so that she would not be overlooked in a busy household. As I wrote a friend recently, the boys are REALLY easy compared to her, something I definitely wasn't expecting. I was used to babies. That is, till I met my own! Jake has told me more than once that God specially chose Sophia for me as a challenge, to stay dependent on Him and humble.