We have a roller and sleeper!

YAY! This past Wednesday, Natalie started rolling from her back to her tummy. She rolled from her tummy to her back around 2.5 months. We were starting to wonder if she was going to get around to rolling the other way but now she has! She still doesn't like to stay on her tummy very long -- just long enough to get the toy she's reaching for and then she rolls back. We're excited to watch her become more mobile.

Here are some videos of me trying to get her to roll and one of her rolling toward the toy Emile is holding out for her.

We decided to start sleep training Natalie this past week. She just hasn't been getting good naps in since moving her to the crib instead of the swing. We decided she wasn't going to learn to nap in her crib until she learned to go to sleep without nursing - including at night. So on Tuesday night, we decided to move around her bedtime routine to bath, massage/lotion, nursing, books and lullabies. Then we followed suggestions in the Sleep Easy Solution book (which involves checking on her at intervals if she starts crying). Natalie did exceptionally well! She usually wakes up about an hour after going to sleep -- she didn't! She also had been still getting up twice a night (usually around 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.) at which point I'd nurse her back to sleep. I didn't think she really needed to eat at these times given her age and weight but instead was getting up out of habit. On Tuesday night, she woke up at 1:30 a.m. but on retrospect, I think she might have went back to sleep -- I jumped the gun though and out of habit and being groggy, went up and nursed her back to sleep. She didn't get up again until her normal wake-up time of 7 a.m.! Every night since then she's not gotten up to nurse at all!! I thought she'd eventually drop these feedings once she learned to self-soothe but I didn't think it would happen in one night. She's now sleeping through the night! Last night she slept 12 hours! I'm so relieved!

And her naps are getting better too! Today for instance, she didn't cry at all when we put her in her crib for her naps -- before it was always such a struggle to get her to take a nap, and sometimes she'd fight it so much that she'd not get all her naps in. She always seemed so tired since being moved from the swing. Now, she has so much energy -- she's started talking a lot again (she hadn't been babbling as much lately) and the day after we started her sleep training was when she rolled from her back to her tummy. We definitely feel we made the right decision for Natalie but at the same time, we think everything we were trying up to this point was helpful (e.g. rocking her back to sleep when she'd wake after 1 hour at night instead of nursing, giving her 10 min to try self-soothing when she'd wake after putting her in the crib asleep if she woke up). YAY Natalie!

We also stopped using her swaddle last night now that I got her a bunch of flannel footed sleepers. She had only been sleeping in a swaddle with arms out (and in a cotton sleeper) so I didn't think she really needed it anymore but it helped keep her warm since we won't put blankets in her crib. She did great without the swaddle -- no complaints from her!

Here are some photos of her playing:

We also moved her to a duck tub! She was getting too big for the infant tub and is now splashing around so much that it will be less messy if we start bathing her in the adult tub (in the duck tub). We tried putting her in the duck in the adult tub on Friday for the first time but she wasn't happy with so much change at once so for right now, we're bathing her in the duck on the counter still. She loves her new bathtub!

Natalie also tried avocados today -- she loved them!