Dreaded Sleep Regression

I'll start with the good news: William started rolling over yesterday!!! He rolled back to front. He was playing under his activity gym and was rolling from side to side. All of a sudden I had this need to watch him, a weird instinct that he was going to roll. And sure enough, he swung his leg over and threw his shoulders over and rolled over! I was so excited, because rolling back to front is the harder of the two rolls and he hasn't done front to back yet. I thought that maybe it was a fluke, but this morning he rolled and rolled and rolled! I kept putting him on his back and he kept rolling over. It's kind of funny because he still hates being on his tummy and hasn't rolled front to back yet, so as soon as he rolls and realizes he's on his tummy he gets mad. Time to learn to like it or to roll the other way, buddy! haha :)

Now the bad news (for Jason's and my sleep): the 3/4 month sleep regression has hit. HARD. Just like it did with Nolan, at the same age (3.5 months). Liam went from being an awesome sleeper to waking up way earlier than normal at night, usually midnight. We try to get him to go back to sleep with the pacifier, but it only works for 10 minutes or so and then he needs it again. He just can't get into a deep enough sleep. That pattern is repeated until I give in and nurse. I don't think he's going through a growth spurt, and I don't want to make a habit of adding an extra nursing session every night, which is what I've given in to and what I gave in to with Nolan. With Nolan I thought it was a growth spurt, so I nursed him, but it just created a habit of nursing 2-3 times per night when he had been down to once per night as well. The sleep books say that this is the age when the babies transition from baby REM cycles to adult REM cycles (every 3-4 hours) and if they don't know how to go back to sleep on their own, they'll need our help to put them to sleep in-between each REM cycle. So it sounds like we might have to do a little sleep training soon. Our pediatrician gives the go ahead for sleep training at 4 months, so sometime in January we'll probably have to do that. Unless for some miraculous reason William goes back to being an awesome sleeper (but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed).

Here are William's 3 month pictures (finally!!) They're pretty amateur (Jay and I took them), so don't judge them too much. We had a wild Nolan running around trying to get in the picture or take the backdrop down.