Could you believe that a baby can support his own weight hanging for 12 seconds straight from his parent’s fingers?  Could you believe that a three month old would tell his parents when he needs a potty?  Could you believe that a three month old could submit an application to college?  I am just kidding about the last one, but these are the fun developmental activities that we’ve tried with our 3 months old baby and how they worked for us!

• Newborn – first month
• 1 month old miracle!
• 2 months old giraffe hunter
• Hang on there! Three months old hanging for 12 seconds!

Three Months

Materials that we are using

• “How Smart is Your Baby?” by Doman – see our book review.
• “What Babies Say Before They Can Talk : The Nine Signals Infants Use to Express Their Feelings” by Paul Holinger, Kalia Doner
• Newborn Baby Swimming
• Elimination Communication method
• The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley

What are we doing:

“How Smart is Your Baby”
Finally we decided to do an evaluation. This evaluation involved smiling at the baby, talking to him, what a wonderful evaluation! Apparently, our baby could see the fine details of the face, and was ready for the new step of visual and audio stimulation. Since creeping on hands and knees is still in the distant future, we decided to stick to the same balance exercises that we already were doing.

Motor Opportunity.
Balance Activities – we continue with all of them, as much as we can. These are still the same 15 exercises that usually include moving baby in different ways (from side to side, over the head, on the floor on the mat, rocking in the chair, etc.), and they are should be done just once a day.

Now our baby no longer refuses to “fly in my arms” while I hold him in my arms above my head. He finds it funny, especially when in the end I bring his face very close to mine. So now he actually likes all of the exercises, though occasionally, as we start doing exercises on the mat, he would roll off. And, sometimes, he would try to eat the mat – his desire to put everything into his mind seems to be overwhelming.

Sometimes, instead of rocking in a chair (or in addition to it – it depends on a day), we use a swing-set. Isn’t it the same thing? I rock on swings, with the baby on my laps (preferably in a carrier for additional safety). The amplitude of motion is even bigger, and he seems to enjoy it! By the end of the month, he even started grabbing the ropes at the sides as we swing – so cute! As if he is holding both of us!

Infant Crawling Track: an ingenious idea for helping babies learn how to crawl.
(I have more details on this track in Newborn – first month part our records)
This month, we were able to place our little one in this track up to 8 times a day! He finally doesn’t hate it. If he starts crying, I take him out immediately. His grunting now sounds like anybody grunting – no longer like crying, and occasionally he even crawling the entire track smiling! Usually he finishes an entire track and I put him right back for another round. I usually put a toy at the bottom of the track and he is crawling as hard as he can to be able to stick it into his mouth.

It was very funny to observe his crawling pattern: at first he was pushing himself forward only with his legs. Then he started to use his knees and elbows alternatively (cross pattern commando style crawling! Yey-yey!) This didn’t last long: he figured a much easier way to get down – he is raising his hands and feet into the air simultaneously, as if trying to fly, and rocking back and forth. Well, on the flat surface – it wouldn’t work. On the inclined – he starts slowly sliding down! Well, not exactly what we expected, but I think whatever experiments with movement he prefers – are beneficial. Even if it doesn’t correspond to the book’s recommendations – he still isn’t reading, so how does the baby know how he is supposed to use this thing?

By the end of the month he probably became too heavy for himself to push or slide. He’d get stuck and refuse to go further down. We barely could try a few times a day… until his 4 month birthday. He celebrated it by crawling in his track, laughing and smiling all along, and grabbing his toy dinosaur at the bottom all under a minute, 5 times that day! Wow! Somehow he figured out how to push himself and he is getting a lot better at it!

Manual Competence program: It used to be five thumbs up – now it’s all ten! Our baby can hang from my fingers, supporting 100% of his own weight… for 12 seconds! And he is getting bigger and bigger, so there is more and more weight… but, apparently, strength as well, since he is getting better and better every day.

Auditory Competence program. I absolutely love this one! At this stage we introduce many different sounds to the baby and identify it – bang on a pot with a spoon, listen to the running water, etc. Should be done 10 times a day. I think it’s a great idea. Things we’ve tried: banging on the pot with a metal spoon; scratching a pot; tapping on a plastic box of wipes; tapping two glass jars; tapping on metal lid for the jar (very hollow sound for some reason); banging two metal spoons together; wrinkling a plastic bag; turning on water; shaking maracas; playing harmonica; gently blowing a whistle; closing a plastic jar with a lid… I can’t even remember them all. Now I just took a xylophone and as we move from note to note every day, I try to name it. My older one is supplying the rest of the stimulation: he is in love with the xylophone and never misses a chance to bang it with all his might.

Tactile Competence program: we are still reinforcing Babinski reflex – for the same reason – why not? The new advances are the series of massages: a quick massage 5 times a day, each time alternating touch – rubbing, gently scratching, tickling. Yep, that one is fun, and I’ve read someplace else that 20 minutes of massage every day – improves IQ later in life! Besides, both of us enjoy it so much!

In addition to massaging with my hands, there should be an opposite texture massage 10 times a day. 10 times a day… doesn’t happen for us. But 5-7 we usually manage, if I find the time to get two textures for the day. We tried all sorts of materials, furs for the soft ones; Velcro, nail file, pumice, different plastics for the rough ones. Again, the baby doesn’t mind, I do it gently, describing him what I am doing all the time – yet another fun way to spend time together.

Visual Competence program: we finished doing the black silhouette cards; we rapidly went through the silhouette cards with bright details (three per day, since I wanted to get to the next set as soon as possible) and finally got to the most fun part – all senses stimulation. 10 initial fruits seemed like an odd selection, but we jumped right on board. I would pick a fruit, let the baby touch it (ok, clumsily lick it all over and drop it on the floor). Then – I would open a jar (I used old glass jar that I had left from baby food of my older one or regular plastic storage boxes) with cut fruit. I put exactly 10 pieces of fruit, so I didn’t need to keep track how many times we’ve seen it already. First – smell the jar. Then I would fish out a piece and put it on my baby’s tongue for a few seconds. Doman recommends using a Que tip, but I don’t like cotton balls in my baby’s mouth, so I put a fruit itself for a second. The danger is that the baby might figure a way to gum it in half and swallow it (i.e. choke on it). Didn’t happen to us – I was vigilantly watching his attempts to gnaw it apart and swiftly removed it at any signs of damage. Next – card with the picture of the fruit and a word. Fun and easy!

Language (regular conversations with the baby, leaving lengthy opportunities for him to respond; reading poems together and eventually skipping some words for the baby to fill in): this is one is still our most favorite recommendations in the book! Terrific – I make a pause and the baby uses this opportunity to babble so adorably!! May be other baby’s babble sounds similarly to my left out words, but ours’ are mostly “agu” variations. Yet, I love them all!!!

Swimming: that one sank at the moment. The baby is bigger, he is eager to walk from one side of the bathtub to another, and it gets increasingly more difficult to hold him, to keep him from turning and swallowing water. I noticed, that I am looking forward to excuses for skipping daily bath ritual, since it got so difficult. So we simplified it: still the big tub, still full of water, still baby’s head is resting in my palm and he is learning how to keep his balance in the water. But now it is more about fun: he is splashing (so wildly, that I am usually all wet in the end), and I am just praising him, occasionally moving around. We are still very slow in reducing the water temperature – either the baby is tired, or us, or the baby has a running nose, or we skipped quite a few days of swimming… or we find another excuse to keep the water nice and warm.

Sleeping: well… some days he is sleeping 5-6 hours straight! Some days – just 3. That’s chaotic, unpredictable, and… making us very sleepy. I noticed that I am getting more and more irritable during the day, so I am paying more attention to our sleeping routines.

Well… the days we tried to write down his daily sleeping/napping schedule, our little one decided to keep us on our tiptoes – those days he had the most unlikely schedules ever. Very confusing.

We have many issues: falling asleep – usually during nursing; napping – usually either catnaps for 15-30 minutes, or long stretch for 3-4 hours. Neither is good, so we need to work more on it.

By the end of the month we finally figured out a nightly sleeping routine – scheduling both kids’ nighttime routines seems pretty difficult, so I need to wait for my husband to come home first, so “early bedtime” is an unaffordable luxury for us. Yet, slowly, even later routine (around 8pm) seems to be working better and better. So we started seeing more 4-5 hour stretches during the night and we hope we’ll see some results in a daily napping as well. I’ve got to admit, that “No Cry to Sleep” book by Elizabeth Pantley is worth reading just for establishing good sleeping practices, even if the parents don’t have any problems with their baby’s sleep… yet.

Elimination Communication:
Another wow. We still go through lots of diapers, and every day is different, but we usually very successful catching something right after the baby wakes up, after he eats, and whenever the baby complains! Sometimes the baby starts fussing and a trip to the potty solves a problem! Sometimes he stays very calm and quite… and then accidents happen. Yet, I am surprised myself how well it’s working.

Funny thing is, that during playdates in somebody else’s house, I am responding to my baby’s clues better, then at home! Surprisingly, we usually come home wearing the same diaper, and we have an accident right after coming home.

This month I’ve tried the Thristies cloth diaper cover. Pretty good! I am yet to see if cloth diaper improves my son’s responses.

Results

: what a fun baby!!!

… to be continued.

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Related posts:

Baby Developing Games – 6-9 months

Baby Developing Games – 3-6 months

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