Schedule changes and a full night's sleep

Let's start out with a big Happy Quarter Birthday to the little one! She is officially 3 months old today. At times it seems like she was just born yesterday, and at others it seems like the little turnip has always been there. In any case, it's been a wonderful three months with our beautiful little girl.

Things continue to progress well at the Bilek household. The biggest news lately has been the change of schedule we're working on. I know, very exciting, right? But for a three-month old it definitely is. Our old schedule used to look something like this:

6-6:30am: Eat
6:30-7:30am: Play
7:30am-8:30am: Sleep
Repeat at 8:30am, 11:00am, 1:30pm, 4:00pm, 6:30pm, 9:00pm and 11:30pm

A little tedious, I know, but it worked incredibly well from the time she was about 3-4 weeks old, with Lauren waking up about 5 minutes before feeding time on her own. Lately it hasn't been working as well, though. Lauren wouldn't nap during some times of the day and would sleep for 2 hours at others. So, it appeared it was time for a schedule change. So now, our schedule looks like this:

6:00-6:30am: Eat
6:30am-9:00am: Play/Sleep (we're still figuring this one out. Sometimes she likes to sleep the entire time, others she'll play and then sleep)
9:00-9:30am: Eat
9:30-11:00am: Play
11:00-12:00pm: Sleep
12:00-12:30pm: Eat
12:30-3:00pm: Sleep
3:00-3:30pm: Eat
3:30-5:00pm: Play
5:00-6:00pm: Sleep
6:00-6:30pm: Eat
6:30-9:00: Play/Bath (we've given up on napping this time of day; it doesn't work and it makes her angry if we try)
9:00-9:30: Eat
9:30: Bedtime

That's right, we've eliminated the 11:30 feeding meaning that she's now sleeping 8 hours at night. Yes, you read correctly 8 HOURS!!! In our original schedule Lauren had been eating at 9pm and would typically pass right out. Then we'd have to work really hard to wake her up to eat at 11:30. But, we were scared that if we didn't have her eat at 11:30 she'd wake up at 2 or 3am, which isn't fun when you get up for work at 5am. So, while Grandma had her the other night she tried it. And Lauren slept from 9:30pm until 5:30am. Not too shabby. We did it again last night, and it worked for us, too, proving that it's not just a fluke that only works at Grandma's house. I'm crossing my fingers that this pattern will last.

We're getting into the thick of the holiday celebrations, so stay tuned for some Christmas pictures.