Molly - 4 months

Molly is 4 months old!  She's closer to 4 1/2 months now, I'm running a little behind with the post :)

This month has brought tons of development.  4 months is a big milestone where babies are experiencing a lot of physical and mental development.  Sometimes it's referred to as the 4 month wakeful period or 4 month sleep regression or Wonder Week 19.  What this all boils down to is lots of development = lost sleep, fussy baby, and just a general rough patch while their world is turned upside down and they're trying to adjust to their new normal.

4 month grumpy face.  Appropriate summary shot for the month.

We had a somewhat rough couple of weeks this month, but we got off very, very easy during this period.  Basically for 2 weeks or so Molly was a little more discontent than her usual self.  She wanted to be held a lot, needed to be entertained more than usual, naps were shorter and more infrequent, and getting her to sleep was often a chore.  With that said, she still slept enough during the day that she wasn't totally exhausted and overtired and nighttime sleep wasn't affected.  Niiiice!

Jack likes Molly to lay in his bed.  He covers them both up  with his blankets.  Molly thinks it's fun too!

Last weekend I noticed that everything turned a corner and last week was much, much improved with her sleep schedule.  Suddenly Molly is much more content again, naps are more regular and are lasting longer than they ever have, and most of the time she just wants me to lay her down so that she can go to sleep on her own (silly baby!).

Toes.  She usually has either toes in hand or her hand in her mouth.

So, with all this development comes new tricks.  Molly can roll over now (big stuff!) from tummy to back and she's definitely found her voice (and enjoys testing it out at different volumes) and is babbling lots of new sounds.  Also, towards the beginning of the month she started reliably reaching out to grab things and putting them directly in her mouth.  Now, everything goes right into her mouth.  Including her toes!

Toes!

It's so funny because now that she has discovered her toes, any time you take her diaper off she immediately flips her feet right up near her head (I assume without the diaper in the way she finds it much easier to reach her feet) and starts grabbing for her feet and trying to get them in her mouth.

She's doing great big belly laughs now, which I just adore.  She thinks anything Jack does is the funniest thing ever.  Jack is still really great with her overall.

She loves playing with toys now.  She likes her play mat and enjoys those little toys that kind of hang down and when you pull on them they stretch out and then vibrate on the way back up.

We tried the Jumperoo for the first time a couple of weeks ago and she LOVES it!  She took right to it, bouncing and everything.  So surprising to me to see that she's old enough to enjoy that.  Isn't she just a little bitty baby?!  Her favorite toy seems to be those inexpensive teether chain links.  She loves to chew on them and shake them.  When I'm in the kitchen I usually set her up in her bouncer seat with those links attached and she likes to sit and watch what's going on play with them.

Molly is sleeping roughly 12 hours at night.  She goes to sleep during the 7 o'clock hour (usually between 7-7.30pm) and wakes about 7am.  Glorious, glorious sleep.  After she wakes she typically takes a bottle (~8oz) and then goes back to sleep for a little bit.  Waking by 9am.  She's down for a nap roughly 2 hours later around 11am and sleeps for an hour or so.  She naps again around 2pm and usually sleeps for about and hour and a half.  Then she usually takes a cat nap during the 5 o'clock hour.  Sometimes she skips this, especially if her afternoon nap is extra long, but if she does sleep it's usually not longer than 30 minutes unless she's extra tired that day.  She's still great about napping on the go in the wrap, which is so convenient.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll continue with this, but I know it might not last much longer!

During the day she eats 4-5oz at a time, usually every 2ish hours.

I hate using the term "easy baby" because it's never entirely easy caring for a baby and it also implies that there are "difficult", or "hard" babies.  But Molly would definitely be considered an easy baby.  We have been very lucky.  She's just so content and happy all the time.  I mentioned above that she even prefers to go to sleep on her own.  I honestly would prefer to rock her to sleep, I love rocking babies, but the little stinker will only tolerate it for a short time then she starts squirming and wants me to put her down!  I lay her down and off to sleep she goes!  Craziness.

I have to keep reminding myself that we have been very lucky with babies who are easy on us (Jack wasn't quite as easy to care for as Molly, but he was certainly average to easy and I have nothing much to complain about!) and healthy because if I knew subsequent children would be similar I would just have about 10 more of them!  In reality, I would love to just pause Molly at this stage for a little bit.  She's so happy and starting to interact more.  I just love baby squish!

Molly's 4 month stats (her well visit was actually at 4 1/2 months):


Length: 23.5 inches (25th percentile)

Weight: 15lbs 3oz (75th percentile)

Head Circumference: 17in (95th percentile! Which is so strange that she supposedly has such a large head because she doesn't at all seem disproportionate! What size head should a baby have?! Jack supposedly had a larger head too. He was always 90-95th percentile.  Maybe that's just what I'm used to ;) )