My baby had been sleeping in the Pack-N-Play bassinet in our bedroom since she was born. When she hit 4 months old, I figured it was time to let her use the nice crib in her own room. As with most new parents, the idea of having her so far away from me at night (meaning the next room over) terrified me since I was still paranoid about listening to make sure she was breathing. I did have an audio monitor, but you can’t use that for breathing, so that wasn’t reassuring. Plus, my daughter’s cry is LOUD, so I didn’t even need the monitor. You can honestly hear her cry if you’re in the shower, with the bathroom door closed, and she’s in a room all the way down the hall with her door closed. On the first night that I tried to put her in her crib at night by herself, I had first prepared myself by reading some tips online from people to make it work. A lot of people suggested the timed “cry it out” method, where you go in every 5, 10, 15 minutes to reassure the baby that you didn’t abandon them. This is a sleep-training method invented by Dr. Ferber. Well, we tried it. As with Colic, breastfeeding, and teething, it broke my heart hearing her scream, and we both were in tears. BUT, I have to say, she did fall asleep at the 20-minute interval. (So that was a total of 50 minutes.) We continued to use this method the next day for naps. On the 2nd night for bedtime she fell asleep at the 15 minute interval. By the 5th day she was asleep at the 10 minute interval and that was good enough for me. Two weeks later she barely cried for 2 minutes and then she’d fall asleep. We did use the pacifier so every now and then I’d have to run in her room to put it back in her mouth, but I could deal with that. I know that a lot of people don’t agree with the cry it out (CIO) method, but it was the right choice for me- at least the progressive time one. I would never let her cry more than 20 minutes straight.

A fun development that happened at 4 months was she started to blow “raspberries.” I was hoping that she’d do it because I know that not all babies do every particular milestone. I mean I was already getting comments from my mom on how her friends’ grandchildren were rolling over already, and shouldn’t my daughter? No she wasn’t rolling yet. Who cares! I don’t know what’s more annoying: getting unsolicited baby advice from people when you’re pregnant -OR- getting comments from people comparing your baby to other babies. I tried to tune people out when they made the comparison comments, since they were usually said in a negative, concerning matter, and who asked them anyway. As the books say, every baby is different. My baby wasn’t rolling yet, but she was making raspberries. Plus, she showed preferences for certain modern rock songs that I liked. So there. :)  Her favorite that month seemed to be Radiohead. She would quiet down during “No Surprises” or “Fake Plastic Trees.” During the day when she would hear more upbeat music, she would start to rock herself in her bouncy seat, especially when my husband would play guitar for her. I don’t mean she’d gently rock herself in her chair. Instead, she looked like she was trying to win a rocking race, and she’d kick her legs like crazy with this super serious look on her face like it was her JOB to move like that when the music was playing. We have it on video and it’s pretty funny.

As for her size, she was still huge- 95th percentile in height & weight at 17.5 lbs and 25.75 inches. But I loved every chubby inch of her. Actually she didn’t really look chubby; she just weighed a lot. Oh, and this was another thing that dear ole’ mom had to get her say in about. “Should she be this big? Maybe you’re feeding her too much.”  Okay, first she didn’t like me breastfeeding because she thought I wasn’t feeding her enough since she couldn’t measure how much milk the baby got; and now she doesn’t like me breastfeeding because she thinks I’m feeding her too much. Ah, mothers. Oh wait, I’m one now. I mean, ah…mothers from a different generation who don’t want to get up on the times.