Grayson Allen: 4 Months

I can’t believe Grayson is four months old already! For awhile, when he was a newborn, it seemed like time was going by soooooooo slow. I was completely exhausted and running on fumes. Now, it seems like time is going by too quickly! Literally, sometimes he wakes up in the morning and seems like a totally different kid. Instead of waking up crying, he wakes up chatting and laughing until I go into the nursery and get him. He still has a fussy hour in the evenings, but overall he is such a happy baby and I can’t even believe how much I love him.

Last month was our best month yet, I think. Grayson gained a lot of head control and we started seeing more of his personality shine through. In short, he became less like a baby and more like a little boy! I can already tell he is going to be pretty stubborn like me and nonstop on the go like Adam. He has started to become super curious about everything and wants to grab every little thing near him (including my hair…all the time. Ouch).

We follow the Wonder Weeks pretty closely and so far, they have been SPOT ON for us. If you don’t have the iphone app, you should download it! Well, it said to be prepared for a big leap around week 17 and yep, they were right. For the first few days after his four month birthday, Grayson was sooooo fussy. He wanted to be held all day long and the instant I put him down, he would start to cry. But then when I would pick him back up he would smile and laugh. Funny, indeed. That only lasted a few days though and now he’s back to normal. The Wonder Weeks says that when they are really fussy it’s because they are trying to master new skills…and wouldn’t you know that after he resurfaced from those few fussy days he immediately started to grab his toes and do happy baby pose whenever possible? So cute.

We joined MOPS this month and also started going to a Waldorf class for babies in San Francisco, which has been really fun! I am starting a bible study with a few other new moms one night a week and it feels great to get back in the world a little bit. Grayson is SUCH a little chatterbox these days and we love it. All day long he’s cooing and squealing. It’s pretty much the cutest noise I’ve ever heard. Oh, and yes, he is currently losing all of his hair!! He has all this platinum blond peach fuzz where the old man hair used to be on one side. Hah.

He’s currently wearing size 6-12 month clothes and weighs a whopping 20 lbs! It’s those thighs, man, they are s-t-u-r-d-y. I think he fit in his bumbo seat for, like, a week before he got stuck in it and I had to pry him out with my foot. I’ve started another post on a cloth diapering update so that should be up shortly.

Sleep has been going really well, actually! I finally feel like a person again. We do the Moms on Call method and Grayson started sleeping through the night at around 15 weeks. When I say “sleep through the night” I mean I stopped feeding him at 3am. Now, I know that might not be for everyone but I knew it was in all of our best interests to do this. First of all, I knew he was ready to drop that feeding and sleep through the night because at 3am he would only drink a few ounces then fall right back to sleep — his waking seemed to be mainly habit. I talked to our pediatrician about this and she agreed. He had also doubled his birth weight at this time. I fully expected him to cry the first night I didn’t go in there at 3am but he never did. He just woke up, sucked his thumb for about 15 minutes then fell back asleep. So, I started putting him down in the crib at 7:15 and getting him the next morning at 7am, except for a quick 10pm “dream feed” where he doesn’t wake up at all. I just lift him out of the crib, nurse him on one side and put him back down.

Some sleep tips that really worked with our family (again, might not be for everyone!)**:

–we always, always, always put Grayson in his crib to sleep in an awake state. I never have rocked him to sleep, shooshed him to sleep or done anything like that, even as a newborn. From the time we crib trained at 7 weeks, I always just set him in the crib at nap time and bed time and left the room. Yep, I left the room and closed the door behind me. Call me heartless, but it’s true. I wanted him to get the idea that crib = sleep.  I would let him cry for 4-5 minutes before going in and putting a reassuring hand on his belly to let him know I was still here. I would keep doing that until he fell asleep. It never took long and by the time he was two and a half months old, he was putting himself to sleep within a few minutes of being in the crib – no crying at all.

-I got rid of all pacifiers when he was 16 weeks old. He had a bad habit in the middle of the night of spitting out the paci then fussing. This would lead to a very exhausting cycle of me getting up, sometimes even six times a night, to replace the paci so he could go back to sleep. One morning, after a particularly exhausting night I said that was it. No more pacis in this house. And guess what? That was the night that Grayson found his thumb. Now when he wakes up in the middle of the night he just sucks his thumb and goes back to sleep.

– Three words: Merlin Magic Sleepsuit. The day I put Grayson in the suit his naps went from being 30 minutes to two hours long. No lie. He slept through the night a few days later. The thing truly is magic!

Now I know we are entering the land of the four month sleep regression so my days of good sleep might be out the window for a few weeks. We’ll see. I’ll keep you all updated!

**I’m not looking for a sleep training debate or criticism of any one method in the comments. We do what works for us as should you. We love Moms on Call! I’m merely sharing our experience and what worked for us. Everyone parents differently and that is totally fine!

Things we are looking forward to this month include a little family trip to Yosemite, my mom coming out to visit for a week (yay, date nights!) and starting some solids – and, yes, we have our pediatrician’s blessing to start Grayson on solids this early and yes, I also know that a lot of people wait until six months of age. Adam and I have started to (slowly) take date nights again, which has been awesome. I’m not ready to let anyone do our nighttime routine yet but we have a sitter that comes after I give him his bottle and put him in the crib. It’s tough to pay someone to essentially just sit on our couch and watch TV for three hours but hey, it’s an investment in the marriage bank.

I love him more with every that passes, if that’s even possible. We are so looking forward to his first holiday season this year — I can’t even believe that he’ll be seven months old at Christmas. Where are the days going?!?