quatrieme moisniversaire

Mon petit Benjamin,

As I start this post you are asleep in your crib swaddled without your pacifier. This is your morning nap, and so far you've been asleep for over an hour. This is a triumph after 10 days of 20- to 40-minute naps. I'm not sure what has changed, but it might be that I've started swaddling you for naps again and that helps you sleep longer. [Addendum: A day or so after I started to write this post we stopped swaddling you because you began to scream bloody murder when you couldn't move your limbs.]

This month has been a month of changed routines. During months 2 and 3, we had a pretty steady routine, but you started to change it and the transition has been tough on your maman. You used to wake between 4:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. for a pre-breakfast feed and then sleep again until at least 9 a.m. Now you are sleeping through the night (meaning about 6 hours without waking), which is mostly great except that you now get up earlier in the morning and your maman is not a morning person. (Guess that is going to change!)

You have a bottle with your papa around midnight (sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later) and then you sleep until about 7 a.m. The first few nights you "slept through," you woke around 8 a.m., but then we changed back to standard time and so you've been waking around 7 a.m. But today you got me up at 6:40 a.m.!!

These changes, unfortunately, have had a negative side effect (or so I believe): your maman's milk supply has gotten screwed up so that in the afternoon I don't have enough milk for you, and you pull (and sometimes twist -- ouch!) and then scream and scream until I get a bottle into your mouth.

After consulting a lactation specialist I am now taking 9 fenugreek and 9 blessed thistle caplets (they should be called horse pills!) a day. The side effect of this herbal remedy: I smell like maple syrup! Will this scent make pancakes and syrup a comfort food for you when you are older? [One week later: the horse pills have worked, but now, after your first two meals of the day, you have taken to feeding for 3 to 5 minutes and then refusing the breast, acting like I am trying to poison you. This means, of course, that when you cry when we put you in your crib at bedtime, we wonder if you are hungry, and I often end up feeding you. This sometimes leads to your falling asleep on the breast, which is NOT what we want -- you need to fall asleep in your bed, and feeding to sleep will only become a crutch to help you sleep.]


You've had some real triumphs this month. You can now turn onto your stomach. This doesn't always come easily, but you are persistent and once you are on your tummy you seem quite happy -- for a while. (Movie coming soon!) After looking around and playing some you've now started to try to turn back onto your back, but though you've done this several times since you were 17 days old, you can't quite do it when you really want to, which you find very very frustrating. You stick your bottom in the air so that sometimes we wonder if in fact you are trying to crawl -- of course, you don't have the necessary upper body strength to crawl yet.

On the day of your fourth moisniversaire you flipped onto your tummy in your crib and took your first nap on your tummy. You seem to be really comfortable that way, which is great, except that it freaks me out that you are sleeping on your belly when you can't turn onto your back. There is a huge campagne right now called "Back to Sleep" to prevent SIDS. Since pediatricians started to tell parents to put babies on their backs to sleep (instead of their bellies which was the norm in the 70s and 80s) the rate of SIDS has fallen dramatically in the United States. Of course, once you can turn yourself onto your tummy, there isn't much we can do, and in fact, once you do it on your own, it isn't considered dangerous anymore.

You've been making all sorts of sounds for the last couple of months. Your latest favorite is "mmmm." You close your lips tightly and pull them in over your gums so that your mouth becomes a line and you open your eyes big as you say "mmmm" enthusiastically. We can have whole conversations saying "mmmm." You still make the throaty "a" or "areu" sound your papa loves so much. Actually, within days of your moisniversaire you've become very chatty, making all sorts of noises with your throat and tongue. We were grocery shopping at Giant the other day, and you babbled (sometimes loudly) almost the whole time. There are times when I could swear you've repeated words I've said to you, like "minou." It's probably just my ears tricking me into believing you repeated what I've modeled for you because you certainly don't make the same noise more than once.

What do you like most these days? My guess is sitting up. You can't sit by yourself yet, but you love it when we hold you in the sitting position, and when you are in your swing or in the bath, you try to sit up. On some days you really don't want to sit back and relax in the tub, you just want to lean forward (and chew on the side of the tub or your papa...). Actually, in the bath on Friday night you managed to sit unsupported (except, perhaps, by the seat in the tub)!

A close second is putting things in your mouth. You've gotten very good at smoothly picking up a ring or toy and putting it into your mouth. At first you would take a teething ring with two hands and while you stared at it intently you brought it up to your nose and then lowered it to your mouth. These days, however, you seem able to put things in your mouth without much concentration.

Your papa has been very proud of you this last week because you can now feed yourself at night. Yes, once he's placed the bottle in your little hands and added a support underneath, you can hold it in place while you drink. In fact, it looks like you really want to hold it because it's hard to get it out of your hands!


A few days after your moisniversaire you had your 4 month well-baby check-up. You were very happy and excited at the pediatricians, looking everywhere and smiling at everyone. While your parents asked the pediatrician a bunch of questions, you played with your father and made all sorts of noises. It was heartbreaking when the nurse gave you your 4 vaccine shots in your legs. You went from joyful to wailing so hard that you stopped breathing for a few seconds. The next thirty hours were tough on you since the vaccines gave you a slightly high temperature. Thank goodness for infant Tylenol!

Your stats at 4 months: 26 inches long (still in the 90th percentile!), 14 pounds and 6 ounces (still 50th percentile -- you gained almost 3 pounds in two months, much to your maman's relief), and you have a head circumference of 16 inches (also 50th percentile).

Finally, your bald strip is beginning to go away as new hair grows in. And guess what? It seems to be blond!!

Bisous,
-maman