Jack at 4 Months Old

Since I don't remember perfectly what was happening for Jack at 4 months, here's what I wrote for an Instagram post:

"Happy 4 months to this handsome boy! Jack drools like crazy, loves his hands and being cuddled, and does not love his binky or being stuck in his car seat. He rolls from front to back and has once gone from back to front (though the verdict is still out on whether or not Norah helped). He's still figuring out the sleeping thing, which I think is hard for him as he seems to go through a growth spurt every week. But sleep or no sleep, we love our chunky boy!"

I think I was trying to downplay just how bad "the sleeping thing" was going. It was bad. (And little did I know it would only get worse.) His naps were okay, but nighttime was the worst. He would cry and cry and only nursing would soothe him. Right about now he started refusing his binky, too. It's like he forgot how to suck on it. So, Rich and I would attempt to calm Jack down at midnight, 3 AM, 5 AM, and all other hours of the night because I didn't want to fall into the habit of nursing him every time he woke up (didn't last because I didn't know what else to do). He would often scream in our arms for up to an hour. I'm sure our neighbors hated us, but we weren't exactly enjoying life either.

I think the biggest part of the problem was that he couldn't cry it out. I am not the biggest fan of crying it out, but nothing else was working, especially when you consider that he cried whether we were holding him or not. But since the apartment was so small and Norah was waking up, too, and we actually were trying to be considerate of our neighbors, we just couldn't have the noise. This was one of the main reasons we needed to move, so Jack could have his own room where far fewer people would suffer from his crying.

Jack's 4 month stats

Weight: 16 lbs. 2 oz. (55%)

Length: 26.5 in. (90%)

Head circumference: 17 in. (70%)

I was pretty surprised by how far he had dropped in percentiles for weight - all the way down to 55%! I feel like Norah did a pretty similar drop at about this time, but she didn't start out quite so big so this seemed even more dramatic. And Jack still looked so chunky to me! The height was still pretty high, though. It won't last, little buddy.

 He kind of looks like a crazy person in the picture on the left.