4 Months Old

Sweet Nathan, life with you gets more fun every day, and your 4th month has certainly been full of wonderfully fun moments.

When I said last month that you were smiling all the time, I have no idea what I was talking about because you smile a million times more now that you are older. We used to have to coax you to smile with a toy or crazy faces. Now just seeing us smile (or anyone else) will fill your face with a huge grin. Sometimes just seeing our faces or hearing our voices will merit a sly little smile. We've also entered laughing territory. You laugh at your Grandaddy's silly faces, and your teachers at school told me about you laughing at them when I picked you up last week. We get laughs some too, but not all the time like your smiles are. You are just an easy going happy baby. If your belly is full and you are not sleepy, you hardly cry.

You are on a pretty consistent schedule eating about every 3 hours during the day. Depending on the day and what we have going on sometimes you eat a little more often. We had some sleeping issues this month and as of now, you are no longer sleeping through the night. You hit your three month growth spurt and afterward never made it back to sleeping all night. We also have been working on moving you to your own room, and we’ve entered the world of teething and have left the world of swaddling. So I’m thinking the combination of all those things have led to you wanting to be with Mommy in the middle of the night. You usually go down about 10:00, wake up to eat between 3:30 and 4:30 and then are up for the day at about 7:00. You’ve been consistently eating 6-7 times during the day and usually once in the middle of the night.
You still nap after every feeding and still are sleeping about 30-45 minutes per nap. Sometimes we’ll get a longer nap out of you , 1.5-2 hours, but that’s not happening consistently. I laugh when I see your paper from school that talks about your day and I see that you only slept for 30 minute stretches there too. I tried to cut out one of your naps this month in order to see if that would increase the length of your other naps, but you weren’t having it. You are apparently a baby who needs several cat naps instead of 2-3 long naps.

You are learning to make new sounds all the time. Your newest sound is sort of like a growl. We laugh at you when you practice it. It’s fun to watch you learn to do new things. You coo and babble all the time. We love hearing you talk to us. Daddy swore you said “dadie” this month, but Mommy is convinced your first word will be momma.

You made another long car trip to Iowa this month to visit your Auntie Anna, Uncle Jeremy, and cousin Amelia. You had fun spending time with them, and your auntie is convinced you are going to be a sweet little role model to your cousin. It seems you’ve taught her new things already including holding her ears, and sucking on her arm. Once again, you were an angel in the car, only fussing when it was time to eat, or you needed a diaper change.

We had to stop swaddling you this month. One night I swaddled you and put you to bed. A few minutes later, I heard you fussing and went to check on you, and you were on your tummy still swaddled. So for safety reasons, all your swaddling blankets are washed and put away. Mommy was sad that we can no longer swaddle you. It’s just another sign of how quickly you are growing up. It will be a long time before we have swaddling blankets in our house again.

You are still a little bitty guy. You are wearing 0-3 month and 3 month clothes. I’ve put you in a few 3-6 month onesies and outfits but they are still a little big for you. We’re still in size one diapers and not sure when you’ll be ready for size twos.

You got two new friends this month. We are so excited for you to meet baby Carter and baby Wyatt! We hope you will be great friends. You’ll get to meet both of them next month, and Mommy and Daddy are really looking forward to meeting your new friends and seeing their parents too.

You started school this month and are thriving. You are always happy when I pick you up and I never get a bad report from the teachers. They always say you are happy and sweet. Mommy misses having you with me all the time, but I’ve been able to get a lot accomplished while you are at school, so I can spend more quality time with you when we are together.

Your hand eye coordination is improving daily. You grasp at things and are able to pull them to your mouth. Everything goes into your mouth these days. Sometimes you are a little off and end up with your hand in your mouth instead of your paci or your toy, but it’s cute to watch your motor skills improving. You like to grab onto our fingers and pull them to your mouth and chew on them. Since you've started teething, we’ve noticed more chewing and biting on our hands and your toys and pacifiers. You haven’t cut any teeth yet, but you have two little white bumps on your bottom gum.Your newest trick this month is standing up. We help you into a sitting position, and you hold on to our fingers and you pull yourself up to a standing position all by yourself. You blow me away with your leg strength. You are such a strong little guy.

You still haven’t quite mastered rolling over from your back to your tummy. You seem to have plenty of leg strength and abdominal strength, but struggle a little bit with your upper body. Your little arm seems to get in the way. We’ve often seen you roll over almost all the way, and you end up lying on your arm so you flip back to your back. Apparently when you are swaddled your arm doesn’t get in the way because you rolled all the way over in your swaddling blanket.

When you start to get upset, you stick your little bottom lip out and give us the most terrible face. You can be pretty dramatic at times.

We’ve noticed lately that you seem more interested in Rhapsody. You’ll stare at her and watch her a lot. She’s also more interested in you and will come up and sniff you and sometimes lick your nose. She’s also pretty interested in some of your toys, so we have to be careful not to leave them on the floor. Thankfully you aren’t interested in any of her toys yet. Let’s keep it that way :).

You like to try and stick your entire fist into your mouth, and actually you can almost get the whole thing in there. It’s funny to watch you try and even funnier when you try and talk with it in your mouth. You sure know how to keep us laughing these days.


I’m convinced that you are just the sweetest baby boy in the whole world. Some of the most precious moments in my life come from rocking you at night. We turn on your lullabies, turn down the lights and just stare at each other, and I thank God for bringing you to our family.