
Monkey’s almost 4 months old & we had about twenty minutes yesterday that were unlike any of the other days in Monkey’s life.
When he’s awake he gets my undivided attention. I don’t get on the computer. I don’t talk on my phone. I’m totally in the moment with him & we both seem to love it.
He smiles & I smile. We “talk” to each other. Look in the mirror. Play with blocks. Sing. Read books & many other things. He is always a happy little guy. And that’s not an exaggeration either.
But yesterday was a different story.
He was a little crankypants & I didn’t know what I was doing wrong, if anything. Maybe he was just having an “off” day. I’m sure babies have those kinds of days too.
So I did what any other new mom would do – I took Mr. Crankypants shopping. Of course he was an angel while we were out & about. When we got home I saw that my Ergo baby carrier had come in & I was eager to try it out.
I put Crankypants in the Ergo & as soon as I opened the front door the screaming started. Now, you have to remember that my child, while not perfect, does not scream. Like ever. I was convinced that his screaming would come to a stop when we walked to the neighbors to hand deliver Halloween candy so that I do not get fat just eating it.
I was wrong.
The screaming increased… to the point of a lady walking her dog looking at me & saying something. I had to yell, “What?” from across the street because my child was screaming that loudly. She said that she remembered those days. I wanted to tell her, “Oh no, you don’t understand… he’s never like this”, but I just took her sympathy & walked to the neighbor’s front door.
We came home & the screaming continued. At this point I just knew that I had inflicted some sort of pain on my child by placing him in the carrier. I’m not a rock scientist, but I get how the Ergo works & I’m pretty sure that I did it correctly. I took the carrier off though because I knew that would calm him down.
But again, I was wrong.
I tried everything & nothing worked. Finally after maybe 15 minutes of him crying & shaking from crying so much, he stopped, looked at me & smiled from ear to ear. While I smiled right back, so thankful that the screaming stopped, I really wanted to say, “What the eff was that, little dude?”
& there hasn’t been one scream since. Thank you God.
PS – While he was screaming, I did change his diaper, try to feed him, hold him, distract him with toys, tv, anything that I could find. I burped him. Nothing helped. Nothing.
You might also want to read:
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- Oh. My. Gosh. – Lunching with a screaming child makes me want to pull my hair out
- Is there a 12 month old sleep regression? Is Monkey just teething? What the &*#* is going on?!
- “Baby Mine” song + Monkey = Tears & Happy Thoughts




Early teething or gas perhaps? It was mentioned above. I used to take my little guys feet and knees and lay him on my lap and rotate his knees in a circular motion into his tummy by holding his ankles to massage his tummy and put light pressure on it when he got gassy.
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