I too read that by 4 months the baby should be able to fall asleep through the night so when my son wasn't, guess what I felt. I felt like 1) I was doing something wrong and 2) there's something wrong with my son. In reality, it's neither. My son was also the kind of baby that had to be rocked furiously to sleep and if I didn't, he didn't sleep. I had to hold him to nap for longer than 30 minutes at a time. But guess what, he's just fine now at 15 1/2 months. I take him to our bed, lie down with him and he falls asleep after 10-20 minutes. No need for furious rocking like I used to have to do.

Babies come in all sizes, shapes, and temperament. We don't expect adults to fit a mold, so why do we expect this of babies?

Where does this magical 4 month number come from? Babies that young still have tangible and reasonable NEEDs for parent contact and comfort and there is NO RESEARCH that suggests that by comforting a 4 month old baby to sleep that you are giving them sleep crutches. I know that a lot of this type of sleep falacy is out there, but please........don't give advice like this without supporting facts and research. There are babies who won't sleep through the night for year, and if a parent were to read this, they might think something is wrong with their child or worse, they might just leave their child alone at night and something might actually be wrong, or the child might have a legitimate need. This whole issue of a child needing sleep throught the night so young is just so damaging.  Expecting a 4 month old to be "trained" to fall asleep on their own is really really really abnormally high expectations.