diff --git a/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/utils.py b/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/utils.py
index be834e98d..5371b3ff3 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/utils.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/monkeypatch/utils.py
@@ -225,6 +225,9 @@ def mask_2d_to_4d(
     when they attend to each other within that sequence.
     This expansion transforms the mask to lower triangular form to prevent future peeking.
     """
+
+    if len(mask.size()) == 4:
+        return mask
     bsz, src_len = int(mask.size()[0]), int(mask.size()[1])
     tgt_len = tgt_len if tgt_len is not None else src_len