We consider the ultrashort pulse excitation of molecules within bound electronic states. Using ultraviolet (UV) electronic and intense pulse infrared (IR)-excitation as numerical examples we compare the approximative Gaussian wave packet (GWP)-method applied to the coherent excitation of molecules to numerically exact solutions of the lime-dependent Schrodinger equation. The results imply that the short-time vibrational dynamics of molecules upon femtosecond excitation can be described accurately within the GWP-method. This especially holds for the calculation of femtosecond pump/probe signals, which are much less sensitive to the errors of the method than the wave function is.