Week 9

Since I just did an entry about Hayden's 2-month mark, I'll keep this one brief.

My goal this week is to get Hayden to take naps in his crib without me having to get him to sleep in my arms first. The pediatrician said he is at the age to start learning to fall asleep on his own and self-soothe. Yikes. This means letting him cry a little — up to 10 minutes! Very hard for me to do. I've read that studies have shown infants who are attended to quickly when they cry do not turn out spoiled, but the opposite. They actually tend to cry less as toddlers. When parents regularly fail to respond to their baby's cry, the baby feels powerless and worthless and often ends up being more demanding and dependent as they get older. Of course this is one of those topics of great controversy and every parent has to do what they feel is right. So we'll see.

Plus, I'm also experimenting with whether or not to keep swaddling him when he sleeps. He seems to like sleeping with his arms up above is head, but when he startles, his arms fling around and he often smacks himself in the head and wakes himself up. But lately he seems to hate being swaddled and will grunt and wiggle out of it or start screaming until I release him. A bit of a dilemma.