Sleeping

Some of you mothers may want to throw things at me for this, but Dean has been sleeping through the night since he was 7 weeks old. He started by going from 4 hours at a stretch to 8 hours one night and never looked back. He's now a pretty consistent 10 hours a night and never gives us trouble when it's bedtime. Naptime is a different story. His daily routine, as you saw in my last post, is a pretty consistent 3 hour cycle. So I know when he's ready to go down for a nap. He takes 4 30-minute to 45-minute naps every day. It's not the napping that's a problem, it's the getting to sleep that is. I'm a sucker of a mom, I'll admit. I love having him fall asleep in my arms and get fairly selfish about it. I want him to depend on me (I know I'll regret this), but I think I'm creating a monster. I'm trying to get better about putting him in his crib when it's naptime BEFORE he goes to sleep, so that he has to learn to get to sleep on his own. Well, that means that he screams for 5-10 minutes (however long I can handle hearing it), I got in and pick him up and calm him down and he usually falls asleep in my arms pretty quickly at that point. I'm not sure if I should let him keep crying in hopes that he will tire himself out and fall asleep on his own or not. I don't want naptime or his crib to be a negative thing for him, but I need to break him of the habit of needing someone to hold him to get to sleep. I feel very fortunate that I am at home most of the day and have the flexibility and oppotunity to try out different things with this.

I'm running into another problem. I am not what you would call an ambi-holder. I can only hold him on my left side. I try t switch and hold him on the right side and it's like my arm is no longer under my control. So as the weeks go by my arm is getting stronger and stronger, but I think Dean is getting heavier at a more rapid rate. I am going to end up looking like that guy on "Lady in the Water" with the buff arm and the skinny arm. Attractive, right? I think by the time he's 1 I'll be able to do one-armed push-ups. Maybe I can make some additional income as an arm-wrestler.