Tomorrow Jakey will be six weeks old. He is growing so fast it’s unbelievable. We read in our baby book yesterday that he will start to lose his Moro reflex(which I love) and his grasp reflex :-(. We think that he may be a bit coliccy again as he has started to grunt and writhe in his sleep and is generally a little fractious in the evening.
Last night I decided to put him to bed at 8pm. He was quite sleepy so I thought I had a good chance of success. No more than 30 seconds elapsed after carefully placing him in his Moses basket, when he went bright red and started crying rigorously. Now at this point I knew that :
- He wasn’t hungry
- He wasn’t dirty
- He wasn’t windy
This left :
- Boredom
- Didn’t want to sleep
- Feeling over-tired and irritable(I can relate to that one)
So I left him crying, not for long only a minute or so. This was heart-rending but I reasoned that he needs to start being able to comfort and settle himself in these situations. He wasn’t crying because of discomfort or pain. After a minute I picked him up and gave him a nice cuddle. At this point I was considering taking him upstairs to his beloved bouncy chair but I persevered. A short while later I placed him in his basket. He seemed quite happy until he crying started again. This time I stroked his cheek and head. This calmed him a little before again the crying started in earnest. I let him cry for a couple of minutes before returning to stroke and comfort him. This time I didn’t pick him up. Miraculously after a couple of stroke/cry/stroke sessions and half an hour later he was sleeping soundly and as quiet as a lamb. I was impressed!
This morning Jake was grunting loudly and writhing at 5.30am. Amy was exhausted so I got up and picked him up. As soon as I started winding him he let out a hearty burp. As all parents will know there is nothing more satisfying! I changed his nap-nap and popped him in the cot in his room and he settled nicely. We are considering moving him permanently into his own room because he is fast outgrowing his Moses basket and it has started sagging a little. Ideally we would like to place the cot in our room but it will not fit through the door without dismantling it first, also we have precious space in our room as it is!