Falling asleep

Falling asleep, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

As I write this, Ryan's lying on my lap, dozing off and slipping slowly into la-la land. A little while ago, he was on our bed, asleep fairly soundly after falling asleep on Serene's shoulder about 30 minutes ago. He fussed, and immediately calmed down when carried in my arms.

I dunno. We do read about it, and at least one well-meaning colleague has said something to the effect that we should stop the 'habit' of allowing him to seek comfort on our arms/shoulders/laps/whatever. The idea here is that the baby 'manipulates' the parent into getting what it wants, crying to get its demands met. The advice given by some include ignoring the kid's cries, letting the kid 'cry it out', and 'hardening one's heart' to the cries.

On our part, we think otherwise, and lean more towards the camp that think that, at least for the first six months or so, the kid has little manipulativeness, and cannot be 'spoilt' by more hugs and affection. So, the idea is that, when babies cry, they are stressed and get stressed due to their demands not being met. This raises cortisol levels in the brain, which, among other things, tend to influence the personality of the kid, making it more withdrawn and a good candidate for depression.

And we do notice a bit of that happening - just this past week, we were a little frustrated with his cries, and decided to leave him alone for a bit. The rest of the day, he was more disturbed than usual; he took longer to calm down, and he slept more lightly, waking up and fussing more easily.

Myself, I think a supportive environment initially would be better - the kid learns that there are rules which govern the working of the world, and that it has some role in this order. Of course, this is not to say that he becomes our little emperor - there will be time for independence training yet, just not now, I don't think.