On Spoiling a Baby

To this point in his life, Finn has flat out refused to sleep in anything other than his car seat, his swing, or our bed for more than an hour or two at a time. This week Beach and I decided that since Finn is now 4 months old, he needs to start learning how to sleep in his crib.

What we didn't realize until we started this training is that somewhere along the line, Finn seems to have learned that when he cries, we pick him up and cuddle him. He is currently using this knowledge for evil, not good, and is spending several hours during the night screaming his head off. I hestiate to say he is manipulating us, but let's just say that he seems to have us figured out and right now, this is not such a good thing.

Not that there’s anything wrong with cuddling – the doctors and baby books all say that you can’t spoil a baby before 3 months and no amount of cuddling during this time is too much (since Finn was a month early, we were told to measure milestones by his due date, not his birth date). The doctors and books also say that at some point, you should let a baby learn how to settle himself down. What they don’t say is how do you know when to make the switch? Do you all of a sudden one day stop cuddling your baby? Do you just start ignoring the crying? Wouldn’t that just teach the baby that you’ve spent all these months getting to trust you that really you can’t be trusted at all? I’m confused. At what point does cuddling = spoiling?

For those of you familiar with Sex & The City, yes, I've been watching a lot of that lately.