The right amount of not caring

I had a long week. It was busy at work and time-wise the balance worked OK, but energy-wise the week was a challenge. Quinn seems to be in a cycle where he's good as gold for a day, followed by two days of crankiness. Thursday and Friday were cranky days for Quinn. Thursday night was especially bad, and Bec got very little sleep. Bec & I talked at length about how to approach the crankiness in Quinn and we came up with several ideas to try from books we've been reading. We can't seem to get past the thought that we think he's trying to tell us something and we just can't figure out what it is.

Last night I was utterly exhausted, Bec was utterly exhausted, and Quinn's eyes popped open after an early evening feed. I volunteered to take him for a couple of hours and Bec went to bed. He started to get cranky again - not full time full on wailing, but wouldn't settle, and varying levels of crying. I checked everything I could think of. I put him in the snuggly and he got really mad. I tried a few things. Nothing seemed to work. Finally I decided, well if nobody's happy I might as well make one person happy - so I strapped him into the snuggly and played video games while wearing him. If he screams, he screams. He's fed, changed, the right temperature, doesn't appear to have gas, doesn't appear to be in physical pain and is attached to a primary caregiver. If he needs something else I just don't know what it is.

He was as good as gold from that point on. He fussed a few times, but I ignored it except for a bit of stroking and soft words. He slept for 3 hours like that, giving Bec a total of four much-needed hours of sleep. He slept for another three-hour stretch through the night so we're all much more rested today. Was it just a regular part of his fussiness cycle? Or was 'ignoring' the fussiness (while still wearing him and looking after his needs) the right amount of not caring for that moment? I choose to believe it was my own deft handling :) but who knows what the truth really is. The important part is we all had a good sleep.