Victorious!

Today...  I successfully put Callen down, while awake and fussy, and he fell asleep... on his own...  in his crib... and after waking himself up twenty min's later.. fell back asleep!

This is victory.  Hopefully this is the first of many naps that go this way.

Backstory:
Callen is his mother's son, he's a little sensitive and gets overwhelmed easy... and when he's tired - he's TIRED.  There are these "sleepy signs" to watch for in babies - sure sounds good - but he goes straight into a meltdown when he's tired sometimes. Arms and legs and head flailing, crying, pouting, all that - sounds like a toddler you say? Yea, I know - it's weird.  Sometimes the "sleepy signs" come first, sometimes they come after the meltdown.  If he's overstimulated - like to many people around, too much noise and light, or just not enough good sleep that day - we have to break out the swaddle and use the Happiest Baby on the Block techniques to bring him back from the dark side.  This leaves me in the rocking chair for a long time, sometimes I even have to put a blanket over his head.
This isn't the case all the time, just when the environment is right - or if he's more hungry than usual.  Dealing with these meltdowns have made me worry that he'll never be able to fall asleep on his own, that always being rocked, walked, swung, jiggled, held in to submission for sleep would make him sleep dependent. He's a big boy now!