Today was a fine example of this. Connor woke up around the usual time of about 8:00. (He's been sleeping around 12 hrs. a night, so that's nice) Took his morning nap from 9-11ish, and then I woke him up to eat. Now usually, when I say this, a few people look at me and tell me not to wake him up but honestly I believe that is the secret to why he sleeps so good at night. I am sure to monitor his afternoon naps, to make sure they don't exceed 2 hours, and so far that has worked for us. After I woke him up I nursed him, and after he was done he went in his swing for a bit while I got some housework done..some time went by, he laid down for a nap, and woke up about a half-hour before he was supposed to eat. (which is unusual) He started crying uncontrollably like he was hungry so I proceeded to feed him. When I thought he was done, I started to pull him away and he DEFINITELY was NOT interested in being done, so I just let him continue even though I knew he was not getting anything. After about 10 minutes of that..I finally pulled him off and just let him be fussy. Now, this sounds like he's not getting enough food and that is about enough to devastate me, but I didn't let it worry me, because this has happened before and then he ended up being just fine by the end of the night. So, about an hour passed and the fussiness increased so I got some frozen breast milk out and offered him about 2oz. He downed it, and when I tried to pull that away, you would think I just pulled the dearest thing away from him! ---he was MAD--- At this point, I was about to the end of myself, because I was thinking what I possibly could have missed or what on earth he could be crying about. While I was trying to calm him down, he spit up quite a bit, so I made the justification in my mind that he couldn't possibly be starving, but who knows??? I put him back in his crib, because I thought he could possibly be just way over-stimulated from everything, but he kept falling asleep and then waking up, falling asleep and then waking up about every 2 minutes or so. I went to another room where his crying wasn't so pronounced and just sat and tried to rack my brain about what could be wrong!--this just isn't normal behavior for my child!- 30 minutes or so after I put him down, I got him back up and gave him some gas drops..I had no idea. But I knew that couldn't hurt anything. He fell asleep a little after that- and slept for about an hour and fifteen minutes before he woke up crying again. It was time to feed again, so I did and that time seemed to be a little easier when he stopped, but he still was fussy.
So, now he is in a swing..-kinda fussing, kinda not. And I'm sitting here just trying to not over-attack myself for feeling like a bad mom. He is definitely being fed enough, his diaper is changed, and I'm just not quite sure what else to do for him. There are countless things that could be going on- I understand that- but it is definitely not fun being on the mom side of this. All you want as a mom is to do the right thing, and be the best that you can be for your kids. I can honestly say, that I have done this; I guess now is just one of those times that is totally out of my control. He'll be fine-I'll be fine, I know this. But in the meantime, I'm trying not to let this confusion of not knowing what to do, frustrate me further.
Now-I'm going to try and just cuddle my little guy and love on him, and we'll see what happens. After all, what have I got to do tonight?? Definitely nothing as important as making my little one feel better...
