Tears

Ben and Jen don't let Nathan cry. I approve, because I never let my babies cry either. I mean, if I knew why they were crying when they were little, I certainly tried to fix it. Like Nathan, Ben was not a fussy baby. He got cranky when he was uncomfortable or tired, but most of the time he was too busy being curious and - well, busy - to bother crying.

The only time I remember "letting him cry" was when he was about the same age that Nathan is, and he needed to be rocked to sleep. I hadn't minded rocking him for a long while, because I nursed him at bedtime, then changed him and rocked him for two or three minutes until he fell asleep in my arms. He slept through the night most nights by the time he was three months old. But at around 6 months, he stopped sleeping through the night. He started rolling in his sleep and waking up and crying. So the first few times I picked him up and rocked him and he went right back to sleep. But it was happening more and more, several times a night and I was exhausted. I asked the doctor if I should nurse him in the middle of the night. He said, "No. Let him cry. He'll find out he is fine, and then he'll go back to sleep himself."

I tried it the first night, but after about three minutes of listening to him wail, I couldn't stand it. Besides, Tom was grumbling that he needed to get to sleep, so couldn't I please go take care of the baby. He never got up with him at night, working under the logic that he had a job and I did not, so I could sleep during the day if I needed to.

It very quickly got to a point where I was not getting much sleep at all. Ben was crying six or seven times a night. I called a woman at la leche league - the only help for nursing mothers back then. She told me the same thing the doctor told me. Only she said it in a way I could understand, and it made sense. "He is manipulating you," she told me. "He now knows if he makes noise, you show up and rock him. There is nothing wrong with him. He doesn't need his diaper changed every hour, and you all need sleep. The only way to stop this is to let him cry. It might take 3 nights, but if you let him cry he will go back to sleep. And you will be showing him that he is OK alone in the dark. Nothing bad happens to him if he is awake and quiet. Within three nights he will wake up, get comfortable, and go right back to sleep. But you might not get much sleep those 3 nights."

Even Tom could see that I was getting thoroughly exhausted. Ben wasn't taking very long naps, and I couldn't nap enough during the day to make up for the sleep I was losing at night. Tom finally had a week off of school - he was a guidance counselor at the time - and we decided that we would try it.

The first night was awful. No one got much sleep. The first time he cried and I didn't go to rock him, he cried hard for about ten minutes. Those were the worst ten minutes! It so went against my grain to just listen to him scream and to do nothing. But finally he stopped, and we could hear him sucking his thumb and gasping, since he had worked himself up into such a state screaming and his nose was all stuffy. But that was the worst of it. He did it again about four other times that night - but fewer times than I had been getting up with him. By the second night, he only did it twice, and the duration each time was getting shorter and shorter. On the third night, he woke up once around 3 a.m. He fussed for about 2 minutes, then fell back to sleep. And I never had to get up with him in the middle of the night again.

But about Nathan. (I hadn't intended to write all that about Ben...) We've been having some early spring warm days, so we've been taking walks. He gets bored quickly, but I've been pointing things out to him and can usually make it all the way around the block before he gets fussy. Last Thursday it was about 50 degrees so we went, and as we approached the corner I saw a garbage truck coming. I thought it would be fun for him to watch. It was one of those huge trucks with a mechanical arm that comes out from the side of the truck and picks up the big blue bins and lifts them up and dumps their contents into the truck. I walked slowly and let the truck get ahead of us, then kept up a pace that let him see it as it dumped all the bins on the block. I talked to him, and pointed out the "big truck" and he seemed fascinated. I was thinking of telling Ben and Jen that Nathan had decided he wanted to be a garbage man when he grows up.

When we got to the corner, I assumed the truck would go straight ahead and we were going to turn, so after it dumped the last bin into the truck, I walked beside it to continue on. Just as we approached the corner, the driver did some kind of mechanical compacting thing, and the truck made a huge noise. It startled me, and it terrified Nathan. He screamed! And he wouldn't stop screaming until I took him out of the stroller and held him. I guess his career as a garbage man won't happen! It took me a few minutes to calm him down. Then I tried to wipe his nose, dripping with tears and snot, and that made him start fussing again. I talked to him and he calmed down. I tried walking while holding him, but that didn't work. He is too big now for me to carry for long in one arm, so I was having an awkward time of it. I had on a winter coat, and he had a short jacket. His legs had been covered with a blanket, which I tried to wrap around him. Of course that didn't work well, so I finally put him back into the stroller. I was afraid he would cry again, but he played with the toy on the front of the stroller and we finished that block OK.

The final corner that led back to the house was next. No problem, except when we turned the corner it put us into the wind. He started screaming again. We are the fifth house from the corner. I pushed the hood of the carriage forward to block the wind, but that didn't help. He was in a real snit, and he kept wailing. I knew I couldn't carry him and push the stroller - I had tried
that before -so I let him cry and I walked as fast as I could.

I soon saw that Jen had gotten home while we were out. We got into the garage, and Nathan was still sobbing. I felt awful. It definitely had not been one of our better walks!

Then this morning there was a different issue. Jen was still home when I got here. That's a bit unusual. Most days Ben is here playing with Nathan when I get here. But Ben is working on a big report that is due on Monday, so Jen had stayed home until I came so Ben could work.

Nathan smiled when he saw me, and put out his arms when I reached for him. Jen went into the kitchen and was out of sight for a minute. Nathan was sleepy and ready to go down. As soon as he saw Jen again, he started to fuss. I put him down on the changing table to change him, and Jen went upstairs to get dressed. Nathan's fussing turned into serious crying. He knew his mom was nearby, and he wanted her. Ben came up from the basement to see what was happening, and Jen came back down. Nathan continued to cry. I knew he would settle down as soon as I got him up into his bedroom and started the nap-time ritual of singing to him and rocking him until he got drowsy. I often put him down when he is still awake, but if he is not relaxed and drowsy he cries.

Well, he didn't want me and my nap-time rituals. He wanted his mom. So he cried. I tried singing to him, and he cried. I finally picked up one of the books in his room and started reading to him, and that settled him down. We read two books. But just as we finished the last one, Jen walked by and he saw her. The crying started again. I walked with him. I gave him the pacifier - he chews on it now that he is teething, and that kept him occupied for a few minutes. Then I sang, and rocked him, and he relaxed and went to sleep.

It's hard when they cry. Hard on the grown-ups, I mean. We see our job as keeping them fed and comfortable and happy, and when they are not, well, it's just hard.

When is a blizzard not a blizzard?

Yesterday afternoon they were predicting snow and then windy very cold conditions. Repeatedly I heard reports on the radio and TV weathermen saying we could expect severe cold and blowing snow leading to white out conditions, not so much in the city but in the outlying areas. Ben and Jen live far enough west to be considered an outlying area. Dangerous stuff.

I consulted with them. Ben was supposed to fly to Ohio, but his flight at 8 p.m. was cancelled. He rescheduled to a 7:45 a.m flight. Blizzard conditions were reportedly going to get worse around midnight. They were only predicting about 2 to 4 inches of snow, but all that wind was going to whip it around and make travel "dangerous if not impossible" into the morning hours.

Together we decided that I would spend the night at their house, so I could be here if Ben got to go to Ohio and Jen could go to work. We joked about my husband being stuck home alone, and the three of us stuck here all together with the baby, with no one going anywhere. We decided it could be fun even.

I woke this morning to find an inch and a half of snow on the ground, a blue sky, bitter cold temperatures that were dropping, but no wind. Jen told me Ben had left in the wee small hours, and his flight was expected to be on time. She was ready for work, and Nathan was ready to start his day. The blizzard conditions were postponed or cancelled. More snow predicted later today and overnight.

Good. But how do the forecasters manage to be that wrong, and still get big bucks to do their jobs?

So far, every time I have been with Nathan, he has been sweet and calm and seemingly contented. Today started like that too. He played after Jen left, and I read him two books. When he fussed, I changed him, put him in his crib, patted his back for a few minutes, and he went to sleep. When he woke two hours later, he smiled while I changed him, and then drank his bottle. About half of it.

I burped him, as usual, and everything seemed fine. But when I tried to give him the rest of his milk, he got squirmy, bit the nipple, and didn't really want it. Okay. I sat him up and burped him again. He played with my fingers, and acted like everything was fine. I tried the bottle again. He wasn't interested, so I put him down on his mat to play.

After a few minutes, he started to fuss. I picked him up, changed his diaper, and he squirmed and complained. I tried to burp him again. Then he started to cry. I walked and patted his back, but he kept crying. I tried the bottle again, when he calmed down a bit, but this time he screamed. So I walked him some more, and put him across my knees in case he had some air stuck in his tummy. Becca had colic as an infant, and that position seemed to help her. It didn't help Nathan. He cried. I walked with him, sang to him, showed him his reflection in the mirror, and he cried. I showed him the Mickey Mouse music player he loves, but today he hated it. I tried the duckie that plays music, and he hated that too. He cried for about 25 minutes before he belched loudly, and then relaxed on my shoulder. Within another 5 minutes he fell asleep in my arms.

Which just goes to show that you can't predict what a baby will do any more than you can be sure about the weather!