Humbled by Alby

This evening it has taken two hours to put Alby down for the night.  I’m not complaining.  I’m actually very proud of my little man as this evening I presented him with a huge challenge and he actually rose to it exceptionally well.

From day one Alby’s bedtime routine has consisted of bath followed by a bedtime story read whilst he feeds.  He has always fallen asleep on the feed and then been gently placed in his cot.  Even now this often requires two attempts as the first leads to him waking and crying and me having to repeat the process.

For the past three nights Alby has not slept at all well.  Putting him to bed has been a fairly easy process but last night he woke again an hour later, and an hour after that, and an hour after that, and an hour after that at which point I brought him into bed with me.  At 3am my squirming woke him up and he once again latched on to return to the land of nod.  I was frustrated, angry, sore and feeling altogether fed up with being used as a human dummy. 

When I woke this morning I had two questions burning in my head – is Alby feeding so much because my supply no longer matches his demand and he’s simply, desperately trying to get milk I don’t have?  Or, is he going through some random insecurity for which he needs to be close to me? 

Now I don’t have a problem with either but if he is getting a broken night because of hunger then that can be fixed.  So I committed to replacing the bedtime feed with a bottle to ensure he was going down on a full stomach. 

I haven’t quite worked out if Alby likes the taste of cow’s milk so I defrosted some of my milk from the freezer added a couple spoonfuls of baby rice to thicken it and we went through the normal bedtime routine. 

I got him into his pyjamas, curled him up in my lap, told him that mummy’s milk was all gone, offered the bottle and the crying began.  I’ve never known tears like it.  For ten whole minutes Alby was a complete mess, his body doing that hiccupping thing that only comes when you’ve exhausted yourself with tears, twice he retched.  We sat in the chair, we lay in the cot together, we looked at the pictures in his room.  And through all the tears fell thickly.   

The only thing that kept me going as I watched the minutes tick by was a determination that this distress not be in vain.  I didn’t want to have told Alby something and allowed him to get so upset only for me to then offer a feed. 

Eventually, I put the bottle down, he squirmed around so he was sitting on my lap and he relaxed.  I whispered into his ear, we rocked and, within another ten minutes, he had fallen asleep. 

Trying to get him from lap to cot was a challenge to much and he woke again – crying but not distressed.  I got into the cot with him and he sat on my lap in the cot, and we went through the process again.  After that I lay beside him and then twice more we sat in the rocking chair together, him curled up in my arms.  At one point he drank his entire bottle but he did so with his eyes open and looking at me. Finally, after five attempts at cuddles at whispers and kisses, spread out over a two hour period, I’ve managed to put him down and walk away.

I think Alby has shown strength and trust this evening.  I’m totally humbled by my little man.  Yes it took an hour and a half longer than had I breastfed but only ten of that was spent crying and in the grand scheme of things I think that’s totally acceptable.

As we went through it all tonight two questions went round and round in my head:

1. Given this evening do I think I should have done this a long time ago?  No – firstly, let’s not go fooling ourselves into claiming one evening’s success as a long-standing fait accompli.  The real test will be how things stand in a month.

Secondly, the path that bought us to tonight has been a long one taking in Alby’s growing development, awareness and understanding and my response to that.  My frustrations at being a human dummy are because I know that now he can understand other forms of comfort – I don’t think either of us were there a month or two ago.  I like to think that I work to his pace and in this case I’m actually following his lead from nursery.

2. Does this mean an end to breastfeeding?  I don’t think so.  There’s a bit of me that wants to see if I can replicate this pattern through the night now, but to be totally honest until I have Mark here to lighten the load during the day I’m far too out of it during the night to do anything proactive.  Honestly, mornings are usually spent with me having no idea when Alby appeared in my room.

This will likely make me a bit more relaxed / accepting of the afternoon feed.  We’ll see.  For some totally illogical reason I have it in my head that I’ll continue feeding Alby until 18 months and unless he says otherwise that’s what we’ll work towards. One feed at a time.