Patrick usually refuses to smile for the camera. To prove he does smile, I persuaded his daddy to distract him while I snuck a picture of him. I missed the biggest part of the grin, but at least you can see he does smile.
This was NOT the face we saw last night, though. He was inconsolably fussy. Matt and I tried everything we could dream up, but nothing worked. I felt like a bad parent because my baby was uncomfortable (probably from teething), and I couldn't help him. The crying was quickly trying our patience too. To avoid losing our patience and proving we were bad parents, we had to try something different. Before I say what we did, here's our rationalization: We had been trying everything to comfort him without helping at all. Because he was depending on us to comfort him, he didn't try to comfort himself. At some point, he does need to know how to do that. It may be early to try, but Matt and I couldn't help him, so why not let him try to comfort himself? We put him in his crib and closed the door and let him cry himself out. He only paused in his screaming occasionally and essentially cried for a full hour. We had his baby monitor on and watched him the whole time; we couldn't ignore him completely. I know I had a good rationalization for leaving him to cry, but I still felt guilty for the whole hour and apologized to him when I retrieved him from his crib. I think it was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. No matter what I did, I was going to feel like a bad parent because I couldn't take away his pain.
Yet another rant about his apnea monitor: It went off repeatedly again this morning between 4 and 5:30. The second I would hit the bed after checking on him and resetting the monitor, the alarm would shriek again, pulling me out of bed before I'd even rebuilt my cocoon of sheets. I got fed up after an hour or so and just turned off the monitor. I decided I'd sleep better with the paranoia that something would happen than the shriek of the alarm. To ease my paranoia, Patrick was kind enough to reassure me he was okay every ten minutes or so by screaming just long enough to wake me up again. Needless to say, it was a frustrating morning. Patrick is sleeping it off right now, but I'm too awake now to take a nap. Aaargh! Reluctantly, I have to admit that his charming smiles from earlier make up for the lack of sleep, though. I'm glad I finally caught one on "film" (memory card?).
Labels: Feelings, Frustration, Photos
2 Comments:
I know exactly what you mean about feeling like a bad parent! Trust me, though, if you don't let him comfort himself sometimes, he'll never learn. It's hard for me to listen to Will cry on the monitor, but at least you know that if he's crying, he's breathing! For us, it's more likely that Will just wants to be up playing or being held than him being in pain, etc.
I'm glad your infection is healing quickly, too. I know the pain of that as well!
I don't know what Kathy is talking about, I never heard the monitor... (for those who don't know, I sleep like a brick).
Just so it has been said, he really is a VERY smiley boy when I am home for lunch. I think he is more of a morning baby than an evening baby. I have absolutely NO idea where he would have gotten that, as Kathy and I both HATE mornings.
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