RBS

I’d like to talk a moment about a serious condition – restless baby syndrome. It most often occurs at night when a baby wakes up and can’t fall back asleep despite all attempts to feed, comfort and sleep train. RBS struck The Baby this weekend on Sunday morning. We were in another state in an unfamiliar house and despite white noise, a 6 oz bottle, and a lot of back patting, he just tossed and turned and cried. The weird thing is that his eyes were shut. He obviously wanted to go back to sleep but couldn’t. So I picked him up and brought him into bed, something that I never do. Not that I have anything against co-sleeping. In fact, I secretly wish I could snuggle and sleep with my little hot potato every night. He won’t have us. We try in the morning sometimes. He just wants to play and sit up. Plus, I’m afraid he’ll suffocate in our pillow topper.

The guest bedroom that we were in has two twin beds, so our sleeping situation resembled The Flintstones. I pushed my bed flush against the wall and put The Baby between the wall and myself. For 25 minutes he huffed and puffed and flipped around. I was on my side with my head resting on my elbow (so as not to get the pillows too near The Baby). He’d heft his head on my arm and move in really close as if to snuggle. He’d lay nice and still and just when I was feeling like Mom of the Year complete with a tear of joy in my eye, he’d sigh, roll off of my arm and squirm away from me. Then the noises began. It went from his typical, “Bah, bah, bah,” and short shrieks to releasing each breath slowly with a monotonous moan (my son, the Yogi). At one point he chewed my elbow. I was very tired, but I couldn’t help but laugh. At 5:45 a.m. I awoke to the sound of scratching. The Baby had rolled over to the wall and was scratching it. He had a huge grin on his face when I moved in to see what he was doing. Cute little guy. My husband deemed it late enough to trot the baby down stairs to his parents’ room and we got a few more hours of sleep before leaving for what turned out to be a 12-hour ride home.

From the Pump Room:
Okay, I confess. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Our weekend away turned out just fine. I managed to find a private place to pump all weekend long, though I only managed to pump three times a day. I just switched the ratio of milk to formula to 50/50 for the weekend (except for bottles in the car… I used all milk as it was easier) and we were just fine. By the time I got home, I had enough milk for daycare and three bottles for tonight. Starting out the week in surplus is always good! The only downer of the weekend is that I got a cold, but I tried to look at it on the bright side: me being sick means that The Baby is getting a dose of antibodies.

Random thought: The only thing that sucks more than a fridge full of leftovers that you don’t know how you’re going to use, is a fridge with no leftovers. :-( That is the downside to traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday.