Hungry and tired

James will be six months old on Friday, and we started feeding him solid foods three or four weeks ago.  The boy likes to eat.  On one recent Saturday afternoon when we were visiting my mother, James was having baby oatmeal.  He cried between each bite because I was taking too long to shovel it in. 

In spite of his insatiable appetite, he has a bit of a sensitive tummy.  He spit up much of the oatmeal.  Indeed, each time a fed him the oatmeal he spit up, so we switched him back to the rice cereal.

Although he has an adventurous pallet so far, he is not keen on going to sleep by himself. There have been many nights where I have nursed him to sleep, put him down and cringed as he woke up, looked at me with that cry-baby sad lower lip and started to cry.  So I would pick him up again and repeat.  And so on and so on. 

This didn't always happen. But on the nights when it did I would try to focus on how grateful I was to have this baby here at all.  But on one night before I had to go to New York the next day I had no time for the extended routine.  So that night I put him down and let him cry.  Within a half hour he was asleep and slept much better that night. 

But it is hard to let him cry.  He cries longer than Jack ever did.  And he sounds more heartbroken.  And then there's the part about how he's the last baby I will have. So I still fight with myself over letting him cry or not. 

Comments

[maggie]

i was never any good at the cry-it-out. probably for the same reason. she's it. what better thing had i (have i) then to comfort her.