Cuddly Baby

For the past six months, Nate hasn’t been the most cuddly baby. He has basically pushed me away whenever I want to snuggle with him, and totally ditched me on the whole nursing thing without a trace of sadness on his part (there was a TON of sadness on my part, which is why, you may have noticed, I never mentioned here before now that Nate weaned at just shy of a year old. It still hurts a lot to talk about). In stark contrast to his brother, who still relishes and needs night time snuggle time with Mommy in order to opitmally settle down to sleep, Nate seems happiest with a quick kiss and straight into the crib without looking back. He would rather cry for a minute and then knock out cold than have me hold him for that minute — and when I have tried, he rewards me by crying much longer than a minute and pushing me away and hitting me the whole time. So I learned to let him be, even though it goes against my every instinct as a mommy.

But last night, poor baby wasn’t feeling well. And when he didn’t settle back down to sleep at midnight after almost five minutes of crying, I picked him up, dreading the fight I was anticipating, but not knowing what else to do. But he didn’t fight me — he collapsed into me, grateful. He let me hold him! He let me lay down with him on my chest! And after a dose each of Motrin and anti-congestion medicine, he snuggled into me, wide awake, and gently patted my chest while he let the medicine do its work. I closed me eyes, snuggled under the blanket and breathed in his baby smell; relished the feel of his little chest calmly rising and falling against mine and those soft baby cheeks under my fingertips.

I am glad to see that my fiercely independent little man still sometimes wants his mama. What I didn’t realize was quite how much mama needs those moments!