A Tramatizing Weekend

Last weekend was a rough couple days for my poor baby...

Saturday evening was my husband's work Christmas party, so James stayed with my brother-in-law (BIL) & sister-in-law (SIL) for the evening. My husband and I enjoyed our time at the party but around 10pm I hadn't heard anything so I texted my BIL to see if bedtime had gone ok. Apparently it hadn't. Playtime had been great, bathtime was just fine, and James took his bottle with no problems, but wouldn't go to sleep. So we got our stuff together and headed out to go pick up James.

Of course while we were on the way James fell asleep and stayed asleep. Apparently while he was drinking his bottle he kept looking up at my BIL, almost as if he was wondering what was going on. When he finished his bottle & my BIL was rocking him or walking around the house, he would drift off to sleep for a couple minutes, but then wake up & look at my BIL and start crying all over again. My SIL was nursing their baby, so when he was done eating she came out and took James and was able to get him to go to sleep and stay asleep. We figured since James was so used to me putting him to bed and having not seen his uncle very often, he was able to relax better with my SIL instead.

So we got James into his carseat and took him home. He was sound asleep, & stayed asleep when I took him out of the carseat and put him into his crib. He didn't even wake up to nurse (I was surprised)! Usually we would turn the baby monitor on, but I had accidentally left the charging cable for it at my husband's parent's house when we were visiting for Thanksgiving, & the battery was dead. So for a couple nights we were using our nephew's Christmas present...a set of walkie talkies that has a "voice on command" feature. We had used it for a couple nights and it had been fine. We set it to the right channels & briefly tested it, then went to bed.

My husband & I both woke up around 5:30am. James usually wakes up at some point in the middle of the night and ends up in bed with us, so it was a nice surprise to see that he had slept through the night. My husband asked if James was in bed with us and I said no, he's still asleep, & my husband asked me to go check on him just to make sure he was ok. So I did...& when I opened the door to James' room I heard him whimpering! I've never heard him cry like that before. He was turned around 180 degrees in his crib, facing the door, pulling down on the bumper, & whimpering! When I picked him up he buried his face on my shoulder & shook his head back & forth...his sign for hungry but this was more drastic than usual. I took him back to my bedroom & discovered the walkie talkie on my nightstand wasn't on!!!!!

I felt SOOOO horrible! How long had he been awake, crying & wondering where his mommy & daddy were, & we were just sleeping away in our bed?!? He definitely had been awake for awhile, I just have no idea how long. It's not unusual for him to wake up as early as 1:30 or 2:00am...had he been awake for 3 or 4 hours waiting for us to come get him? I don't even want to think about that. It's been a week and I still get so sad thinking about it. It turns out the battery on the walkie talkie had died in the night & I didn't realize it. Fortunately we have the charging cable for the baby monitor back now, so we don't have to use the walkie talkie anymore. I plug the monitor in every night now, I don't want to take the chance that the battery will die overnight & my baby will be all alone again! I don't ever want to hear him whimper like that again. It was so so sad...

Fortunately, after cuddling in bed and nursing and sleeping for a bit, he seemed fine after he woke up. We went to church & he had no problem staying in the nursery & playing. I'm so glad he seems to have a short memory!