Traumatized.

Preface:

I think it's safe to say my child is no daredevil. He does not try anything new until he's absolutely certain he can do it, and once he does learn something new, he's very content with that for a long time. That's just his personality. There are no backflips off the changing table or climbing out of highchairs at our house. Makes for a pretty easy life for us all. Until...

The Story:

Yesterday Liam was having a clingy day. He kept climbing into my lap during Baby Bounce class, and when my mom and I were out shopping he would only go to her about half the time and the other half he would bury himself into my chest when she reached for him. When Will tried to take him from me to go do their bedtime routine, he had a colossal meltdown. I ended up in the nursery helping Will get him ready for bed, and then snuck out during Llama Llama Red Pajama. Not that that worked. He screamed during the entire book.

Eventually Will got him settled down enough to put him to bed. He fussed for a few minutes and then got quiet. I was right next door in the office and could hear everything. After a few minutes of silence, the screaming started again. Blood-curdling screaming. That is very unlike him, but it was also the same cry he cried when Will tried to take him from me earlier. I tried to wait it would and kept going back and forth between, "That's not normal for Liam. I need to go in there right now." and "He's just having a rough day. He will calm down soon and fall asleep." After about 10-15 minutes of this I couldn't take it anymore and went into his room.

When I opened the door, my poor baby was standing up in his crib with a look of complete panic and terror because he didn't know how to get back down! (Yes, it took him nearly 10 months to do this for the first time. Hence the whole "not a daredevil" trait.) He was crying huge alligator tears and his arms were wrapped in a death grip around the crib railing! I yelled for Will and scooped him up. We were able to calm him down pretty quickly, but he was so terrified he would not let me put him down. And of course I felt awful for having let him cry in there as long as I did! I took him to our bedroom to calm down and we laid there together for a little while until he was sleepy again. Then I put him back to bed, but I really just wanted to hold him all night!

I was worried that we were in for a long night after hearing my friend Emily's experience with a similar situation, but surprisingly he didn't make a peep for the rest of the night. Knowing him, he won't be trying that again any time soon! And how crazy is it too that just the night before Will decided to lower Liam's crib mattress down one notch. Liam has started sleeping on his stomach and would lift himself up on his arms to see us over the bumper when we would come get him, so Will thought it was better safe than sorry even though he wasn't making any attempt to pull up yet. He was so right!

So that was our traumatic experience last night. It may not seem like much, but for our baby, it was. :(

Oh, and I've finally found one downside to the Angelcare monitor. Liam has recently become very wiggly in his sleep and will scoot himself up to the very corner of his crib where the sensors don't reach. The sensors monitor his breathing, and an alarm will sound when it doesn't detect any breathing for 5 seconds. In the last month or two, the alarm has gone off at least half a dozen times in the middle of the night. It no longer freaks me out because by the time I get out of bed the monitor has usually found him and will go off, but I still go into his nursery to move him so it won't happen again. Well, it went off at 4:50 this morning. Between that and the raging storm outside, I have now been awake for nearly three hours. I am going to be one tired mama today!