The Mommy Guilt Is Strong with This One

It was a rough weekend. It was stressful and frustrating. And it's completely my fault.

Ever since I went back to class, Ethan has been fighting his afternoon nap. It makes complete sense. Sometimes when he wakes up, Mommy has disappeared, so if he just doesn't go to sleep, Mommy can't leave, right? I hated that he's having a hard time, but I had faith that it would get better in time. Except that it's getting worse.

Now, Ethan has never gone down for his nap quite as easily as he goes to bed at night, but pre-school, it was only a few seconds of fussing after I closed the door, almost never more than a minute. My second day of class, it took about 10 minutes. By the third day, 20. For the next week, regardless of whether or not I was actually leaving, it was taking him 20-30 minutes to get to sleep, often full of cries of "Mama! Nah nah nah (no no no)!"

Then on Friday, it took 2 hours. I checked on him every couple of minutes to make sure his diaper was fine and to reassure him. I changed him 4 times. I picked him up and rocked him several times, but he kept crying. He would fall silent for 10 or so minutes and I'd think he was finally asleep. Then I'd hear babbling. Then after a few minutes of babbling, he's start fussing so I'd go back in. Rinse and repeat. It was awful. But surely it was just a fluke, right?

On Saturday, I anxiously rocked him, reassuring him that I'd be there when he woke up. I placed him in his crib, he looked up at me, and he howled. Over the next hour, I rocked, I changed diapers, I patted, I kissed, he screamed. Finally he was quiet so I started on my school work. After about 15 minutes of working, I went downstairs to clean. And then I heard it. Babbling. And sure enough, it quickly turned into crying. More rocking, more changing, more cuddling, more crying. Two hours after I first put him down, he finally went to sleep. And now it was my turn to cry.

How could I be doing this to him? Is it really worth putting him through this? Maybe I should just go ahead and give up before I invest too much time into the semester and do too much damage to my son. He is the most important thing in my life, and here I am causing him such pain and anxiety. What the hell should I do?

Today was a bit better. I tried staying in the nursery, but that only made him cry harder, so once I left it only took about 10-15 minutes for him to go to sleep. I won't be leaving again until Wednesday and since I have to leave at the time I usually put him down for a nap, I'm going to let Clara try her hand at getting him down. That way, Ethan will see me leaving so it won't be a surprise, and maybe he'll go down better for her. Or maybe he won't nap at all. We'll see.

To add to the anxiety, I haven't been able to pump more than a couple of drops the past few nights, which has never happened twice in a row before so now I'm worried about my supply. I've noticed I haven't been getting as much when I pump the past couple of weeks. Just when I thought supply anxieties were behind me. ::sigh::

Despite all of this, I'm determined to savor tomorrow. The last day of his first year. The last day of bottles. The last day of formula. The last day of infanthood. It's been the most amazing year of my life.