I have been spending the past few days catching up. Catching up on work, catching up with friends and most of all catching up with my two guys. My company trip to Bali was the first time that I've been away from them ever since Ryan was born, so it was a big step for all of us. I was going to be away from Friday morning till Sunday afternoon. We had two concerns - whether Ryan would have enough milk (breastmilk) and whether Ryan would be able to get to sleep without nursing (we co-sleep and he still nurses to sleep).
The first was the easier one to tackle. I nursed Ryan on Friday morning and left Richard with a couple of bottles of breastmilk for the rest of my trip. I asked him to rely on solids whenever he could. Richard was prudent enough with what he had to make the stock last and he even had a little leftover when I returned. I actually gave Richard licence to feed Ryan goat's milk/formula, but my dear husband knows how much it means to me that Ryan stays on breastmilk, so that's what he did. Actually, Ryan's nanny has offered him fresh milk and formula milk before but Ryan has flatly refused even to taste it.
Over in Bali, I expressed my milk. I didn't bring a pump, I just brought two bottles and some milk bags and I hand-expressed. That was the easy part. The tricky part was getting the milk back to Singapore without it going bad. I didn't bring a cooler bag/case so I had to bring the milk on board which meant that each bag could not contain more than 100 ml of milk and I could not carry more than 1000 ml in total. On the eve of my departure, I asked the hotel to store the milk bags in their freezer. Unfortunately, when they delivered the milk to me the next morning, the bags were still unfrozen. Nevertheless, the milk was still good. I had to leave the hotel at 10.30 am for a flight arriving Singapore at about 3.30 pm and, without a cooler bag, that meant that the milk would have to survive at least 5 hours unfrozen. What did I do? I didn't do anything. I just carried the bags until I boarded the flight at 1 pm (by which time they had been "unprotected" for about 2.5 hours). Once on board, I asked the crew to keep the milk for me in their fridge/freezer, which they did. When I got home, I popped the bags into my freezer and that was it.
Of course, I could only be so casual because the milk was at most 2 days old. If I had been away for longer, I would definitely have needed more back-up. I also had no worries about feeding any undetected expired milk to Ryan because he absolutely rejects it. These kids know better than we do.
The second concern was not at all easy to tackle. Richard said that, while the daytime naps were less stressful, it was tough going at night. Ryan literally spent the whole of the first night crying and thrashing about. Richard said Ryan was even pawing at his mouth showing that he needed his mummy around to suckle. Richard had to bring him through the entire house to show him that I wasn't hiding somewhere. It was heartbreaking. Richard also had to carry and hold him the whole night and I don't think Richard got any sleep at all. The second night was a little better. Not much better, just a little. There was crying, thrashing about and pawing at the mouth (some minor scratches to show for it) but Ryan was so tired that he kept falling asleep but he was stressed enough to wake up every hour or so and then cry himself back to sleep. Richard carried him throughout the night, just like the night before and let Ryan sleep on him.
It sounded like torture to me and if there was any thought in our minds of getting Ryan to stop nursing, that thought swiftly evaporated. The intensity of Ryan's reaction is a clear signal to us that he is not ready to detach (pun intended) and we are not going to force him to do anything he's not ready for. In particular, we are firmly against any strategy that gets the child to "cry it out", whether it is to achieve sleeping separately, sleeping throughout the night, weaning, or even going to school. I don't agree with those parents who ignore the child, let the child cry it out and, once the child stops crying, conclude that the child is all right. In my view, all it means when the child stops crying is that the child has finally accepted that you're not going to come to comfort him, to help him or to be with him. He may be able to deal with that knowledge. However, that's not a message we want to give to our son. If he still needs us, we'll be there.
So when I got back, the moment Ryan asked to be nursed, he got it. When it was bedtime, he was so excited that he was squealing and making little happy noises as he got into bed and prepared my side of the bed for me.
Apart from that, the days passed by quickly. On Saturday, Ryan had his end-of-term PlayClub class when he dressed up in our homemade cowboy costume, which drew lots of oohs and ahhs from the teachers. On Sunday, he skipped swimming class (it was raining) but went for Shichida and he did well in class.
As for me over in Bali, well it was nice to have some me-time but actually most of the time was spent in workshops and the rest of it was spent watching the rain. It rained everyday. I didn't see the beach at all.
The massive 9.0 earthquake over in Japan happened on the Friday that I arrived in Bali and there had also been some recent volcanic eruption in Indonesia. Indonesia issued a low tsunami alert and there was neverending coverage of the devastating impact of the tsunami and the painful aftermath on all the news channels. It was just terrible and heartbreaking to watch. On Saturday, the tsunami alert was lifted for Indonesia but many of my colleagues were still nervous enough to change their tickets and fly home as soon as the workshops ended.
I didn't change my flight but there was definitely a sense of relief when I boarded the flight home on Sunday. And when I got home, I hugged my family a little tighter and a little closer.
Japan, our prayers are with you.
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