Why Does He Cry So Much? ♥

It's seven in the morning, I'm awoken by the sound of loud, screaming crying coming from downstairs. I roll over, onto my side and think - "ugh, why's he crying now... what's wrong?", knowing that his father probably told him he couldn't have chocolate for breakfast. I count five seconds before I hear him coming up the stairs and running on the landing, his little feet thumping on the carpet as he makes his way to seek my comfort as quickly as he can. The bedroom door pushes open, while he wails "Mummmmyyy" and comes to the side of the bed for a reassuring hug that everything is okay - my day has begun, this ritual being one that awaits us every morning. He hops into bed beside me, snuggles down by my side for a cuddle, a new addition to our morning routine. This calm and closeness is much needed after all the crying, not just for me but for us both. As I look at my boy, lying calmly next to me, his curls tickling my chin, him tucking his dummy under his lip in that quirky way he does, I wonder to myself - "why does he cry so much?"

Crying is something which has been a constant in my sons life ever since he was born and although he blessed his father and I by sleeping throughout the night from six weeks, his days were spent crying, being a discontented baby and roaring in the faces of all our relatives. He was disagreeable, didn't seem to be enjoying anything and I found myself constantly making excuses for his crying - he's hungry, he's sick, he's tired... but in reality I didn't know why he was crying, nothing was wrong, all his needs were tended to, I was clueless... and I remained that way for a long time.

My son is now almost two and half, the crying has waned somewhat but there are still moments when I wonder why he's crying so much and despair that I don't know what's upsetting him. It seems to me as though he's complaining about everything, sometimes just crying for the sake of it, not yet able to talk to voice his frustration or tell me what's bothering him. I've been thinking about it a lot, thinking that all the crying isn't normal, that something must be wrong... then it dawned on me, maybe his father and I are the cause of the problem?

Jacek and I are busy people - he works an awful lot and I'm always busy around the home, blogging or catching up on hobbies, because of this I wondered - could our boy be crying so much because we're not paying him enough attention? Although I'm a stay at home mother and spend a considerable amount of time with my son throughout the day, perhaps being on my phone checking social media or having the television on, amongst other things, isn't being the most attentive mother I can be. Once I realised this I felt absolutely awful, could I, as a stay at home mother, actually appear as an absent mother to my son?

My son has had some incidents happen to him over the past two weeks and these have reminded me that although he likes to have his own independence, he's only two, he still has so many baby qualities to him and most importantly he still needs his mummy and daddy to be there for him, not just for the big moments in his life but for the little,appearingly insignificant ones too.

As I held my boy tonight, rocking him back and forth after he had woken up crying I realised that this is all he really needs, that attentiveness of his parents, just to be held and spent time with, no new toys or expensive days out needed. Far too often Jacek and I have been busy getting things done, all things which ensure that our family can survive and that we can have some nice perks too, but how am I supposed to explain to my two year old that his mummy is busy and can't pay attention to him right now, but ultimately it's all for his own good? My son isn't ever going to understand that, no matter what age he is. The reason I felt so awful about all of this is because as a child I always felt starved of attention from my parents and all I craved from them was for us to spend some quality time together.

This is why I have decided that everything else can wait. My boy is still at a stage in his life where he wants to and can be babied by his father and I. This time of his life is going to fly by far too quickly, in fact it already kind of has as he's not even technically a baby anymore, and when these days are long gone and I can't even get a kiss or a hug off him I'll be wondering why the cleaning couldn't wait, why that blog post needed to be written right then and there and why I didn't just sit down and hold my son, singing him his favourite songs and playing with his toys with him. This is why I'm going to make more of a conscious effort and be a less busy mother. The only thing that should be concerning me throughout the day is my son. Emails can wait, my hobbies can wait, everything can wait, I need to be present for him because ultimately all my son needs is for myself and his father to be loving and attentive to him, nothing else matters apart from him.

Babies don't keep... and neither do toddlers.