Sleeping Like a Baby

About ten nights ago, LB decided to stop sleeping.
He had been slowly chipping away at our parental sleeping quota since Christmas, but this seemed more radical: it was like he was telling us: thanks, but I'm done with sleeping now. Don't really need it anymore, thanks.
This, as you can imagine, is every parent's dream (I mean nightmare).

The worst part was, we couldn't figure out why.
Again, this is all about the illusion of retaining some semblance of "control" over our lives (which are, evidently, completely out of our control from the moment we decide to have kids). But the theory goes: if we can figure out a "cause", then we can take action and correct the situation, right?

So, the usual round of pained interrogations began: is he hungry, is he in pain, is he wet, is he constipated, is he anxious???... and so on ad infinitum.

In desperation, I turned to my Miriam Stoppard baby bible. The only thing I could find about unexplained waking at 6 months was.... an entire page devoted to "separation anxiety... particularly in babies whose mother GOES OUT TO WORK".
Ooh... bad, bad, bad working mothers! Scandalised as I was (I checked out the publishing date: nope, it didn't in fact date from the early 1960s, as the above paragraph might suggest...), well... I couldn't help but wonder.
Because, as mothers, our guilt quota is unfortunately several times that of other people.

Two sleepless nights later, I was certain. I - bad working mother - was the problem. LB had stopped sleeping because he was tense, anxious, scared and angry with the mother who abandoned him 3 days a week.
At 3 am I found myself whispering to him "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I won't ever leave you, I promise, I only go to work to pay for the house we live in, I don't really want to, you know!" (yep, this seems excessive, but try drinking a cocktail of 7 sleepless nights & 1 outdated, self-important Miriam Stoppard book, and see what state you end up in!).
He looked at me and smiled: I thought I glimpsed a little sympathy.

And then, finally, we confessed our distress to someone medical. Someone medical and sensible. And she suggested that maybe LB was just suffering from indigestion.
Indigestion.... Not deep physchological distress and separation anxiety... but simply, indigestion.

This makes sense, and things seem to be improving now we are treating this possible ailment.

Thank you, Miriam. You've been nice company, but you know, I think it might be time to return you to the very top shelf... I hope you won't feel abandoned...