Aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques and apparatus for wireless communication. In one aspect, a method is provided which may be performed by a wireless device such as a user equipment (UE). The method generally includes: performing connection reestablishment in response to a triggering condition, the connection reestablishment comprising: suspending operation of at least one data radio bearer (DRB) for carrying user data, transmitting a connection reestablishment request to a base station (BS), receiving from the BS a connection reestablishment message, and transmitting a connection reestablishment complete message to the BS; and transmitting at least a portion of the user data over non-access stratum (NAS) signaling, before the operation of the at least one suspended DRB is resumed.