Thursday, July 24, 2008

G: Reversal of Fortune

Don't misinterpret that. We're beyond lucky to have this little girl and love her to bits.

I think I may have mentioned in an earlier post that she was sleeping nine hours, eating well, and even doing a #2 on a regular basis. Clearly, I was asking for the jinx.

That came to a grinding halt in the last week as the train seemingly went off the rails. Now:
  • she is not sleeping well
  • she it not taking more than 3 oz at a time
  • she's much fussy than she was
  • she's spitting up more that she was
  • when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she's almost in a painful "startle" reflex, crying and inconsolable
  • she demands a bottle in the middle of the night since she wakes so much
She does have a bit of a cold as well, that I assume is residual damage from her brother's cough last week. But that has really just been the last three days.

Allergy? Formula? Ear infection? Teething? Lactose intolerant? All those hypotheses were in round one. Yesterday, I took her to our pediatrician (who we love, if I haven't mentioned that).

He pretty much ruled out everything mentioned above. (I personally was thinking ear infection, but they were clean.)

Based on all we told him, he had three theories:
  1. It's a sleep problem. She doesn't self-soothe yet. We know this is ultimately going to be an issue. But, he felt there was a bit too much going on with the eating to mean this was the crux of the issue.
  2. It's a virus. Possible, he said, but no fever, so it's a long shot.
  3. It's reflux. Meaning, the gastro-intestinal variety (actually I'm not sure what other types of reflux are). This is the age it starts, around 4 - 5 months, and since she seems more disturbed at night, he feels like it's making sense.
So, I have a prescription for baby. That's the easy part. It's less of a dose than infant Tylenol - a liquid Pepcid. The other thing to give her...Mylanta. Three and a half droppers full. That is just foul torture, for all of us.

We'll see. There have been very minor improvements here and there today. Cross your fingers.

I wish you could talk, baby girl. Makes us so sad.

1 comment:

pve design said...

Aww, poor thing. One thing that really helped when my boys were little was a nightly walk, in the stroller.
One went through this reflux thing and the important thing was to make sure after a bottle to have him sitting up before sleeping. A nightly walk became a good thing and he slept much better, he had a harder time with the teething...too. It is all a phase.
I hope this phase is a small one.