Baby Acid Reflux

Alternative Title 1: Running on Empty
Alternative Title 2: Why some animals eat their young

Jocelyn has been diagnosed with acid reflux. Now, all babies reflux. That's what causes spit-up. But in her case, the reflux is associated with stomach acid that burns her poor little throat and makes her miserable (and not want to sleep, except for on one of us).

It started about a week and a half ago. It was Grandma's last night here (Thursday night, Friday morning). Before then, Jocelyn was either a champion sleeper or an easily-calmed baby (even if a poor sleeper). Then, the day she turned two weeks old, all hell broke loose. The kid could not be calmed! She just cried and cried and cried. All night long. Sometimes we could get her to calm down on us, and eventually fall asleep, but she could not be put down. Luckily Grandma was still there, so we had her to help us out. But I still didn't sleep a wink that night except for when I dozed while Jocelyn nursed in my lap.

The whole day was more of the same. I even had Mike work from home so that I could get a bit of sleep (he had Jocelyn sleeping in his lap while he worked at his computer). That was only for about 2 hours before she needed to eat, and that was about it. The strike was on! It was awful. It continued all day and through the night, with Jocelyn finally, FINALLY getting a bit of sleep at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning (in dad's lap, in the recliner).

Saturday morning we had her at the doctor. Surely, something had to be wrong. Of course, she was fine. The doctor did suspect that she might have some acid reflux, but that it was too soon to tell without invasive testing (they evidently go by behavior and symptoms most of the time). But all that insomnia seemed to pass, and Jocelyn became a pretty good sleeper. Except for the fact that she mixed up her days and nights pretty badly.

That wouldn't have been so bad - she slept great during the day. But she didn't sleep AT ALL at night for a few days. She would just be awake. Eventually she would get hungry and want to eat. And then we'd have diapers to change. But she refused to sleep. Then, come 7 a.m., like a miracle, she'd pass out and sleep SO hard that I'd have to wake her by 11 or 12 so she would eat.

Over the course of the week we really pushed the day / night training. During one of her day naps in her Pack 'n' Play (out in the living room, out in the open), she had a coughing fit that sounded really painful. And there went her daytime sleep. I called the nurses and they recommended propping up her bed so it would be at an incline, because that sounded like an acid cough. We tried it, and it worked! Jocelyn slept like a champ at night. Sadly, it wouldn't carry into the day, and she still slept on me almost exclusively. The second I would put her down anywhere (crib, PnP, swing, etc.) she would wake up and immediately start crying these very painful cries!

The timeline is all blurry, but I think that it was Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights that she slept like a champ. It was at least Friday and Saturday. Last night, she slept at night, but was also cluster feeding for some crazy reason, so she was up every two hours like clock-work (maybe that was the acid threshold?). So I'd wake up, change her, swaddle her, feed her for 30 minutes then hold her for 30 minutes. By that point, I could get a max of 1:15 of sleep before she was up for the next round. To be fair, Mike got up and did most of the diaper changes / reswaddles, but I was still awake. I just had a chance to set up at the rocking chair and get ready to feed her. This morning after her 6:00 feeding she was UP, but I was NOT. Mike took her and rocked her back to sleep while I rocked myself back to sleep. She gave me until 8:30.

So we went to the pediatrician today. Sadly, our doctor was at the Dallas office (the guy I fired was the only one with availability at the Plano office, which is really close by). So I had to drive 25 minutes with a SCREAMING baby (acid reflux babies hate their car seats because it squishes their tummies too much and forces acid up). That was awesome. The doctor gave me Prevacid, but is open to me trying physical methods and alternative methods (herbals, probiotics) first. I don't know that I will, since they are not necessarily shown to do much of anything (and they are not under the same labeling requirements as drugs, so you never really know what is in them). For today, we didn't do anything. I just nursed her and then rocked her upright for 30 minutes and will continue that through the night. I will decide tomorrow if I want to medicate her. If I do, I probably will in the afternoon, so it has a chance to kick in by the evening. But either way, I am buying some sort of physical wedge / sling system to help hold her upright and make the medicine more effective. Because I can't spend that much time cuddling and rocking my baby every night. I love it, don't get me wrong. But I need the sleep more so I can actually enjoy our cuddle time rather than resent it.

And that was LONG and RAMBLY... because I am super tired! Goodnight y'all!