Bullseye

On Sunday night, I was at a breaking point of sorts. We had been dealing with Vivienne’s awful sleep for at least a week or so, and the sleep deprivation was catching up with me. So just as I was about to lose my mind, I let it all out on the blog, hoping someone, somewhere, could possibly help us. (And you certainly answered the call, THANK YOU!)

But that was also when I figured it all out. Well, at least we hope so.

In my last post, I mentioned how—after observing a distinct difference in Vivienne’s behavior in the upright vs. lying down positions—I had a new theory that all of this might possibly be due to her reflux. This was after we had spent a week testing all sorts of other theories… we felt like we had tried almost everything! I don’t know why it took me a week to consider her reflux, but it did. After hearing from so many of you about your own reflux babies, and hearing from other parents on Facebook, I suspected that maybe we had found our culprit.

On Monday morning, as I prepared to give Vivienne her Zantac for reflux, I made a split-second decision to give her a little more than usual. I upped her dose by 0.2mL, figuring that the pediatrician was going to tell me to do that anyway, and I might as well get her started on the new dose to test it out. Someone else had also suggested adding gas drops to her bottles for the day—in case gas was the culprit—so I did that, too.

Later that day, I called the pediatrician’s office and talked to a nurse. I explained to her what had been going on and asked about reflux. But instead of her just telling me to up the dose like I expected, she said that because she is so little, they wanted to see her to rule out an ear infection or anything else. Having dealt with ear infections many, many times in Nora—and learning our lesson when she got her first one at 3.5 months old!—I REALLY did not think that Vivienne had an ear infection. But I agreed to bring her in because I figured that if nothing else, I could use the appointment to talk to our pediatrician about the best way to approach our sleep issues. We scheduled an appointment for Tuesday morning (today).

As I put her to bed last night, I made the decision to again go rogue and give Vivienne the increased dose of Zantac. I swaddled her, fed her, and she fell asleep nursing like she often does. I lowered her into her crib and waited for a few beats to see if her eyes would fly open. But they didn’t. So I turned away quietly and left her room, closing the door behind me. I got downstairs and checked out the video monitor… still sleeping. So far, so good, but based on past experience, this didn’t necessarily mean anything. The true test was how long this would last. I didn’t at all expect that she would make it past the 45-minute mark.

But guess what? SHE DID. My face was like this:

And then? SHE KEPT SLEEPING. For hours. MANY HOURS.

You guys, she didn’t wake up until after 7:00 a.m. this morning. We’re talking about 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Not only was this a vast improvement over what she had been doing—even just one night before—but this was also the first time she had ever slept that long without waking to eat. FIRST.TIME.EVER! The kid went from one extreme to the other in just 24 hours time. My face looked like this:

We didn’t have any choice but to keep the doctor’s appointment since it wouldn’t have been enough notice to cancel it, but it didn’t matter—I still wanted to go anyway, in case this was a fluke.

At the appointment, I told the nurse and doctor right off the bat what I had done with her meds. The doctor asked me to start at the beginning and talk her through what brought us here. I explained it all to her, including what had happened last night, and then I apologized for taking it upon myself to up her meds when God knows I don’t have an M.D. behind my name. But instead of scolding me, our pediatrician said, “No, don’t apologize! You did the right thing!”

After hearing how Vivienne had been acting at bedtime and throughout the night, she said that what I was describing was a baby struggling with reflux. She said it was further proof that yes, Vivienne definitely does have reflux, and yes, she definitely does need meds. She also noted that Vivienne had gained more than a pound since the last time she had seen her (for a reflux follow-up) and nearly two pounds since the last time we raised her dose. It was perfectly reasonable to up her dose again.

As I write this, Vivienne is sleeping, and has been for an hour. She’s already made it past the dreaded 30-45 minute mark again, and I am starting to feel like MAYBE I can breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not expecting her to make it through the whole night again—that would be crazy—but at this point, I’m tremendously grateful for marked improvement. I’m only kicking myself that it took me this long to figure it out. My poor baby had to suffer for over a week! :(

Fingers crossed.

Knock on wood.