Bird on the Street

A Week in the Trenches II

5:40 pm

I had fun with this last time, so here we go again–all photos are from last week.

I picked up four boxes of peanut butter Girl Scout cookies for me and one box of Thin Mints for the Husband. His was gone in a day. Mine are almost gone. It’s a good thing they only sell these one time a year.

The twins and I taking big brother Charlie to Feldenkrais therapy in the Quarter. You should see the looks I get when I start hauling two babies around there–not a lot of children in the Quarter and even fewer twins.

Hubby cooked! He used to cook all the time, but now he’s really dedicated to his position as a work-a-holic, so it’s a rare occasion. It’s an enjoyable one, though.

Hubby’s brother has moved back to town. He’s in the process of job hunting, so I immediately pressed him into service as a “nap creator.” Basically, he comes over, and I take a nap. Best. Idea. Ever.

A rare date night. Out on the town to hear Ira Glass of NPR fame speak live. Hubby gives money to public radio, so we got to go to a reception beforehand with food and a chance to shake Mr. Glass’ hand as well.

The twins. Carefully studying a toy that I pulled out from under the bed. To them, that’s the same as new. They’re in their classic roles–Louis curiously exploring while August looks on.

Big Lou in the bath. He’s decided that there is nothing better in the world than to roll over in the tub and kick like a mad man. There are no cute pictures of August in the tub because he has decided that baths are the work of the devil and he screams the ENTIRE time he is in there. I’m becoming the Queen of the two minute baby bath.

Filed Undermotherhood

The Trouble With Lou

11:15 pm

This is Lou.

Why yes, I did pee all over my clothes in the doctor's office.

If you look closely you can see that despite his preemie status, he’s a good-sized baby with chubby cheeks and thigh rolls galore. At well visits he outweighs his brother Gus by about five pounds.

Ironically, Louis is having some serious problems with one of life’s most basic skills: eating solid food. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. He can eat the food, but then his little body struggles to digest it. I started both the twins in Oatmeal. August was disinterested, Louie enthusiastic. That night, Louie screamed and writhed in pain.

I read about digestive issues and decided to skip grains, and go right to fruits and vegetables. Both the twins like fruits and vegetables, but again, Louie had a night of painful gas and screaming. Not fun. Not fun at all.

I guess I should recap a bit and mention that Louie has a history of not doing well with the whole digesting thing. When he was in the NICU, Louis had blood in his diapers and his bowel filled with gas. All the professionals were very confused because these were all signs of the very bad preemie complication, NEC. NEC usually presents in babies that are much more premature. It’s also very rare in breast-fed babies. Still, Louis’ bowels couldn’t keep up, and they suspended all food for a week. Louis was less than pleased by this development.

I know he’s not the best digester. I take a week off. I do some more reading. I read that ripe bananas are one of the easiest foods to digest. I go whole-hog and buy actual bananas instead of baby food since I have no way of knowing whether the bananas in baby food were “very ripe.” We give the twins bananas. They are a HUGE hit.

That night Louis has a restless night, but he doesn’t seem to be in pain. TMI here, but his diaper the next day was a little sickly in appearance, but not terrible.

We repeat with bananas and have a better night. So, my kid can have bananas and that’s about it. I’m not sure what to think. Is his bowel too immature (he actual age is eight months, six and a half adjusted). Does he have food allergies of some sort? How important is it that an eight-month-old eat solid food?

I’m going to bring this all up with the pediatrician at our nine month checkup, but seriously, this a Sumo-sized baby–they are never going to believe that he has trouble eating!

Filed Undermedical

Sleep Success

8:06 am

Well, since my last bedtime post, we’ve been working an tweaking the ritual, trying lot so new and different things and also reading a lot on children and sleep issues.

Two things stood out for me in my reading: the first, was the neurologist’s assertion that some brain injured kids don’t need as much sleep as typical children. I’d never considered that. The second thing was an article that said that trouble falling asleep is most-like an issue related to routine.

I went with the easy way out first–I enforced zero bedtime. This resulted in several nights where he was up past eleven. Eventually he would whine or fall asleep on the floor and we’d put him in bed.

Then he’d sleep half the day at school, which was the opposite of what we were going for.

Then, I switched things up and put him in bed at “bed time,” but letting him play with whatever he wanted. This went well, but he was still up til almost eleven–an improvement, but not a great one.

Further research revealed that problems with going to sleep are often a result of not having a good bedtime routine. Sigh. I’m not a fan of routines. I also find that the more pregnant I get, the less I feel like doing anything in the evening.

But we did it anyway. We stuck to a very rigid 9:00 bedtime, which is later than most four-year-olds, but acceptable to me. We follow the exact same routine every evening.

Guess what? It’s working.

He’s falling asleep before 10:30 every night. He takes about a one hour nap at school. He doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night crying.

He’s also in a better mood during the day, participating more in therapy, and just generally seems happier.

It’s not a miracle cure–we’ve had a bad night or two, but it sure beats the night after night of getting up at two and three in the morning, and the hours of screaming before bed.

I’ll continue to keep y’all posted, but MAN is this better than before.

PS: I finished this post last night and OF COURSE we had a rough sleepless night–luckily, we knew what we’d done wrong, which makes the sleepless nights a lot easier.