Sunday, March 15, 2009

Sleep

Sleep. It makes all the difference. I’ve been behind on my blogging because until now I had been seriously sleep deprived. I was grumpy and tired looking.

The problem was, Hannah was waking up every 3 hours or so at night, and at random times. She would scream and then when I picked her up, she would burp and then, if she wasn’t too awakened, would go back to sleep after burping. This is probably not uncommon in babies up to 3 or even 6 months, but Hannah started getting worse at around 6 months.

We tried everything: sleep behaviour books up the ying-yang; I took her to our doctor; then the pediatrician; we tried all sorts of homeopathic drops and Ovol; we took stool samples (the most disgusting task yet as a parent); I cut out gluten (wheat) and lactose from her diet; I changed her crib position; I changed when I fed her; I tried night feedings, evening feedings and just-cereal feedings. The pediatrician said her digestive system was immature, and then on the next visit he thought she must be a ruminator/tooth grinder (which can cause air swallowing) and advised giving her Tylenol or Advil at night to knock her out. I tried this for one night and not only did it not work, I felt wrong about it.

Finally, I read that some babies don’t tolerate the iron supplement that is typically added to enrich baby cereals. So, I cut out the cereal (pablum) from her diet. Problem solved…I think. We are going onto night five and she has given us up to 7 hours straight. I think her sleep habits took a bit of a hit from all the commotion because she still wakes up once but she doesn’t burp. I am hoping that now we can get back into a rhythm.

With the lack of sleep I actually wondered if I was going to be able to go through with IM Canada in August. David encouraged me to wait until making any decision and now I’m glad I put it out of my mind. I’m also into a recovery week so I’m going to try to concentrate on taking advantage of this and resting up!

4 comments:

  1. glad hannah seems better...interesting all you had to try to (hopefully) figure out the problem! interesting, and impressive. glad you decided to keep up your training. i'm thinking training with a baby is a lot like training in pregnancy was - you take it one day at a time and some days stink and some are great, and you just can't predict what's going to happen, but you absolutely can't give up or think it's never going to get easier. for me, finding time is hard now with being back to work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. that is crazy! all that time and its the cereal! wow. Good to know!!! Glad it is going better!

    ReplyDelete
  3. iI love the pic of Hannah!! She is so cute. Kristi

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pushing through despite fatigue will be a component of your ironman so in a way, Hannah has been helping you train. How considerate of her ;-)

    ReplyDelete