If you don't want to read a long whiney post, then I suggest you skip this.
Little T and I are in a fight. This fight has lasted, oh, about 9 1/2 months. (We're talking fom birth people) I already mentioned in another post long ago how from 0-31/2 months little T screamed from 9-1 or 2 AM every night. Oh if only I knew what was going on then. I would have gotten so much more sleep.
Since May, little T has not been sleeping through the night. I chalked it up to teething and learning how to roll over. I figured eventually he'd get back to being his usual laid back self. Nope.
In late June, he started waking up 3-4 times a night. He fussed and arched his back and we just figured he was being gassy from starting solids. He was whining all day and wanting to be held all day. I was barely functioning on what little sleep I was getting and not a very nice mommy either. Chad was super busy with school and occasionally would watch the boys so I could sleep an extra hour.
Finally, I took him to the doctor where he was diagnosed with ear infection #1. We did the round of antibiotics and he started acting happier. About a week later he started whining again and pulling on his ear. So again we went to the doctor. Same ear, possibly same infection. Round 2 of the antibiotics finished up 3 days before we flew back to Utah.
I made an appointment with my Dad's office to go in and have Dr. Grandpa check his ears to make sure the infection had cleared up. They were. Then Wednesday he started whining and pulling on his ear. Of course his ear was pink and so we started round #3. Then a week after that infection cleared up we had #4 ear infection start up. That's when we started discussing tubes. My family has a history of very small eustacian tubes that don't drain well. So I figured we'd be doing surgery soon.
Because of all the ear infections it hurt little T to nurse. He would only lay on one side and it hurt him to suck. So we started bottle feeding and I called it quits with nursing. I could only take so much.
Even with the ear infections cleared up little T was still having issues sleeping at night. He was waking up 2-3 times a night and staying awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night as well. I was at my parents so I had a lot of help from them watching the boys. I had asked my Dad if it could be reflux. But we sort of shrugged that off because he wasn't spitting up a lot and never had. As a last resort Dad prescribed some Tagament. Which helped, a lot. The ear infections have totally stopped and he's sleeping a little bit better at night. He's also on soy based formula.
So after 9 months on this earth I finally figured out my kid has been in pain for most of it. He has silent reflux. Which means he randomly burps without spitting up and essentially has heart burn all the time. We have to feed him bottles sitting up and make him sit up for 30 minutes after he eats. If I don't do that in the middle of the night he's up 1-2 hours later in pain. I can't over feed him or he'll get heartburn. So we're walking a tightrope trying to figure out how much to feed him without giving him heartburn but enough that he can sleep through the night.
We're still getting up 1-2 times a night. But he has slept through the night a couple of times since starting the reflux medicine. I'm still barely hanging on by a thread but at least I'm no longer acting like Kate Gosselin and yelling at everyone ALL. THE. TIME.
