5.5 months old!
So its been quite an adventure with Lola & LM. As much as it pains me to see her suffering and struggling I HAD (key word, HAD!!!!) to take the good with the bad. It could have been a million times worse. She could have needed surgery and had lasting issues with it. She had a Mild case, and even coined with the word "mild" there was nothing less spicy about it.
We struggled... a lot. Mainly worried about her gaining weight and progress. I don't care if she's a peanut all her life, but I do care if she has to struggle just to be a peanut.
About a month ago we left her 4m check up still disappointed... she gained a little more than the previous appt, but was still hovering in the 2% for her age. Of course on these scales they use her actual age and not the adjusted (from being 4w early). Her pedi was ok with her weight of 11lbs 3oz at 4m... she said since she is eating and thriving every where else, she was ok with the weight bc regardless she is gaining. It doesn't really sit that well with me that she weighs that much. I know 2m olds that are well over that. Actually now that I think about it... from 3m-4m she gained 1.5lbs, but from 4m-5m she only gained 12oz...
anyways... a month ago, she started chugging bottles. The old partier in me felt kinda proud. Now THIS is what Mama taught you! Relax your throat and drink that milk girl! She was out drinking Mila on a consistent basis for over a week. We went from 3oz bottles where she would take half or almost all of it, in about 30mins+ to downing 4-5oz in 15mins. So we upped the ounces to 6 and now she drinks it like its her job! Marc & I were feeling great about it. She seemed to really be filling out, seemed super hungry so we fed her. Her spit up was very minimal. I actually cried when I realized how much she was finally drinking (thank god for my "Baby Connect" App- life saver!)
Last Weds (Feb 19) Lola had her check with ENT Dr. M up at the Children's Hospital. Hubs worked from home the first half of the day and stayed back with Beebs and Mila. Lola and I jammed out to some music, the sun was shining (for once) and I was in a great mood. When we got to the hospital I went to get Lola out of the back. I freaked out. I brought the wrong baby. I stood up with my hands over my mouth and almost threw up. My appt was in 15mins and they already rescheduled us bc Dr. M wasn't going to be for our last appt. We lived 15mins away... I thought about jumping back in my car and peeling down 77 until I took a closer look... thank you baby Jesus, I have Lola. I don't know what it was, but I swore I had Mila. I really hope this is not the trend to come. If I would have brough the wrong baby, then Marc & I both are losing our minds bc it was a collective effort to get everyone up and together before Lola & I left. After sighing relief and gaining feeling back in my legs I flung open the stroller, plopped the car seat in and headed inside.
We weren't there long before we got called back,but I made sure to get Lola out of her seat immediately to play with her and talk. Its not too often she gets one on one time with me, so I wanted to make the best out of our outing even if it was just to the doctor.
The Med Assistant took her weight... this is where I immediately got upset. Lola was fully clothed and had a full diaper. Its normal for them to weigh the girls non nakey. She told me 11lbs 9oz. I immediately put that in my Baby Connect App and popped up as 1% and then also saw last months entry of 11lbs 3oz. 6oz ina month??? NO way, that is WAY TOO LOW. She has to be more. The tech weighed her again. Everything was in kgs so she had to do a conversion and got the same each time. I was so confused. She kept repeating the weight to me. I told Hubs and he agreed it couldn't be right. I tried to just forget about it as we waited for Dr. M. He came in pretty fast, he is a very handsome doctor (blush). They had me sit in the chair and wrap my arms around Lola while they threaded the spaghetti looking camera up through her nose down to her throat. God she hates it. Who wouldn't? He recorded what he needed and then he slipped it out. I turned her around and put her head against my heart and rocked her side to side and told her I loved her until she calmed. He played the video back and one side of the Larynx had "tightened" up!!!! The other side is still "flappy", but its great that one side is already tight. He was very happy and said she was healing well and should fully be outgrown from this by her First Birthday! Her symptoms (clicks) are also very minimal and with the recent intake of bottles, its clear she's doing well. I told him my concern about the weight. His response was simple, that some babies grow faster than others. Well duh. Clearly I just need to call the pedi. So I did and we've been playing phone tag since!
They go back for their 6m (6months?!?! what!??!) in 2.5weeks, but I'm wondering if she'll want a weight check before that. Regardless, Lola is improving... slowly, but that is ok. This is such great news and we are so happy!
Monday, February 24, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
CIO...update!
I can't believe the girls will be 5 months old tomorrow!!! Where has the time gone?! So many days seem to run together and there are many times I don't believe when Hubs says what day of the week it is! He'll send me a text to remind me that someone is stopping by after work... "Ok, but I thought they were coming on Thursday?" He usually responds by saying... "It is Thursday..."
I don't wish the days away, but during the frustrating times I do wish the girls could get a little older. I know this stage is the hardest and it is FINALLY getting easier... and its getting easier because we are all getting a little more rest
My last update was starting CIO... I was aprehensive at first, thinking the girls were so young (4m), but after discussing it depth with their pediatrician we came to the conclusion they were ready.
I made some mistakes. I started with nap time and it wasn't working after a week. Mila seemed to go down easier, but still wasn't staying asleep. After doing some research I realized you should establish healthy sleeping at night before moving to naps. The most restful sleep is at night and when a baby is rested at night they tend to sleep better during the nap. Lola was not adjusting well at all so I actually stopped the nap training with her almost immediately. With her LM, I didn't want to agitate her stridor anymore than it already was. So she was still sleeping in the living room, in the pack n play, swing, etc... but this is distrupted sleep bc Ava and I are in there playing. I would try to usher her back to her room or down into the basement to play, but it didn't guarantee Lola would get a good quality of sleep.
*Disclaimer- I'm no expert and what works for me may or may not work for you. Anything I write here is just an explanation of methods we chose and what worked or didn't work, although I think I'm a baby sleep expert now ;) **********
So I decided to quit the nap training and focus on the sleep training. Babies night sleep cycle is 12hours, whether they sleep the whole 12hours or not... so if they go to bed at 9pm, then 9am should be their wake time. A lot of books suggest EARLY bedtimes and thats generally a great idea, especially if the family needs to be up early the next day. We don't. I stay at home. Ava goes to bed by 9pm and sleeps until 8-9am. If/when I go back to work and need to be up early we'll adjust the times, but for now this is what works for us.
We created a bedtime routine. We don't bathe the girls everynight. Mila has eczema and with the brutal winter we don't want to dry out their fragile skin anymore that it does naturally. So around 8am we take the girls into their rooms, lights dim, low distractions and get them ready for bed. A quick wipe down and lotion up. Lots of love and hugs. Then we bring them out to the living room (low lights again, which works well bc our 2yr old is starting to wind down for the night as well). Our house is by no means up to par sound wise for a library, but is considerably toned down from the day time. We feed them a larger bottle and they drink up, we burp them and try to keep them both upright for a little bit instead of immediately putting them to bed. We also don't want them to always tie that last bottle with sleep. So they finish the bottle, we burp and snuggle them up. Sometimes they fall asleep in our arms without warning. Once we catch the first sleep cues (yawning, eye rubbing, fussiness) we go to the bed room. We all give kisses. That's a must in our family. We always kiss one another good night! We even have Mila & Lola give each other a kiss and of course Ava loves watching them open mouth each others foreheads.
So generally speaking they are drowsy, but awake. Mila usually is out within 30secs and doesn't make a peep. She's a side sleeper and LOVES her little lovey (a tiny fleece blanket with a satin underside and a little mouse face at the end that has a rattle inside). She rubs her hands and face on it and falls asleep. Lola takes a little more coaxing... she will usually fuss it out for 20mins before falling asleep and we've been doing this over a week maybe two. Its not an ear piercing scream, more like an "ehhhhh ehhhhhhhhhh ehh ehhhhhhh". Once asleep it never failed... about 2hours later, Mila would wake and SCREAM for 10mins and the minute she fell asleep, Lola would finally wake from comotion. Poor baby, it takes her longer to self soothe. She can do it and she does, but not quickly. Sometimes we go in and rock her a little to help calm her down and put her back in.
Lately when one baby wakes crying/screaming/fussing it DOES NOT wake the other baby... THANK YOU BABY JESUS!!!!!! I wasn't sure we could get to that point, but we have. They are getting used to one anothers outbursts, this helps tremendously. I keep track of their feedings on my BABY CONNECT APP, love that app. They both are hovering around 30-32oz in a 24hour period. So we know they are taking enough during the day to go without feeding every 3hours at night. Our rule to start was no going in to the babies unless it had been 5hours. Once we hit the 5hour mark and they wake during or after we feed and right back to bed. It was a struggle the first couple nights... but the last couple nights have been great!
Last night... the girls ate at 8:15pm and were in bed a little after 8:30pm. They both went down without a single fuss and they both woke up at 1:45am... a little over 5 hours. To some this may not seem like much, but for us, its a miracle. The girls were waking every 2-3hours before sleep training, then with sleep training they were waking and crying and then going back to sleep. So no waking... we each fed a baby and put them back down. Then a little before 7am they woke again, we fed them and they went back down for about an hour and woke for the day around 8:15am. Not too bad!
Since they've started sleeping better at night, they are now napping better during the day! Every child of mine has been asleep for going on 90mins :) Heaven! In their own beds.
Room Conditions (for Ava too): Dark room, curtains up, humidifiers running for white noise and NO swaddle. Mila moves too much and we were afraid she would flip and without having her arms to help her flip again, could be in a dangerous situation. Lola seemed to love to have her hands up by her hair so we stopped her swaddle too and after a couple days it was fine for her. We watch them on the video monitor and they still startle themselves, but can now self soothe!
People have said to me that I'm creating monsters for having them sleep in such dark rooms with noise and that they will always require that. Ava can sleep anywhere, but she gets more rest if she's asleep in that type of room. Wouldn't you? Anyone can nap on a couch with the sunlight busting in and inconsistent noise on the tv... but what if you took a nap on your bed, with the curtains closed and white noise in the background? I'm pretty sure you'd sleep more sound and feel more rested.
The key for us was consistency. Even with trying to keep Lola from not crying too hard, we stuck to the plan. Even with worrying one baby would wake bc the other was crying. No matter if the crying was driving us crazy. No matter if it was necessary to get to a stage of healthy sleeping for the babies AND US.
Just this little improvement is making our lives easier!!!!
I don't wish the days away, but during the frustrating times I do wish the girls could get a little older. I know this stage is the hardest and it is FINALLY getting easier... and its getting easier because we are all getting a little more rest
My last update was starting CIO... I was aprehensive at first, thinking the girls were so young (4m), but after discussing it depth with their pediatrician we came to the conclusion they were ready.
I made some mistakes. I started with nap time and it wasn't working after a week. Mila seemed to go down easier, but still wasn't staying asleep. After doing some research I realized you should establish healthy sleeping at night before moving to naps. The most restful sleep is at night and when a baby is rested at night they tend to sleep better during the nap. Lola was not adjusting well at all so I actually stopped the nap training with her almost immediately. With her LM, I didn't want to agitate her stridor anymore than it already was. So she was still sleeping in the living room, in the pack n play, swing, etc... but this is distrupted sleep bc Ava and I are in there playing. I would try to usher her back to her room or down into the basement to play, but it didn't guarantee Lola would get a good quality of sleep.
*Disclaimer- I'm no expert and what works for me may or may not work for you. Anything I write here is just an explanation of methods we chose and what worked or didn't work, although I think I'm a baby sleep expert now ;) **********
So I decided to quit the nap training and focus on the sleep training. Babies night sleep cycle is 12hours, whether they sleep the whole 12hours or not... so if they go to bed at 9pm, then 9am should be their wake time. A lot of books suggest EARLY bedtimes and thats generally a great idea, especially if the family needs to be up early the next day. We don't. I stay at home. Ava goes to bed by 9pm and sleeps until 8-9am. If/when I go back to work and need to be up early we'll adjust the times, but for now this is what works for us.
We created a bedtime routine. We don't bathe the girls everynight. Mila has eczema and with the brutal winter we don't want to dry out their fragile skin anymore that it does naturally. So around 8am we take the girls into their rooms, lights dim, low distractions and get them ready for bed. A quick wipe down and lotion up. Lots of love and hugs. Then we bring them out to the living room (low lights again, which works well bc our 2yr old is starting to wind down for the night as well). Our house is by no means up to par sound wise for a library, but is considerably toned down from the day time. We feed them a larger bottle and they drink up, we burp them and try to keep them both upright for a little bit instead of immediately putting them to bed. We also don't want them to always tie that last bottle with sleep. So they finish the bottle, we burp and snuggle them up. Sometimes they fall asleep in our arms without warning. Once we catch the first sleep cues (yawning, eye rubbing, fussiness) we go to the bed room. We all give kisses. That's a must in our family. We always kiss one another good night! We even have Mila & Lola give each other a kiss and of course Ava loves watching them open mouth each others foreheads.
So generally speaking they are drowsy, but awake. Mila usually is out within 30secs and doesn't make a peep. She's a side sleeper and LOVES her little lovey (a tiny fleece blanket with a satin underside and a little mouse face at the end that has a rattle inside). She rubs her hands and face on it and falls asleep. Lola takes a little more coaxing... she will usually fuss it out for 20mins before falling asleep and we've been doing this over a week maybe two. Its not an ear piercing scream, more like an "ehhhhh ehhhhhhhhhh ehh ehhhhhhh". Once asleep it never failed... about 2hours later, Mila would wake and SCREAM for 10mins and the minute she fell asleep, Lola would finally wake from comotion. Poor baby, it takes her longer to self soothe. She can do it and she does, but not quickly. Sometimes we go in and rock her a little to help calm her down and put her back in.
Lately when one baby wakes crying/screaming/fussing it DOES NOT wake the other baby... THANK YOU BABY JESUS!!!!!! I wasn't sure we could get to that point, but we have. They are getting used to one anothers outbursts, this helps tremendously. I keep track of their feedings on my BABY CONNECT APP, love that app. They both are hovering around 30-32oz in a 24hour period. So we know they are taking enough during the day to go without feeding every 3hours at night. Our rule to start was no going in to the babies unless it had been 5hours. Once we hit the 5hour mark and they wake during or after we feed and right back to bed. It was a struggle the first couple nights... but the last couple nights have been great!
Last night... the girls ate at 8:15pm and were in bed a little after 8:30pm. They both went down without a single fuss and they both woke up at 1:45am... a little over 5 hours. To some this may not seem like much, but for us, its a miracle. The girls were waking every 2-3hours before sleep training, then with sleep training they were waking and crying and then going back to sleep. So no waking... we each fed a baby and put them back down. Then a little before 7am they woke again, we fed them and they went back down for about an hour and woke for the day around 8:15am. Not too bad!
Since they've started sleeping better at night, they are now napping better during the day! Every child of mine has been asleep for going on 90mins :) Heaven! In their own beds.
Room Conditions (for Ava too): Dark room, curtains up, humidifiers running for white noise and NO swaddle. Mila moves too much and we were afraid she would flip and without having her arms to help her flip again, could be in a dangerous situation. Lola seemed to love to have her hands up by her hair so we stopped her swaddle too and after a couple days it was fine for her. We watch them on the video monitor and they still startle themselves, but can now self soothe!
People have said to me that I'm creating monsters for having them sleep in such dark rooms with noise and that they will always require that. Ava can sleep anywhere, but she gets more rest if she's asleep in that type of room. Wouldn't you? Anyone can nap on a couch with the sunlight busting in and inconsistent noise on the tv... but what if you took a nap on your bed, with the curtains closed and white noise in the background? I'm pretty sure you'd sleep more sound and feel more rested.
The key for us was consistency. Even with trying to keep Lola from not crying too hard, we stuck to the plan. Even with worrying one baby would wake bc the other was crying. No matter if the crying was driving us crazy. No matter if it was necessary to get to a stage of healthy sleeping for the babies AND US.
Just this little improvement is making our lives easier!!!!
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