I haven't posted in over a month. I am a stay-at-home mom of 11-month-old fraternal twin boys. At the end of the day, I don't feel like blogging about my feelings so I have been a lazy writer lately. I've been dealing with some anxiety lately (my Melatonin, Valerian Root and Calms Forte cocktails no longer put me to sleep) so maybe this blog thing will help me relax.
Baby A has been having reflux issues since late July. Well, he's had silent reflux issues his entire, short life. As a newborn he would make a sour face when the acid came up, his brother would just constantly spit up like Niagara Falls. I've had them on Zantac for a long, long time (switching briefly to Prevacid but going back to Zantac after our insurance would not fork up the dough - it was over $500 a month). So, it was odd when he started having difficulty at night because he's never had difficulty.
I would never tell Baby B this but, honestly, if I had a singleton instead of twins and it was Baby A ... well ... I would be Michelle Duggar (minus the reality show and religion) because he is an easy baby. He only fusses when something is wrong, which isn't often, he eats well, burps well and entertains himself. He slept through the night at about three months or earlier and is a delight. On the other hand Baby B had colic, doesn't like when I leave the room, just recently stopped spitting up and is often fussy - don't get me wrong, I love the boys equally but the truth is the truth. So, when Baby A started screaming in the middle of the night I knew something was wrong.
I enjoy the saying, "Don't get happy," especially because we got happy. The boys were sleeping through the night ... about 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. or so. It was nice. We got used to it. So when Baby A woke up one night, a couple months ago, screaming, it was a shock, especially since he only cries when he is in pain, which isn't often. We thought it was gas so we tried the bicycle legs thing, we tried all sorts of things that you learn from Google at 1 a.m. The first time he cried for two hours. Then it was every other night or so, sometimes he'd go a week, sometimes two hours, sometimes 30 minutes. One time he did it in the middle of the afternoon after lunch so we assumed he'd been overfed.
Finally I noticed he made a swallowing sound and arched his back. After further research via Google we landed on reflux. We never considered this because during the day, especially during naps, he is fine. Also, we didn't think reflux would get worse over the months, we thought it would get better as they start eating solid-ish food and toddler-ing around. So, over the course of weeks, which felt like months, we tinkered with this and that, took him to the doctor and finally think things are OK.
I don't believe in absolutes so I don't think it's just reflux. I also believe mothering is a crapshoot. He also didn't want to go back in his bed and had a bit of separation anxiety/night waking going on. So, his doctor upped his dosage of Zantac (we learned as babies gain weight, their dosages typically need to be increased), elevated his bed with a pillow under one side of the mattress (close to 30 degrees), and we have him (and his brother) sit in their activity centers for 20-25 minutes after their last bottle of the day and before bed - I do bottle, breakfast, nap, bottle, lunch, nap, bottle, dinner, bottle, bedtime over the course of 12 hours, basically a bottle every four hours.
Is it a perfect solution? Who knows. I will be the first to admit defeat. You have to try different things and once you think you figured it out something else will change. Cest la vie.
Otherwise Baby A is a tall, skinny drink of water and laughs at everything with a nerdy "Revenge of the Nerds" style cackle.
Let's not forget about his brother. Baby B is a big boy! He's walking like Frankenstein around the play pen and suffers from separation anxiety during the day but is (knock on wood) a good sleeper at night. He doesn't enjoy when I leave the room and needs a lot more attention than his brother. He's a handful when it's just me putting them to bed (especially during bathtime and anytime I need to feed them bottles at the same time). However, he's growing and is a sweet little guy.
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