When Doves Cry

Last week we started putting Helena in her crib to sleep. She naps in it fine, but night time is a different story. 

A co-worker of Omar's suggested we try the Ferber method with her - which is let her cry for 5 minutes then comfort her, then wait 10 then 15 until she goes to sleep. I couldn't do more than 5 so that's what we agreed upon. Thursday night she cried for a few hours, then Friday she cried a little less, then Saturday and Sunday she cried a TON more! 

Sunday night we noticed the cry was a little different and saw some blood in her diaper - not a lot but enough to make me freak out. So we went to the doctor on Monday. It looks like the skin around where she poops is broken and that was the cause of the blood and pain. She also suggested I breastfeed from both breast each time, spread out her feedings and add rice cereal to her bottle at night to help her sleep through the night. 

And it seemed to work. Helena slept from 9:30 pm until 4:30 am when she woke up to feed. Then it was very hard to keep her up all day because my cold was the worst is has been yesterday and all she wanted to do was sleep.

When she was awake, she was crying all the time. Even diaper time, which is playtime for us, became a crying fest! Then all was well in the afternoon once she let out a huge poopy. 

All was going well, bedtime routine was on track she hadn't slept the day away - even though she wanted to - and it looked like she wasn't going to fight us to go to bed. We put her down around 9:30 pm and she was still awake, but tired. She cried on and off for a little while, but not hysterical like the other nights.

Then around 10:30 we heard it, the cry of pain. Its a horrible sound and had both of us running upstairs to check on her. Nothing would soothe her, she even fought nursing. We finally got her quited down enough that she would nurse and then she relaxed enough to get all the poopies out of her - at least we though she did. She proceeded to poop all over Omar and the floor when he went to change her. 

At 1:30 she awoke again wanting to eat, at least that's what I thought. She did nurse, but was in pain again when she tried to poop. We called the nurse and went to the doctor today.

We saw a different doctor today who thinks she has a virus, probably caught it from me and Omar, and her body is trying to flush it out through her poop and that means its coming faster and is more acidic. She had one more mean poopy there and has been acting normal ever since. 

Hopefully she's over it and I won't have to hear her cry like that again any time soon!

Night Owl

Helena doesn't like to sleep at night. There were a few days where we thought she was going to start sleeping at night, but no such luck! 

This week she's been up until 3:00 - 5:00 a.m. each night. Yesterday she was even up playing most of the afternoon and then again during American Idol.

I don't know how we are going to survive when I go back to work. We still haven't figured out a night time routine that works. It's either I am with her all night or until I can't take it anymore then Omar takes over and neither one of us gets to sleep.

Last night she went to bed at 4:00 a.m. I woke her up at 7:30 a.m. to eat and change her diaper, hoping that this will get her going earlier in the day and to sleep earlier tonight. She's napped, fed, played and is on her second nap and it's only 11:40 a.m. At least she was up for an hour playing this morning. Hopefully she will play for a long time again this afternoon and evening so we can wear her out so she'll sleep - but not wear her out so much that she's cranky for hours trying to get to sleep.

Any suggestions?

The Funniest Thing

Early this morning Helena and I were laying in bed nursing. She had just finished and we were staring lovingly into each other's eyes when she spit up all over my arm, her clothes and the bed. 

Guess my eyes were saying I love you and hers were saying I love . . . spitting up now.  

Rumbly in My Tumbly

Helena has had a bad week. Each morning from about 2:00 am until 9:00 am - longer on some days - she was crying and not sleeping more than 30 minutes at a time. I'm on the night shift with her so by the time we've hit the 4th hour of crying I'm exhausted and crying myself. That's when we wake up Omar and he tries to get her to sleep. 

Well after a whole week of this, I figured out the cause of her pain was her tummy. Friday I called in my Aunt Esther for support because I couldn't figure out how to help her and I was exhausted and to my limit. She got her to sleep by 11:00 am and she slept for a good portion of the day. Aunt Esther also thought that the gassiness was because of the lemonade I've been drinking, so I didn't have any of that Friday night. However, she still had a bad time Friday night. By the way, McDonalds starts serving breakfast at 5:00 am.

Since I was up, I called Grandma at 7:45 am on Saturday to see if it was too early to come over - it wasn't. So off to Grandma's house we went. There Aunt Debbie worked magic and got the gas out of her and she was great the rest of the day and night. 

Last night we had a great night - other than my REALLY noisy neighbors who were playing their music until 7:00 am (thank goodness for my air filter filtering out the noise). I used what I learned, nursing while laying down, the magic leg exercise for gas, getting her to take a pacifier and using co-sleeper and it worked! 

I am So happy because Helena has no more rumblies in her tummy. She is a happy camper too. Twice today she has been awake, happy and smiling while we played - even if she was only awake for 30 minutes each time.

Oh, got to go - she's awake and ready to play.