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!