Well I must say I truly do have a new understanding for those mothers who say their babies cry all the time.... After 7 great children who slept thru the night at only a few months old and only ever had a hour or two of being unsettled each day, generally called the twitching hour which is very normal for babies, I now have a little angel who is in no way an angel and I am exhausted beyond exhausted. Yes babies are hard work but this little angel is like having triplets in one baby.
Our new little girls has let us see the bad side since 2 weeks old. I spent 2mths trying to feed her but she was always unsettled and in tears. Oh and the chucking, Ive had 2 chucky babies before that giggled when they chucked but this little miss screamed all the time and on the off chance we did get her to sleep she would wake up screaming. All the while she hardly gained any weight the best she did was 40g in 3 weeks, in general she should have gained 450g in that time.
With the introduction of zantac she was able to get a little more sleep as the silent reflux was better but getting her to sleep was still a huge drama and the medication did not help the chucking side of things plus we still struggled to get her to eat and gain weight. I then spent weeks on medication and expressing after every feed to help my supply as her feeding habits left my supply wondering what the heck was going on.
By 3.5mths we were advised its time to try comp feeding with formula as she still was hardly gaining weight. Well she screamed even more and got the runs to go with it. So back to the Dr's, time to try soy formula. She slept yippee but only for 2 days with less crying, then came the constipation and the screaming again. Back to the Dr's.
So now at 4.5mths old we have finally got some answers. Added bonus she is putting on 200g a week.
It turned out she had a urinary tract infection basically from birth which was causing her discomfort, that was treated with medication she also underwent an ultrasound that showed a suspicious area followed by other tests to check her kidneys etc. All came back fine but she will need to have regular tests to double check.
She has now been put on Losec for her reflux and recently the dose was doubled.
It also turns out that she is lactose and protein intolerant so no matter how much I changed my diet she would never have gained weight while being breast fed (that made me feel better about turning to the bottle) and is now on a prescription formula that has no lactose and has the protein broken down so she still gets it but in a different form. We have been advised to avoid anything dairy or containing meat/chicken etc when starting solids but have hope she will grow out of it and be able to eat normally as she gets older.
But at 4.5mths old she still chucks from one bottle to the next, she hardly sleeps during the day, still cries way to much, is very difficult to feed she fusses with almost every feed and is still only taking the amount a new born takes and is feeding every 3hrs.
The great thing is once we can finally get her down at night around 9-11pm she will sleep and lately has only been waking between 2-4am for a feed and then again at 6-8am so we are finally getting some sleep, not that's its really helping she is draining us so much during the day the sleep we do get is not enough.
As she is still not a happy baby and still chucking so much the Dr is taking about more tests. If we can get thru 1 hour without her crying it would be a godsend.
We still love her dearly and she was worth every penny we spent to bring her into this world (IVF baby)
A couple of the very few photos I have of her not crying.
