I cannot believe that our little boy is 7wks old today. I honestly feel like it was just yesterday we were coming home from the hospital with this new little person to love & protect. I have a hard time putting into words how having Owen has changed our lives. It's like he's allowed my heart to swell up twice as large as what it was before. I feel vulnerable through him and have such a fierce desire to protect & shelter him. I experience a whole new level of JOY when I see him smile or watch him sleeping peacefully. I have more anxiety now than I ever have had in my lifetime because of wanting to do the best for Owen and never being quite sure if we're doing everything we can. I feel heartache beyond what I've ever felt before when he is crying & uncomfortable. I feel gratitude from deeper depths of my heart when our family & friends offer to help Cory and I. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Owen's colic continues to be very demanding and challenging right now. These last 48hrs have been some of the toughest for us - especially for me since I'm with him for 17hrs straight. He's been having more and more frantic crying spells that are very hard to coax him out of. While everything is fine with him during them (fed, clean diaper, clean clothes, not too hot or cold, nothing touching his skin) he cries as if he is in pain. Many times, I cry with him out of sheer exhaustion or frustration that I'm not doing everything possible to keep him comfortable. Like I said, these last 48hrs have been very hard, so Cory and I were concerned that there might be something else going on that we weren't seeing, so we ended up going into our Peds office yesterday afternoon.
Our Peds was not in so we saw one of the female practitioners in the office. She was beyond wonderful...not only to Owen, but also to Cory and I. She talked so sweetly to Owen while looking him over head to toe and of course, Owen decided to show off during our visit rather than cry like he had been doing all day! He showed her some of his faces, kicked & waved his arms and followed her face & voice. Physically, she said that he is "perfect" She gave Cory and I great encouragement for all that we're doing with Owen's colic and promised us that sometime between 3-5months he will be a "totally different baby". She also said that parents who struggle early on with colicky babies are usually blessed with the most wonderful & amazing children in the end.
She recommended we make yet another formula switch (for the record, this will be #5) to Enfamil AR, which has rice protein in it. Since Owen was spitting up more and more with his feedings, the rice protein thickens the formula and will help to stop the spit up. She gave us some samples to try first and said that if we wanted, we could just add some rice cereal to the Gentlease formula instead. So for now, we're trying to new formula to see if that helps Owen at all. We're already using the Dr. Brown's bottles to help reduce gas, so I feel like there's not much else we can do other than hope this formula works.
The Zantac is history - we gave him a total of 2 doses just at the start of this horrible 48hr fussy period and while at first we thought it might be helping, his colic flared up worse than ever. The Peds agreed with us that if after those 2 doses we didn't see any improvement to stop it, but also reassured us that the Zantac would not have caused this flare up. So, we're still using the mylicon after feedings since that seems to help sometimes.
We did weight Owen at the visit yesterday and he was 9lbs15oz! So despite the spit ups, colic and crazy fussiness, physically he is thriving! We don't have his 2 month appointment for another 2 weeks, and unfortunately at that appointment he'll be getting the dreaded 2 month vaccines :( I've already got his infant Tylenol drops all ready to give him before hand.
Cory and I continue to feel beyond blessed each day to have this little guy in our life. I cannot imagine life without Owen and it's hard to remember what life was like before him. We are SO SLEEPY and constantly struggle to do all our normal tasks on top of caring for Owen, but we're managing. Unfortunately, since we don't have family nearby that we can call on for help (especially short notice help) Cory and I have had very little time together...even sleeping time. He works from about 9a-6p, watches Owen from 8p-2a while I sleep and then I'm with Owen from 2a-8p. And since Owen HATES being on his back, the only way we can get him to sleep well is on his tummy, and since he can't roll over yet, that means we're up with him while he sleeps. But even on some nights, Owen only wants to sleep on our chests, so that means, no sleep again for us. Sometimes I wonder if Owen will ever be able to sleep longer than 2hrs, sleep in his crib or even just go for a span of time without crying & fussing. There's a small part of me that is very jealous of parents who get "easy" babies who never struggle with sleep, gas, feedings or colic. And I get frustrated when people who have never been around a colicky baby think that we're spoiling Owen (by holding him so much) or exaggerating his behavior....seriously, you have no idea unless you've lived with a colicky baby 24-7.
The challenge of Owen's colic has also caused my anxiety level to sky rocket. Lets face it, I'm only 7wks post partum so I know that there is still a HUGE hormonal component to my emotional reactions, but since I had anxiety way before I even got pregnant, I can tell that being post partum, sleep deprived and caring for a colicky baby has caused it to get worse. We do have one outlet for the anxiety - Owen and I go on frequent walks, but that's about all I can do right now. There is NO time for much else since any down time we get, we need it to sleep since we're only getting around 4-6hrs/night.
So, thankfully it's the weekend which means Cory is home with us for 2 whole days...and for the first weekend in a long time we're not traveling anywhere or having people over. I'm hoping that we'll both be able to catch up on sleep and have some time together to just "be".
Owen's colic continues to be very demanding and challenging right now. These last 48hrs have been some of the toughest for us - especially for me since I'm with him for 17hrs straight. He's been having more and more frantic crying spells that are very hard to coax him out of. While everything is fine with him during them (fed, clean diaper, clean clothes, not too hot or cold, nothing touching his skin) he cries as if he is in pain. Many times, I cry with him out of sheer exhaustion or frustration that I'm not doing everything possible to keep him comfortable. Like I said, these last 48hrs have been very hard, so Cory and I were concerned that there might be something else going on that we weren't seeing, so we ended up going into our Peds office yesterday afternoon.
Our Peds was not in so we saw one of the female practitioners in the office. She was beyond wonderful...not only to Owen, but also to Cory and I. She talked so sweetly to Owen while looking him over head to toe and of course, Owen decided to show off during our visit rather than cry like he had been doing all day! He showed her some of his faces, kicked & waved his arms and followed her face & voice. Physically, she said that he is "perfect" She gave Cory and I great encouragement for all that we're doing with Owen's colic and promised us that sometime between 3-5months he will be a "totally different baby". She also said that parents who struggle early on with colicky babies are usually blessed with the most wonderful & amazing children in the end.
She recommended we make yet another formula switch (for the record, this will be #5) to Enfamil AR, which has rice protein in it. Since Owen was spitting up more and more with his feedings, the rice protein thickens the formula and will help to stop the spit up. She gave us some samples to try first and said that if we wanted, we could just add some rice cereal to the Gentlease formula instead. So for now, we're trying to new formula to see if that helps Owen at all. We're already using the Dr. Brown's bottles to help reduce gas, so I feel like there's not much else we can do other than hope this formula works.
The Zantac is history - we gave him a total of 2 doses just at the start of this horrible 48hr fussy period and while at first we thought it might be helping, his colic flared up worse than ever. The Peds agreed with us that if after those 2 doses we didn't see any improvement to stop it, but also reassured us that the Zantac would not have caused this flare up. So, we're still using the mylicon after feedings since that seems to help sometimes.
We did weight Owen at the visit yesterday and he was 9lbs15oz! So despite the spit ups, colic and crazy fussiness, physically he is thriving! We don't have his 2 month appointment for another 2 weeks, and unfortunately at that appointment he'll be getting the dreaded 2 month vaccines :( I've already got his infant Tylenol drops all ready to give him before hand.
Cory and I continue to feel beyond blessed each day to have this little guy in our life. I cannot imagine life without Owen and it's hard to remember what life was like before him. We are SO SLEEPY and constantly struggle to do all our normal tasks on top of caring for Owen, but we're managing. Unfortunately, since we don't have family nearby that we can call on for help (especially short notice help) Cory and I have had very little time together...even sleeping time. He works from about 9a-6p, watches Owen from 8p-2a while I sleep and then I'm with Owen from 2a-8p. And since Owen HATES being on his back, the only way we can get him to sleep well is on his tummy, and since he can't roll over yet, that means we're up with him while he sleeps. But even on some nights, Owen only wants to sleep on our chests, so that means, no sleep again for us. Sometimes I wonder if Owen will ever be able to sleep longer than 2hrs, sleep in his crib or even just go for a span of time without crying & fussing. There's a small part of me that is very jealous of parents who get "easy" babies who never struggle with sleep, gas, feedings or colic. And I get frustrated when people who have never been around a colicky baby think that we're spoiling Owen (by holding him so much) or exaggerating his behavior....seriously, you have no idea unless you've lived with a colicky baby 24-7.
The challenge of Owen's colic has also caused my anxiety level to sky rocket. Lets face it, I'm only 7wks post partum so I know that there is still a HUGE hormonal component to my emotional reactions, but since I had anxiety way before I even got pregnant, I can tell that being post partum, sleep deprived and caring for a colicky baby has caused it to get worse. We do have one outlet for the anxiety - Owen and I go on frequent walks, but that's about all I can do right now. There is NO time for much else since any down time we get, we need it to sleep since we're only getting around 4-6hrs/night.
So, thankfully it's the weekend which means Cory is home with us for 2 whole days...and for the first weekend in a long time we're not traveling anywhere or having people over. I'm hoping that we'll both be able to catch up on sleep and have some time together to just "be".
3 comments:
Oh, sweetie. It breaks my heart to see how trying it has been for you. Just an FYI, if you do want to try a different reflux med with Owen in the future, you should give it 72 hours to see if it helps. Just trying the two doses of Zantac most likely wouldn't be enough to notice a difference -- although I don't like Zantac anyways! ;) Good luck with the Enfamil AR! Love ya!!
Oh my goodness Julie, I just looked at the pictures of Owen- they are gorgeous!! They're something you will be able to treasure forever...how special!! Owen is BEYOND adorable!! He looks so much like you!! Your blog post made me teary eyed, I can tell how much love you have for your little man...you are such an amazing person and I couldn't be more happy for you and Cory!! Owen is such a lucky child to have the two of you as parents! I really hope to be able to visit Indiana sometime soon so I can stop by and meet him! In the meantime I'll just have to keep up with the blog and his adorable pictures! :)
--Caitlin
You guys are doing such a great job with Owen and he is soooo lucky to have such loving and unselfish parents! It does get better, I promise you! Our first 10 weeks with Riley were horrible and then one day something clicked with her and her colic (she was never diagnosed but we think she had it) went away and she started sleeping like 4 hours at a time and then it was 6, and then 8 and now she usually sleep 12 hours. The way I see it is all the hard work you are putting in with him now, you will be rewarded for in a few weeks! :) Keep up the great work, Owen knows he is soooo loved and that helps more than anything! :) Going for walks with Riley were my favorite things when I was on Maternity leave too. Now that I am back at work I try to make a point to go at least a day a week with her, we both love it!
PS He is such a cutie!
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