Hello again

Miss me? Our computer got a virus--the devastating, can't turn on anymore kind, so it was in the "shop" getting fixed. Then my husband has been monopolizing it to plan a vacation!!!! No complaints there, he is an awesome vacation planner--all I have to do is pack the bags and show up. Its awesome! So I am finally getting around to catching up with everything internet-related.

Its been a rough few weeks with Lacey's feeding issues, then the thrush, which seriously threatened my ability to continue breastfeeding. My lactation consultant helped me to get back enough supply so that Lacey was satisfied with nursing and I have abandoned pumping and bottle feeding altogether for now b/c I think Lacey was getting used to sucking down bottles fast and then not wanting to work at the breast. I am more comfortable (although not totally pain-free) following a course of anti-fungals.

So the feeding has become easier, but her sleep is horrendous. If there was any thought in my mind to have a third baby, the last month has convinced me that two is plenty. I am struggling at night. Lacey wakes up SO often. A good night is every two hours with a longish stretch of 3-5h at the beginning of the night. A bad night is her waking every hour from midnight till 7am. Its brutal and the bad nights outnumber the good nights. I do not know why she is waking. She sometimes just needs me to pop her paci back in, but more often than not, she takes a few drinks from the boob and drifts off into peaceful slumber (for a whole hour). Is it the itch? She still has some eczema around her eyelids, behind her ears and around her mouth. We had completely cleared it up and then she got a cold. Turns out viral illness can cause an outbreak, which means she will probably always have some patches since we are almost always sick around here. She is still being swaddled arms in b/c of the itching--when we take her arms out she scratches the crap out of her head and eyes, which wakes her up of course. Could it be unresolved reflux? She is on zantac AND prevacid, but she still has some days where she is so fussy during feedings. Does she just want to cuddle? Is it that she wakes up every sleep cycle wondering where the hell her mommy is? I don't know. We let her cry the other night to see what happens--she cried for an hour and fell asleep for...a whole 2h! What reward for enduring the screaming (note sarcasm). My ped said she is just barely of the age where they can actually learn from sleep training and that we should wait a few more weeks to try it in earnest. In the meantime I am so freakin tired from being up all night. Its hard for me to determine whether she has some physical discomfort, is truly hungry or if she is just workin me over. I need this phase to be over soon b/c I am driving myself nuts trying to make it better. I have decided to change my attitude as a means of coping. I used to read read read as much as I could to find out strategies to "fix" this problem--parenting websites, books, sleep books, etc. I obsessed about what a 4 month old should be doing (i.e. sleeping through the night or at least getting close to it, having some regularity in a schedule, feeding every 3-4h). But I have since decided that it doesn't matter what should be happening because Lacey is just not that baby. She has not fallen into a pattern for eating or sleeping, she feeds whenever--sometimes 2h, sometimes more like 4h, her night is all over the place and despite my best efforts to impose a pattern on her, all it does is make me feel like I am doing something wrong b/c she is not having it. So I have closed my books and decided to go with the flow. The important thing is that she is happy and growing. I just really want some sleep tonight. Send me some good vibes. Lack of sleep makes a mommy a crazy lady.

At least we are going on vacation!!! In April.