Xander's Story Part 2: The Reflux

The first couple weeks home were like a honeymoon period. My parents stayed for a week and a half taking care of Rosemary, Joe, and I while we took care of Xander. Joe went back to work after 2 weeks and things went surprisingly smooth when I was on my own. And then week 3 started. Hello again, colic, my old friend. We went through it with Rosemary and I was decided not to go through it again. This time it came accompanied by lots and lots of spit up and a nasty case of baby acne covering his face, arms, back, and starting to creep onto his stomach. I went ahead and made a doctor's appointment because it seemed to be getting worse. The doctor suspected reflux and a dairy intolerance (which aggrevates the reflux as well as the baby acne). She gave us some tips on how to deal with the reflux (keep him propped up, gripe water, Mylicon) and suggested I remove dairy from my diet. I started seeing a little improvement in both his skin and fussiness after removing dairy, but not significant improvement so I went ahead and also took out soy and wheat, the other 2 big allergens that can cause intolerance in babies. After 2 weeks of no improvement with the reflux we were prescribed Zantac (the acne comes and goes). After another 3 weeks of that and not much improvement, we were prescribed Prilosec. It's been about a week and a half now and I am seeing some improvement. I've also started tracking his behavior (nursing, fussy times, and sleep). One of the biggest problems with the reflux is the lack of sleep it causes. At his age, babies should get about 16 hours of sleep a day. He was getting less than 10, and most of that was at night. He'd scream all day. I've been tracking his behavior for 3 days now. The first day he slept a total of 11 hours in a 24 hour period. The next day I saw where he was really fighting sleep and I found ways to soothe him and he slept a total of 15 hours in the 24 hour period. I think by the end of tonight, the total will be 14 hours for this 24 hours period. So, not exactly as much sleep as we want him to get, but a significant improvement from pre-Prilosec days. It's a lot of work for me, and poor Rosemary is just not getting the attention she needs, but I'm hoping it will all pay off and he will soon be able to sleep better and faster on his own.

We go back next Monday for a follow-up, and for his 2 month wellness visit (ack! Vaccines! This is NOT going to be fun!). Hopefully by then we'll see even more improvement.

So that's what's going on health-wise with our little guy.

Reflux aside, he is the cutest little boy I have ever laid eyes on. In his happy moments (and there are increasingly many) he loves to indulge us in these huge, toothless smiles that light up the room- and my heart! I was privy to his first smile, but it was so quick that I almost didn't believe it happened. And the next smile episode lasted a long time- but only with Joe! And then he smiled at a friend's grandmother before smiling at me again and I was starting to feel a little left out. But the past 2 days have been all about smiling for mommy! I love his little smiles. They make it all worth it! I'm pretty sure when he outgrows the reflux (and I'm confident this WILL NOT last forever!) he is going to be a happy little boy!

I just found this picture in Joe's flickr. I guess he's been smiling even longer than I thought! This picture was taken on October 9, so he was about 3 weeks old.



Hehehe. I just found this in Joe's flickr, too. This is what I usually hear (when I'm not getting those cute smiles) during the 9 to 13 waking hours he has each day