Isabella is an adorable baby girl and when she sleeps, she is even more beautiful and peaceful! We love her to pieces and could not even imagine our lives without her. :)
We have been to the doctor quite a bit with her as we have been figuring out her tummy issues. For the first two weeks of her life, she slept a lot and was generally a calm baby. Right about when she was two weeks old, she became VERY fussy. It was extremely difficult to nurse her, she was pretty much screaming all the time, and she was pooping 18-20 times a day. no exaggeration! And when I say screamed all the time, I'm talking HOURS on end ALL day/night whenever she was awake. And she had trouble sleeping because any time she would fall asleep and be put down (even elevated) she would wake up screaming needing to burp, arched back, or with hiccups, or gas pains... We could tell she was in pain because she would just scream/cry after every burp or spit up. We even called the triage pediatric nurse late one night because she had been screaming for sooo long and we were feeling helpless because nothing we did would calm her down. Talk about a horrible feeling as parents not being able to calm your baby down.... it was awful.
That was when we took her to the doctor for the first time... (besides well-check ups) She was about 3 weeks old. The doctor diagnosed her with reflux. It is normal for babies to spit up, although we were unfamiliar with that because Jayden never spit up. But, when a baby is spitting up and it smells like vomit because it has acid in it, that is acid reflux... some babies are fussy with reflux and some are not fussy at all. Our baby was definitely fussy. She was put on Zantac. The purpose of the medicine is not to make her stop spitting up. It is to help with the PAIN when she does spit up. I was very reluctant to put her on any medicine, so the doctor told me to take the prescription and see how she is doing and then fill it if I decided, blah blah.
We were also trying to figure out WHY she was pooping 18-20 times a day on average. Was it a milk intolerance? I was breastfeeding, so the doctor suggested I take all dairy out of my diet and see if that makes a difference after 2 weeks. So, I tried that. I NEVER realized how many products have dairy in them.... I knew the obvious like cutting out milk and cheese, etc. (which was EXTREMELY hard for me because I LOVE MILK AND CHEESE!!!) But, I cut it out and was willing to try it! After several days, it just wasn't making a difference... I am sure I could have tried harder, but honestly, dealing with being food deprived on top of sleep deprived and mentally dealing with a screaming baby around the clock was really not a good combination. The doctor had also given us a sample of a special formula for milk allergies called Alimentum, made by Similac. She told us to supplement with that if I needed to supplement. We decided to cut out all breastmilk from Isabella's diet and give her this special (expensive!) formula. This was so we would be able to tell if she had a milk intolerance or just reflux. Meanwhile, I was pumping and freezing breastmilk for her to use once we have this thing figured out!
The screaming and crying did not change, but the poop did. She went from 18-20 times a day to once a day. The extreme fussiness continued, peaked at 6 weeks, and now has slowly been getting better each day. At about 7 weeks, she started doing a 5-6 hour stretch between feedings at night. This has continued almost every night since. During the day, she is eating about 3.5 ounces every 3-4 hours. The doctor has us giving her a little bit of rice cereal in her bottles, too. This is supposed to help her with digestion. She is also taking Culturelle Probiotics once a day to help with digestion... and the Zantac twice a day... and Mylicon gas drops... we have also tried Gripe Water, too (it is like a ginger water natural product). Our little girl is high maintenance. :)
Her doctor told us that a babies neurological system can take 4 months after birth to be fully developed. This is hopefully the case with Bella. If that is the case, we have 2 more months of very fussy baby... or she also said, it could last longer. :/
We had to get an x-ray of her stomach done when she was about 4 weeks old and that was all completely normal.
Currently, she is 9 weeks old, and her fussiness is typically during the hours of 6-11ish PM, which the doctor said is pretty typical because that is a high stimulation time...
Oh, I almost forgot... Jared gave her the nickname "Porsche." We call her that a lot. Jared says if we would have known her personality before she was born, we would have legally named her Porsche because she goes from 0 to 100 in the matter of seconds! We call her Porsche quite often. We also call her Bella, Bellakins, and sometimes I call her "Tink" (like Tinkerbell). We also love her full name, Isabella. :)
I am sure I have forgotten a lot of stuff regarding her tummy issues, but I guess that pretty much sums it up for the most part...
I don't have her 2 month stats yet, because her next dr. appt is not until next week, Oct. 12.
Here are some pictures from her 2 month photo shoot! The dress is from Jared's mom, Grammie, the flower headband is from me, and the cute booties are from ISABELLA'S GODMOTHER, SueSue! (her Great Aunt) :)
Happy two months, Porsche!!!! We love you!!!! xoxoxo
1 comment:
One word - adorable!
xoxoxo
Hang in there!
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