Knackered

I'd like to start off this post by letting you know that Lola topped off that perfect Father's Day with a (near) perfect night's sleep. I fed her in her sleep at around 10pm, she woke at 2pm for food and then slept till 7pm. SEVENPM. That meant for the first time in 14 weeks I had a whole five hours sleep. In one go! It was incredible. I woke up and literally leapt out of bed, made breakfast and left Paul to lie in (very unusual as he's almost always the one who gets up with Lola in the morning).

Paul got a full night's sleep. Probably only the third or fourth he'd had in 14 weeks. He still gets up a lot in the night to settle his daughter, which I REALLY appreciate. While I'm the one who inevitably has to feed her, he often hears her first and tries to settle her down before I go in. For a baby who has been so very good at getting to sleep, for naps in the daytime and at bedtime , she sure does wake a lot a night.

I really feel that the 5/6 week mark was a turning point in that I felt that I got used to the sleep deprivation. Before that there were occasions when I thought I was going to lose the plot I was so exhausted. But it's true that you do get used to it. Thank goodness.

So, if you'd have asked me if there was anything difficult about motherhood the day after Father's Day I'd have said 'no'. Everything was right with the world and this parenting lark was an absolute breeze. Nothing difficult about this. Nope, nosiree.

But that was the calm before the storm. The next night all hell broke loose. We had a terrible time where Lola woke hourly with what we suspected at the time to be rapped wind. She was screaming, tensing up and wouldn't settle till she was upright. We took it in turns to cuddle her and lay her back down in her cot. It was a long-winded (no pun intended) process which on both nights ended up with her in bed with one of us at four in the morning. Needless to say we got very little and very broken sleep When the exact same thing happened the next night it started to worry us. I was at the doctors the next day for something unrelated, so decided to mention it to the GP. She did a quick examination to check there was nothing serious going on and her response went something like this:

This baby is clearly very happy (as Lola beamed up at her in her usual smiley way) and very healthy. It's very likely that this is just a blip. She's a tiny baby, it'll just be a phase. I'd like you to give it another week (I gasped out loud at this point) and if it's still happening then please bring her back in.

One week??? The thought of one more night had me reaching for the valium.

But then I thought rationally (which I believe you can only do in the cold light of day and don't stand a chance of doing at 3am in the morning). My Mum was coming down that night for a visit, which meant she could help out if things got rough and we were in Derby for the weekend which meant an eager Great Aunt and keen Grandparents would be on hand to take Lola so actually yeah a week sounds fine. We can do that, I said.

It wasn't easy. Even though we were able to hand Lola over to the keen relatives and she slept on their chests for a significant part of the nights, it was still exhausting. Lola moved into her own room when she was 11.5 weeks old (which she loves by the way) and I'd completely forgotten how loud and snuffly she was - so sleeping in the same room as her was a right royal pain in the bottom. Anyway, we got through that and she was still waking, in pain, with what seemed like wind. So I went back to the doctor and she was diagnosed with Silent Reflux. Pretty nasty and pretty painful for the poor little love.

A new doctor this time who explained that her digestive system was still developing, it was common in 3/4 month babies and that he fully expected her to grow out of it quickly. Rather than prescribe medication he'd like us to give it two more weeks (I'm reaching for the Xanax at this point). I was pleased that he wasn't too quick of the mark to suggest giving medication to my tiny daughter but was also wondering how on earth I'm going to get through the next two weeks.

Needless to say, the past two nights have been hellish (that's a total of 11 nights since this episode started). We've been into Lola's room every 30 minutes to an hour to try and ease the pain a little and don't seem to be getting anywhere so we've bought some Gaviscon. I've spoken to the doctor who has instructed me on the whens and hows of the dosage and we're keeping our fingers crossed that it does the trick.

We'll keep you posted.

(I bet I read this post back in a few weeks and wonder what all the fuss was about. The relux will be over and we'll be onto teething...)