8 weeks and Reflux

Wow! Sophia is 8 weeks old today. She's grown and changed so much, it's hard to believe. She gets more beautiful every day, I think, if that's even possible.

A few weeks ago we started having difficulties feeding. She was fighting me and screaming a lot when I was trying to feed her and started spitting up a lot more. It's kind of handy to live with a pediatrician every now and then. He suggested that it could be reflux and got a prescription for Zantac. We started her on it and she got better, but I wasn't really convinced that it was reflux. I thought maybe she just had a few fussy days. We tried taking her off it a few days later and she got fussy again. Plus, I did some reading and it did sound like that's what she had, so we decided to keep her on the medication.

Then the last few days, we started having problems again. Generally, when she starts to squirm while I'm breastfeeding, it's because she has a gas bubble. I can burp her and she's good to go, but not now. She just got worse and worse. I must have forgotten everything that happened weeks earlier because I didn't even think about it being her reflux until DH suggested we up her dose of Zantac since she's gotten bigger. We decided we'd do that with her evening dose yesterday.

We never made it that far. One feeding in the afternoon took two hours because of all the screaming and misery. I felt so bad for her and I also felt bad for me. I was in tears because I just didn't know what to do to help her. She starts writhing and thrashing when she latches on and it's tearing apart my nipples. Finally, I text DH and he suggests giving her a little boost of Zantac. Praise be, it worked! She settled down and ate.

I was a mess when DH got home and I was supposed to go to a class at my church. I put on my shoes and DH looked at me and said, "why don't you just go to bed?" So I did. It was wonderful. She fed well, but woke up at 1am instead of 3, which is her normal time these days. Then, she was ready to party. After she ate, she was so glad to be feeling better that she was not interested in sleep, so I put her in her crib to party with with the animals in her mobile and sat down in the comfy chair to take a nap. She eventually got fussy and I was able to swaddle her and get her to sleep. And then she took a nice nap after her early morning feeding, so I napped, too.

She's been doing really well today, though still a little squirmy at the breast, so we'll see. Hopefully, the extra medication does the trick and I'll be back to my happy baby. She's not been napping much at all lately - just 20 to 30 minute catnaps, which makes it difficult to get anything accomplished. In retrospect, my husband thinks that might have also been because of the reflux. She's doing great today, so we'll see.

We have officially moved up a size in diapers. The newborn cloth and disposable diapers no longer contain her messes and we've moved on. They grow up so fast!