So I didn't know what to do. Milk was the first thing on my list to stop eating. I tried giving it up for a week. There was no change. I know, and even knew then, That you really need to give something up for at least six weeks to see a change, but I was in denial. I really like milk. I did not want to give it up. And with John he had a constant runny nose from 5 weeks to 4 months that disappeared after a week off milk. I beat myself up about every time I think back. How could I really let my little baby suffer like that?
The eventually she kinda stopped doing it. The occurrences be came less and I was living with it, hope, praying she would grow out of it. I moved her to her own bed at about 16 months. When she would wake in the middle of the night, I don't train or force my kids to sleep through the night, she would come into my bed. Sometimes she would wake up while I was still awake. I'd go up stairs stay with her until she went back to sleep. Sometimes it would take so long to get her back to sleep I would dread going up there and I'd wait. I'd give her up to ten minutes be fore I went up there and I would occasionally find her sleeping on the floor by the baby gate. So now I was tempted to sleep train my baby. Oh her waking up in the middle of the night screaming crying it was just bad habits. It CIO works for other people. I wouldn't let her go all night but ten minutes? So that was my new strategy. (bad idea. I still feel guilty about letting her cry to this day)
Ten minutes would go by sometimes and the crying wouldn't stop. I'd go up there and she didn't care that was there. It was like she was stuck in a frenzy. Her tummy was hard like she was pushing. I gave her all sorts of stuff to ease stomach cramps: tummy soother tea, homeopathy, belly massage, position change. She was screeching bloody murder. She was in supreme agony. Then I did it. I took her off milk.
It took about six weeks. It she stopped having stomach cramps. I gave her rice milk and goat milk and kept even cultured cows milk away from her for what seemed a long time. Then one day I allowed her to have some yogurt. I watched her for weeks every thing was fine. Then the night terrors started.
She'd come and sleep in our bed in the middle of the night. She'd wake up early morning screaming. Stuck in a frenzy. I had no idea what it was. I tried waking her it didn't work. She would scream and cry and yell at her brother in her sleep. She would answer my questions with no. Always no. No matter what the question. I would finally get her out of it after an eternity. Sometimes these attacks would happen once a night at 10 sometimes 3 times at 10, 12, and 3. Some times once a night at the other times.
I'm not proud of this but I used to use the TV as a baby sitter. I stopped that when I research night terrors. (do not try to wake up a kid in a night terror it just creates more problems.) Then they stopped after 2 weeks. Everything was fine for a while. Then the stomach cramps were back. I took her off milk. It didn't do anything. I didn't know what to do nothing was working. I had a new baby and Abby would occasionally need to be walked around in the middle of the night and I was tried and my sweet little girl was a crab during the day. It was like a snow ball she was sweet once and she became more irritable and angry and sad as she got older. The cramps were starting to hit her during the day. After awhile things settled down a bit and she just had about one stomach cramp a night. but she was cranky during the day. And she stopped having bowel movements for about 3 days. She was refusing to drink water. She seemed sick and dehydrated.
Something occurred to me that I didn't' consider she might be constipated. Could it be that she had something stuck in the wall of her intestines that caused bowel inflammation? Cow milk irritates bowels. maybe taking her off cow milk eased it up a bit but perhaps something little she swallowed when she was very little just kinda lodged itself in the intestine and was now making this a chronic issue.
I decided it was time for an enema. Psychologically and enema sounds traumatic and horrible, gross, icky, etc. My sister has a handicapped baby the same age as my daughter and she was telling me of the virtue of the enema, because she needed to do it for her baby. She said, "It is a tool for a mother to use when necessary, and it is not traumatic for kids. That is just something we are told by society." I determined this was the answer.
She pooped, a lot. That night she slept. All night. She slept every night all night for a long time. Months. Her personality changed and she was more like the little baby I had before: sweet and fun and kind. Then after a long time she got the cramps again. And she started to develop a low fever. I did it again. It wasn't effective because I just did a small one. So we tried it again a week later, doing a thorough cleaning. She pooped a poop that was big and shaped weird. It looked like a poop with a white thing as a right angle at the top. I've been told I should have dissected it. I was just happy it was out so I flushed it and my little girl came back. And we are living the good life. She doesn't wake up with stomach cramps any more. I hope they never return.
No comments:
Post a Comment