About 2 weeks after I wrote that last post, Avery started waking up a lot more frequently at night. We assumed it was teething and sure enough two teeth popped through her bottom gums a week before she turned 4 months old. But her sleeping didn't go back to normal, it got worse. Eventually she was waking up every 45 minutes ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Which I could deal with if she didn't scream in obvious pain for 30-45minutes every time she woke up. I was so sleep deprived that I didn't know what to do. Looking back, I don't know how we managed. We took her back in our room to co-sleep in order to just get by. We tried everything and nothing worked. NOTHING.
During this time, her diapers were getting more and more messy. They got more watery and then she started bleeding every time she pooped. After a day of that I took her to a walk-in which referred us to CHEO, who said that she had a fissure and that it should heal itself within a week or so. If it didn't, it was likely a food allergy. Well, 3 weeks later and she was still bleeding and in pain. I decided that she was almost 6 months old and if it was a food allergy I needed to do a drastic elimination diet immediately to see if we could figure it out before introducing solids. So I cut dairy, egg, milk, nuts, soy, and gluten from my diet. I lost almost 10lbs in the 3 weeks I did. It's a hard diet! Tasty, but expensive and hard to be creative with when you're first starting.
After 10 days on the elimination diet, she went from waking every 45 minutes to sleeping a 5 hour stretch! She hadn't done that in almost 3 months at that point. Also the bleeding stopped about 5 days into the diet. I was amazed. No one told me that food allergies could manifest like that and that babies could react to your breast milk from it. I decided that since it appeared that the culprit was out of my system that I would try re-introducing foods. I started with eggs (which I thought was the least likely to be a problem). I ate two scrambled eggs for breakfast and then nothing else with eggs in it. Within a day she was screaming in pain again and had a HUGE diaper rash when she pooped, so we knew that eggs were A culprit, if not THE culprit. Later I found out from my in-laws that all of their children had egg allergies when they were young. Go figure. Wish we had known that sooner.
We gradually added everything else back in my diet while staying away from eggs and thankfully nothing else bothered her. We also got her allergy tested and she is allergic to both egg whites and yolks, quite badly! They were surprised that she had no external symptoms like eczema or a rash but that it was all internal and gastro-intestinal. But we had our answer and she began sleeping 1.5 hour stretches regularly and going right back to sleep most of the time. It was heaven in comparison.
But she still seemed in pain sometimes when she woke up. She was also still spitting up despite being on solids and having nursed hours earlier, so we went to the doctor and he prescribed Ranitidine for her. Then she started sleeping 3-4 hour stretches and stopped spitting up and being in pain. It was amazing. We were so relieved. So at the 7 month mark we had finally found the physical issues that were causing her pain and distress. We moved her back in her own room and felt like things would get better.
Well, they didn't. We assumed that the habits she picked up while dealing with the pain kept her wanting to nurse constantly at night and not wanting to sleep on her own. I got pregnant when she was 8 months old (planned) and by the time she was 10 months old I was so exhausted that I could barely make it through the day, even with a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. So we decided to bite the bullet and try sleep training. We did the "Sleep-easy solution". It's a cry-it-out method, which we didn't want to do but felt we had no other choice as nothing had worked. The first 3 nights and days were horrible. I will never do it again. But it worked in that it taught her how to fall asleep on her own. For that, I'm glad at least. It also helped us night-wean her in 3 days. She started sleeping 5 hour stretches followed by 3 or 4 hour stretches and doing naps wonderfully.
BUT my milk supply dwindled because of pregnancy and she was hungry at night and started waking again more frequently. We started introducing cow's milk mixed with the milk I had managed to pump and store in the freezer after the egg was out of my system, and that worked a bit. By 11.5 months she was totally off the breast and only drinking straight cow's milk from the bottle. We managed to wean her from the reflux meds around 13 months as well.
FAST FORWARD to last week. We tried everything we could to make her happy sleeping in her own room and it just wasn't cutting it. We tried sleeping on a mattress on the floor, we tried staying with her until she fell asleep, and more. Nothing worked, AGAIN! Among my various internet searches I came across one article talking about a "high-needs baby". I felt that we FINALLY had our answer. This fit Avery to a T. It seems that she just needs us. She just needs to be with us and not on her own in her own room. So we prayed about it and got the answer confirmed that she needed to come back in our room and sleep with us again. We brought in her crib, turned it into a toddler bed and attached it side-care style to Jon's side of the bed. It's only been 5 nights and she's already sleeping a lot better and wakes up more happy and rested, and so do we! She is still awake about 3 times a night but it's getting better with every passing day. We finally feel like we are giving her the support she needs rather than trying to follow the "recommended course" and force her to sleep on her own and make everyone miserable in the process.
It's not something I ever wanted to do. I never wanted to be a co-sleeper/bed-sharing parent. I never wanted my baby in my room indefinitely. I wanted privacy and I wanted space. But that's not what Avery needs and I find that we are all happier meeting HER needs rather than mine. It's a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. I know she will grow up and move to her own room eventually, but for now, this is what works for us.
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