The Paige Saga Continues...

First, a little background on Reese that may prove related to our struggles with Paige:
As previously blogged about, when Reese was born she was a terrible breast feeder. She ended up eating pumped breast milk in a bottle for the first four months of her life. Whether related to her tummy and eating or not, Reese also had terrible colic. She screamed day and night and was never happy unless being held (awake or asleep). Around two months old, she began having eating issues--rejecting the bottle mainly--and her bowel movements (while regular) started to change consistency. Eventually we tried an over the counter hypoallergenic formula, and within days her eating issues were solved. Reese stayed on the special formula for several months and we very gradually weaned her on to regular formula. Until recently, milk has always given her tummy issues; namely constipation. I never thought the day would come that I wasn't dosing her with Miralax daily. Finally, she seems to love, and handle, milk products withe ease.

But back to Paige...
When I wrote recently about having perspective with Paige and her eating things were starting to go down hill again. She was rejecting her hypoallergenic formula day and night and there was lots of fussing. I would put the bottle in her mouth, she would suck a few times, sometimes for up to a minute, then she'd pull away and start screaming. She'd straighten her legs, arch her back, pull her legs in and accept nothing except a pacifier. She was getting plenty of rest in her swing for naps but her night sleep was becoming more disturbed and irregular in her bed. Her bad gas came back, her bowels became more mucousy and she was generally unhappy. I took her back to the pediatrician to rule out a virus or ear infection and when they couldn't find anything they spoke to our GI. He recommended upping her reflux medicine dose as well as giving prescription formula a try.
The two theories now:
1. She has REALLY bad reflux and needed a higher dose of meds since she's gained a little weight. (Possible, but with all her bowel issues, I doubt this is the whole culprit.)
2. The broken down milk proteins in the hypoallergenic formula we were feeding her had accumulated in her system and were again giving her problems.

Our GI generously gave us 3 cans of sample prescription formula (a $$$ value) and I crossed my fingers it would be our magic bullet.

The week that followed was full of battles: battles with Paige to get her to eat (she was back to eating 10-12 oz/24 hours and would go 5-8 hours both day and night without eating anything), battles with the insurance company to convince them that Texas law mandates that they cover this new prescription formula, and battles with the pharmacy to order the new formula. I literally spent the greater part of two and half days yelling at insurance customer service reps, pharmacy techs, and anyone who got near me. Yes, that sometimes meant Kevin and the kids. Not my best week of parenting or marital bliss. Many apologies later, I picked up 10 cans of formula at our pharmacy on Friday.

The battle was all for not, however. Paige continued to reject all food all week. The new prescription formula was extremely thin, almost the consistency of water and there was lots of spitting, gagging, and crying at every feed. I tried slower flow nipples, making the bottles warmer, colder, feeding smaller amounts more frequently, feeding in a quiet room, you name it I tried it. I called our GI on Friday desperate and out of my mind. His nurse informed me that the prescription formula tastes terrible and that maybe we should try mixing it 50/50 with something else to make it more palatable. "But mix it with what exactly?" I was thinking. I didn't want to return to the hypoallergenic formula that had just been making her miserable, so my only alternative was soy.

After two days of mixing soy and prescription formula I got lazy and tried a few bottles of soy only. I hate to jinx myself (since I've had my hopes up before), but this could REALLY be our cure for Paige. She seems to LOVE it! She hasn't eaten less than 5 oz per feeding since I started giving her the soy and last night she ate 7oz before bed! I couldn't believe it. More that than, her feedings are "normal." By that I mean that I put the bottle in her mouth and she eats until she's full. It doesn't take an hour to sip by sip get her to take 2 oz. Just last night in her bedtime feeding and two night feedings (midnight and 3AM) she had 15oz. And, her gassiness is virtually gone.

Her bowel movements are still a toss up, but after another consult with our GI yesterday we're going to try to see if Miralax can get her going on her own. I've got plenty of experience with that stuff... fingers crossed.


In other Paige sleeping news:

Paige is done with the swing and swaddle. Compounding all of Paige's eating issues were her sleep issues. For the last several weeks Paige has been busting out of her comforting swaddle. The second her hand hit her face, all bets on sleep were off. We were doing our absolute best to keep her well rested in anyway possible so that we could be sure her eating issues weren't a result of cranky over-tiredness, but it was becoming exhausting to deal with.

So..now that her eating is straightening itself out, we've decided it's time to abandon the swaddle and do some sleep training. We're only three agonizing days into listening to her cry and try to self soothe, but we're already starting to see small improvements. She's beginning to suck her fingers for comfort, and there's no more hours of rocking her to sleep. So far it's taken a lot of self-talk ("You're helping her learn an important life skill,"; "She's old enough to handle this now,"; "You know that medically there's nothing wrong with her") to be consistent, but memories of how this same process helped Reese keep me going. That, and lots of coffee in the morning and wine before bed...