woe-is-me

This is to clarify an earlier post that led one friend to think Anna sleeps 12 hours a night, which is far far... far from reality. Our rosie life is once again colored by sleep issues. With Joachim it was the eczema that gave him trouble falling asleep and caused him to wake up scratching all night until he was two. With Anna the cause has been less clear, but it started with a round of antibiotics I took in August which led to 6 weeks of diarrhea and changing 3-4 diapers a night. So the habitual waking was established along with a mysteriously constant running nose and several colds over the next three months.

By Christmas I was toasted, so we tried the various sleep solutions from baby-wise to ferberize to Dr. Sears-wise. And that brings us to today. Each time we'd gain ground she'd get a tooth or two, (she's making up for lost time). Or most recently, she had a bad cold. She wakes up several times in the night and then from 3:00am on she never really goes back to sleep. We didn't let her cry long enough you might think, but after a week of listening to her cry for hours we gave up, when she did fall asleep she'd wake right up in 30 minutes and start all over, not to mention we needed Joachim to sleep and stay asleep because two tired kids is twice as bad as one.

What makes this difficult for are the friends whose babies cried 40 minutes one night, 20 the next and 5 the last and they've slept peacefully since. Or worse the ones who never had sleep problems, and whose babies slept peacefully from the first month. I would've doubted the plausibility of this last claim except I've noted there's a definitive difference between a well rested at peace parent and... well... me.

So, at her 1 year well baby appointment I regaled the Dr with our sleeping struggles. He listened patiently and nodded in his very mild way and reassured me that what works for one baby doesn't work for all babies. A parent whose baby sleeps easily or follows the books can't imagine just how different babies can be. It was a relief to realize it might not be anything I'm doing wrong, she's just her own person, that said I still feel guilty. He also said Anna must have an iron will.

Which leads me to another slightly alarming discovery that Anna is in the 15th percentile for size. Through Dr. Sears philosophy I've mostly ignored the charts, but Anna did start in the 70th and she's really plateaued in the last 4 months. I would have doubted the measurements had I not been right there holding her down, if anything, stretching her a bit.

Which brings me to our ongoing battle with food. It's not only bananas that Anna won't eat, it's just about all food. We went through baby food jars that she only ate 3 bites of (or none). I'd grind up food in the baby mill only for her to scream and push it away. The other night Ben (being a competitive type) declared he would get her to eat 8 bites... he threw in the towel at 5. The next night I made it to 8 with guacamole, and I had to rub it in a little, but she wouldn't give in to a 9th bite.

This morning Ben was trying to feed her cheerios and she was actually sticking out her tongue, picking them off with her fingers and throwing them on the ground.

She usually will eat cheerios and occasionally oatmeal, crackers, carrot from stew, a few peas, brown rice in broth, and most recently a little scrambled egg, but never much. I've heard parents complain their kids don't eat, but always it's been a picky toddler, Anna has never been an eater. She doesn't even nurse much anymore. I know one parent whose one year old did start eating and growing when he had his enlarged adenoids removed, but there's nothing obvious like that with Anna.

The Dr thinks a lot of her difficulty staying asleep is related to not eating, which is the obvious possibility that never occurred to me. So he offered a vitamin prescription and encouragement in my feeding endeavors. We're trying to make a game of it, but it's challenging to feed an unwilling baby and demoralizing to watch other babies gobble down jars of food. That said, today she added some black beans and blueberries to her acceptable food list, so we are making headway. On the other hand, I had to lock her head in my crux of my elbow to get her to even try the eggs.

I didn't know she was small for her age, but that explains why people think she's younger than she is, I always thought it was the bald head and toothless grin. At least in every other way she's developing normally.

To be fair, Ben did point out that she's sleeping better now than she was in January when she woke up every hour. Sorry for all the venting.She's still cute, though. She loves this dolly, it always makes her light up and she gives it lots of hugs and love. Actually, she goes nuts anytime we go down the dolly aisle in the store. Girls are so different.