When will it get better?

Brody is now one month old, and Klay and I both still feel extremely sleep deprived. Our constant exhaustion turns into frustration and the frustration has caused serious damage to my normal "sane" mind. I'm only left with bits and pieces of my brain causing an inability for me to function properly. So now this mushy thing that I used to call a brain causes never-ending forgetfulness (trying to remember "did I put one scoop of formula in the bottle or two?"), lots of expecting Klay to know exactly what I'm thinking or wanting without saying anything ("are you going to make him more to eat?" and getting a response of "I didn't know you wanted me to"), trying to recall times he ate, pooped and how long he's been asleep ("wait am I thinking of last night or today or two days ago?") and not understanding why or how I do certain things (marking my breast milk freezer bags  with a date two weeks before Brody was even born).
So, needless to say this morning was extremely exciting because we woke up with a solid seven hours of sleep!!! (Well almost... I sort of woke up with an allergic reaction from something that bit me. Not sure what it was but I'm ok!).

Now, I'm hoping this is the "getting better part" and Brody will start sleeping 6-7 hours at night. This would truly be amazing. My only concern is that he tends to sleep longer in his boppy on our bed. I know pediatricians don't advise this, but in his first few weeks of life, as a new mom and dad, we'd do anything to get some sleep. There were several late night feedings where the only way to get more that an hour was to let him fall asleep on my chest. Every time he's not sleeping with us, he doesn't sleep any longer than four hours. Although four hours may seem like a decent time frame to some people, my little man is a grunter and loves to squirm. So every time he moves or makes a sound, I hear it and wake up.

But it can't all get better can it? Though my sleep may have been long and enjoyable, my day got pretty chaotic rather quickly. Klay and I woke with Brody and began feeding him and had quite a scare. A couple of weeks ago, Brody has had a stuffy nose which caused him to get blocked tear ducts in both eyes. According to the pediatrician, babies' tear ducts go down in to their noses (see picture), are really small and grow and get larger as the baby develops.

"It only takes one good booger to really cause the blockage," she said. So, Brody's eyes began to leak and had white and yellow goop start coming out of his eye. We eventually got prescribed antibiotic eye drops to help clear up his infection.

Although his eyes got better, his stuffy nose continued. I've been using Little Noses  saline spray/drops by Little Remedies to help loosen and get those pesky little boogers out so Brody can breathe easy (we also massage nose where his tear duct area is to help loosen up the blockage). The past few days, his eyes started producing the goop again, and his stuffy nose has caused feedings to become slightly unpleasant. I think he can't breathe that well while eating, so he's spitting up and not swallowing that well.

Anyway, today we fed him and almost had him back asleep, when he got the hiccups (most frustrating thing ever!). I gave him some Little Tummys Gripe Water to hopefully relieve them (most of the time works pretty great)and then he started to gag and choke. He began to spit up out his mouth and his nose, and then the spit up turned into what I'd describe as a projectile vomiting all over me. I quickly ran him to the sink to get him off my soiled t-shirt to prevent any further choking/gagging, and Klay rushed and grabbed the aspirator (or what I like to call the booger sucker) and started sucking stuff that was oozing out of Brody's nose. Luckily, my incessant patting on his back and dad's quick booger-sucker-action managed to get control of the scary situation.

I'm going to make sure he is propped up better during feedings, leave him propped up for at least 30 minutes after and pray that will help clear up his stuffiness and prevent any further milk-spewing/choking spells.



After the morning scare, another fiasco ensued. Right after Klay left to go work, I let my dogs out in the back yard. Then Stretch escaped, my child began crying, I ran to the front door to get Stretch and found a spider in my path, heard my dog and some other dogs making noise outside, rushed out the door to save Stretch from a lab and pit bull that chased after him, then I got chased by the pit bull which jumped on me as I raced to my house, and I luckily made it inside before he managed to bolt through the door. Although I made it in my house unharmed to my crying child, I still didn't manage to kill the spider. This all happened in a matter of 2-3 minutes, and of course, Klay wasn't home to help.

So, hopefully no more crazy situations will arise today in the White household! Just going to pray the sleeping-longer stage has begun for my little Brody man. I'll just wait and see how tonight goes! Wish us luck.

Love,

The Mom who Attracts All the Chaos