May 15, 2007

Crankiness^10

After posting last Thursday, I made the executive decision to get KT into the doctor's office a day early. A quick check of her ears and throat and I was told that she does indeed have a sore throat (and a low-grade fever) but her ears looked okay. It didn't look like strep, yet, but to give her Ty!enol if she was uncomfortable and make sure she got plenty of fluids and plenty of rest.

Constant doses of Ty!enol on Thursday and Friday gave us a fairly well tempered baby again. Saturday brought the beginnings of a snotty nose and some sneezing; Sunday was full on congestion, runny/snotty nose, sneezing, some coughing and difficult breathing. Naps have been frequent, although very short in duration. The congestion makes it difficult for her to breathe so she snorts and gasps for air, while thrashing about in her crib. 20-30 minutes it about all that her little body can take and she's back up for another stretch.

Nighttimes are horrible. Last night she went down easily at 8pm and slept until 11:30. From 11:30 until about 4am she slept in fitful bursts of about 15 minutes -- thrashing about and struggling to get a good breath. Every time she woke she'd cry and need me to get her calmed back down. About 1am I headed to the guest bedroom and laid her in bed next to me. I figured that it would be easier to console her if she was next to me, than to get up out of bed every 15 minutes. I dozed off an on the entire time. Each of her movements would jar me awake. Somewhere around 4am, exhaustion overtook both of us and we fell asleep. Perhaps it just overtook me and I was too comatose to notice she still wasn't sleeping well.

C woke us up shortly after 7am. Technically Logan woke up up. C was coming downstairs to check on us and Logan didn't listen to his "stay" command and bounded down to the guest room, waking both KT and I. After a diaper change and a somewhat fully belly we both snuggled back into another cycle of fitful sleep until 9. We're both beat today. I can see it in her eyes. But I also see a hesitation to give into that exhaustion because of the difficulties of last night.

I've got a call into the nurse at the pediatrician's office but am waiting to hear back. At what point do I just demand an appointment?

To top it all off, my body has decided to play a cruel joke on me and is trying to kick start itself again after 15 months (to the day). So now I'm dealing with a cranky/sick baby, exhaustion, cramps, a headache and a drop in my milk supply. Fun, fun, fun...

3 comments:

Jessica said...

I'm so sorry this is happening to you. When both of you are sleep deprived, it's definitely hard.

If you think that she's getting worse, then I'd demand another recheck. A lot of the times, when they have something like this, antibiotics won't help it get better, being it's just a cold. I don't know how many times I've taken D back in to have the ped tell me that they couldn't do anything for him. Have you tried using your humidifier in her room when she's asleep? Also, we've found during D's many upper respiratory infections and he's been so congested, that the Vicks Vaporbath is helpful. It gets the ol nose opened up.

You're in our thoughts. Hopefully the next few nights will be better. There's always a couple of nights that are the worst, and then things take a turn for the better. Hang in there.

Anonymous said...

I second Jessica's suggestion of the vaporbath. It helps Emma's snottiness quite often. Hope she is feeling better soon and you are all able to get some sleep.

Kristin, Rod, and Victoria said...

Sorry I haven't been on here to lend my support the past week. I don't have much advice (though I do second the calling if you think it's getting worse), but can sympathize with the stuffy baby not sleeping. I remember that was the only time she wouldn't get good sleep - mostly because she couldn't breathe thru her nose, so she couldn't suck her paci, which meant no way to calm down. Hopefully things are getting better. (((hugs)))