5.31.2012

Out of Sorts

This past week Miss K has been a bit out of sorts.  I know, I know if she were a perfectly healthy baby I would not worry in the slightest, I'd probably blame it on teeth or "just a stage" but with her PJRT I am bound to worry about EVERY little thing she does differently.

Miss K has been quite irritable.  She wants to be held almost 24/7, and wont even allow us to dare to leave the room without her no matter who is left in the room with her.  Now when she cries over something it very quickly escalates into frantic screaming and breath holding.  When she drops or looses a toy she's playing with she gets upset and almost inconsolable.  I could go on and on but I'd be here all day so I'll just stop there, you get the point she's constantly crying.

And she has been wanting to sleep more and more, to the point of just laying down where ever she is and just dozing off...very unusual for my sweet baby girl who insists on nursing and being cuddled and rocked in order to fall to sleep.  If she does make it to a normal sleep time she lasts maybe 5 minutes nursing before she's out like a light and I could drop her on her head in her crib and she wouldn't even notice, this coming from a baby who normally requires that I stand up ever so carefully without much noticeable movement and lay her down so gently she doesn't even feel the difference between her bed and my arms.  One morning this week she got up at her usual 8:30 time and nursed, but then fell asleep nursing and was out like a light again so I lay her back in her crib and left and she slept for another 45 minutes or so before she was up for the day, this is also not normal for her once she's up in the morning she's up for good until morning nap 2-3 hours later.

Getting her to sleep is the easy part, the only easy part in fact.  But once she's asleep I can't guarantee she'll stay that way for long, especially at night.  She has been waking at least twice in the night screaming frantically, Daddy or I have to dash into her room as quickly as our sleep befuddled brains will allow and pick her up before she gets too worked up and then we rock..and rock...and rock sometimes it takes 10 minutes and sometimes it takes 30 + minutes before she's out enough to be laid down again.  And naps are difficult as well.  She'll sleep maybe 30 minutes and wake up crying, she normally sleeps 2-3 hours each nap.  I know, this paragraph makes absolutely no sense after the last one about "wanting to sleep" right?  Go figure.  She is exhausted pretty much the whole time she is awake but doesn't sleep long when we put her down.

It has been a struggle getting her to eat her solid foods this week as well, a lot of gagging and choking on it, she acts as though it hurts to swallow or something.  I know you're probably thinking "well maybe you're feeding her something she just doesn't like", I can assure you this is not the case.  In trying to keep her happy I've only been offering her the foods she loves and gets excited about and she does get all excited about it at the first taste but then gags and chokes on the rest of it.

Last night topped everything though when out of the blue, seemingly for no reason at all, Miss K started screaming.  I was getting her stripped down for her bath and she got very upset.  Bath time is her most favorite time of the day...usually.  But last night she screamed through her bath, arching her back and kicking her feet and refusing to sit up at all.  Any time I tried to have her sit she'd arch her back and flip out, ending up laying on her back and screaming harder.  I struggled to get her bathed, lotioned and into her jammies as she flopped around like a fish on land and screamed at me.  It was so dramatic I was in tears myself and had started thinking we may end up taking her to the ER if we couldn't get her to calm down.  When she was ready for bed she finally quit screaming and just wanted to snuggle me, cuddling in closer than she ever has before.  I gave her some Tylenol and Gripe Water hoping one or the other, possibly both, would calm her for the night and help her sleep.  She woke up 2 hours later screaming and it took Daddy 30 minutes to get her back to sleep in her crib.  And then she was awake screaming at 6:45 this morning, 2 hours before she usually wakes up, it took me 10 minutes to get her to calm down enough to nurse.

My "mommy instincts" tell me something is wrong but I can't even begin to guess what that "something" is.  I'm SO relieved her next Cardiology appointment is only 5 days away.  I'm hoping they'll listen to me and check every possibility rather than give me the usual "ask your pediatrician" comment that I tend to get when I voice any concerns they feel may not be heart related.  There are so many possibilities with Miss K.  Her medications could be showing some side effects or she could be going in and out of SVT persistently without us knowing it, or it could be something completely un-heart related...I guess we'll find out soon, until then I'm going to hope she starts to act more normal and be more like her happy little self soon.

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