Rough Morning, Calm Afternoon

We went for a walk yesterday (Saturday) evening around sunset. It sprinkled a little bit on our way back. It was very light. Jeff covered Henry with his hat. We ran into a bull snake on our excursion. We haven't seen many snakes this year. This is the second bull make sighting in the last week. They're OK as far as snakes go. We've heard that they keep the rattlers away.








I can't remember what happened last night. It must not have been particularly eventful. I think that my dad came in the evening. Jeff took the first shift, and I took the second.

This morning was rough. Henry vomited quite a bit. I long for the days of small bouts of spit up. He doused me thoroughly after my shower. Again, this is vomit, not spit up, which is concerning, especially with Henry being so tiny (tiny even for his "corrected age").








We weighed him at 6 lbs 11.5 ozs. He's trending in the right direction. We decided to cut out his Reglan, or rather the generic form of Reglan that he takes. It is a motility drug that makes the stomach empty more quickly than it otherwise would. Reglan is most effective when you give it to the baby 15 minutes before feeding (under an assumption that babies feed every 3-4 hours). Henry feeds every hour, meaning that Reglan has never been as effective as it should be. Plus, there are many side effects. For Henry, those side effects are irritability (yes, babies are irritable but Henry's irritability is different from "normal" baby fussiness) and sleeplessness (yes, babies don't sleep like their parents would like them too, but Henry has literally gone for days without sleep and his sleep has never been deep).

On Friday, when we went to my parents, we ended up skipping his dose of Reglan. We discovered that he slept much better and was generally calmer than he had been for weeks. Henry had some deep sleep on Saturday without the Reglan. My dad commented on Henry's sleeping in the evening. We're going to see if Henry can gain weight without the Reglan. He hasn't eaten quite as much the last two days. On the other hand, he's actually sleeping. Sleep is crucial for brain development. And, if he's sleeping, he might not need quite so much food to sustain him. I plan to call his pediatrician tomorrow to let him know about the Reglan effects. So far, we think that the side effects outweigh the benefits of Reglan (which again aren't that great with Henry eating all of the time).

We spent the afternoon and evening at my parents. Jeff and I passed out, while they took care of Henry. Jeff got up to go on a walk with Henry around my parents' neighborhood and then had dinner. I continued to sleep. I think that they were having pizza, which was no loss for me considering I wouldn't have been to eat it anyway (can't have the cheese b/c it's a dairy product). I need sleep more than anything else. My mom said that Henry had some small spit ups but no vomiting, which was good news.

Jeff and Henry are currently snoozing in the living room. I think that I'm going to wake Jeff up and do a Henry shift change so that Jeff can get some sleep in a bed. Tomorrow, we're taking Henry to the blood lab so that he can have his thyroid tested and have his genetic screening redone.