Lydia: A Different Baby!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

For those of you that we haven't complained to in the last month, here's the deal: Lyddie has been crying pretty much non-stop from when she was three weeks old to when she was six weeks old (last week). This has been rather grating, as you can imagine. I was getting frustrated, Meagan was getting pretty sad, and our home was just sort of a stressed-out place to be.

We finally got the idea that babies aren't supposed to cry for twelve hours a day, so we called up Lydia's doctor. He said that it sounded like acid reflux, which is apparently rather common in infants. In fact, Wikipedia says that some estimate as many as 35% of infants have issues with acid reflux. The doctor prescribed medicine for Lyddie, and told us to let him know how it went.

I was skeptical at first. I mean, heck, he did this over the phone. I would much rather have had him see her and actually bother. I was sort of cursing under my breath about doping up my baby without having a clue. But I was just wanting so much for her to be a happy baby that I was willing to do whatever.

We started giving her half of a pill every afternoon (for what it's worth, the pill isn't narcotic or anything. It's called lansoprazole, and it's proton pump that basically just keeps her stomach from producing acid, thus eliminating the pain of the reflux. Oh, and she should grow out of this before her first birthday, by the way.). And in the last four days since she's started it...wow. The change has been night and day. Meagan and I are just so happy to have her here now. We loved her before, of course, but now she's actually a joy to have around. She sleeps throughout the day, only cries for a few hours each day, is consolable when she is crying, and has started smiling and interacting with us more. It's like she's a different baby. And now we're having the pleasure of seeing little peeks of personality come through, instead of just non-stop crying. Heck, she might even start putting on weight now, since she's not spending the whole day yelling and flailing her arms and legs.

All in all, we're grateful to have our little girl back. It must have been a tough few weeks for her too, but now I think we're all happy to be here.

It's a good life.

3 comments:

Becky said...

I'm glad she's better. It's so hard to have her crying that long, I'm sorry you all had to go through that

Eliza said...

Yay, she's not broken!

Eddie and Amber said...

I'm glad to hear she is doing better. I bet that was stressful!! How exciting that she is smiling and interacting a little bit more. Fun times.