on sleep-deprivation

A few weeks back, I asked the doctor to prescribe Prevacid for Baby J's tummy troubles. I debated it long and hard since I tend to be conservative when it comes to meds, especially for my little ones.

It took a week or so, just like I'd been told, and then I began to notice that he no longer cried through the late afternoon. My hopes began to rise.

We saw the doctor for his 9 month check-up last Tuesday where we discussed the difference with Prevacid versus Zantac. We also talked about how he still wasn't sleeping very well at all. She doubled his dose.

That has been a week now. He still barely sleeps. He is still miserable. And this is the happiest baby I know, typically. His ears were totally clear last week; I doubt that's changed. But our nights are getting worse -- the closer to morning we get, the shorter his spurts of rest are. At some point, I end up holding him for extended periods of time while we both doze. If he takes a 45 minute nap, I need to be happy with it. A two hour stretch at night is amazing; a one hour stretch or less is becoming the norm. More and more, he wakes up crying within two to five minutes of being laid down. This is from a baby who, at two weeks old, preferred his bed to my arms for his sleep time. This is the one baby of my three who does not want to co-sleep in any fashion. He does prefer to fall asleep with someone holding him, but has never minded his bed, that's for sure. And my efforts to lay him in my bed during my groggy state of being at 4am are absolutely futile. (The cutting of tooth #8 did not solve the bad nights as I'd hoped.)

I'm not resting well, can you tell?
So now I have two choices:

1) Reglan, a highly debated drug for babies especially.
2) Remove all possible allergens from my diet since we definitely have a history of allergies in our family. I'm so tired I can barely cook a meal right now, much less eat it. I have been happy to just get something remotely tasty down. In fact, it's 2:30 and I'm about to go get B from school - and I have not had lunch thanks to a certain upset little one.

I have the means and ability to change my diet. That is my first choice. I just need to get my bearings and make a few purchases since our current allergy limitations are not so wide spread. Since we already do not have any peanuts or tree nuts, I will additionally drop eggs (boo hoo...I could eat them every single day and are my fast easy dinner idea!), all dairy (while I don't buy milk due to Miss C, I still love my cheese!) and shellfish (pretty rare anyway since we avoided it as a potential allergen for Miss C until recently). If necessary, I will further eliminate all soy and fish and then lastly, wheat. Wheat will be last because when I gave him solids Cream of Wheat was one of the few foods he tolerated better than the rest.

For his sake, I truly hope something gives soon. For my sake, something needs to give. These little people are the light of my life and I do not function well for them with so little sleep. Not well at all.