Category: Updates about Sylvia

Oct. 11: Amidst a week of major unhappiness, Sylvia is still charging forward on her quest to grow up.  On Thursday night, she pulled herself up to standing in her crib.  Never mind that she pulled herself up as she was screaming in her crib after we attempted to put her down for the 8th time at 10pm…  She’s been going from lying down to sitting for quite a few weeks, and she often wakes up a little bit and sits right up, making it hard for her to fall back asleep again.  She’s not crawling in her sleep anymore (at least she’s not bashing her head while trying to crawl!), but there’s lots of sitting up and now standing in the crib.  It’s truly shocking to see my baby standing in the crib!  She hasn’t pulled up on anything else yet, but she’s started reaching up to pull things off the coffee table.  And she loves crawling over to the front door and trying to push through the screen!  She’s got some get-up-and-go.  And a whole lot of get-up-and-follow-her-brother!

Oct. 11:  Sylvia has had a really rough week.  She’s not been sleeping for much more than 20 minutes (other than one blessed 80 minute nap), and she’s not been getting more than an hour of sleep between the time she wakes and when we put her down for the night.  Then she’s been waking every hour or so in the evening.  It’s been rough.  For everyone.  I’m kind of kicking myself, because I thought she was just really off her schedule and teething (she’s getting a new bottom tooth), but it turns out that she has an ear infection again.  Left ear.  I took her in yesterday after a particularly rough night of waking and inconsolable crying.
She started on a new antibiotic last night, and already this morning there was a big improvement.  I’d forgotten that it’s possible to sometimes put her down without having her cry, to leave the room even without a howl following me.  She went down for her morning nap without protest…10 minutes so far.  Her eyes still look rather “off.”  Sick or super tired or hurt.  Hopefully after a few days of this new antibiotic she’ll be feeling even better.

Oct. 5: Sylvia has me at a parenting low this morning.  I laid her down for her morning nap, and she cried and cried.  Last night when I put her down to sleep, she was quiet for about 20 minutes and then she screamed…not just cried…for about a half hour.  That little girl has very strong opinions, and one of them is that she’s not so in to sleeping these days.  The whole topic is sort of breaking me into little bits.

This little girl needs a consistent sleeping pattern.  Her ear infections got her way off her game, but even before that…throughout August…she has had an erratic, not-very-happy sleeping existence.  At night she’s back to waking every three hours and then going straight back to sleep.  I’d rather her sleep for five plus hours at this point, but I’m not too worried about it.  It’s the daytime naps, especially the waking after 20-40 minutes that is driving me crazy.

And if that was all the sleep she needed, I’d figure I just didn’t get a baby who needed much sleep (oh, well!), but she does very much need more sleep.  After two lousy naps, she’s a total crab apple.  Just as I’m trying to get supper ready.
When she was sick, I picked her up and nursed or rocked her each time she woke up.  But that resulted in her waking every thirty minutes or so for hours at night.  Since she’s been healthy (for the last six day), I’ve been letting her cry herself to sleep when she won’t go down or when she wakes mid-nap.  She’s a determined girl.  There’s a lot of crying.

I wish that parenting were easier.  I wish that if you loved your baby more than anything you would just be able to do the right thing.  But I’ve seen with Andrew and now with Sylvia that what they need more than anything else is a good parent.  And from my perspective, being a good parent doesn’t (unfortunately) mean always doing what the baby wants.  It is doing what is best for the baby, and for the family, so that everyone gets their needs met (whether they want them met or not!).  From napping to discipline to manners and routines, sometimes the parent has to be the “bad guy.”  Kids need their parents to set limits, to say “no,” to be consistent and firm as well as flexible and giving.  I really don’t like, though, how much it can hurt my heart to be the kind of parent that I think and somehow know that my kids need.

I’m open to any suggestions anyone has about how to get Sylvia sleeping more consistently.  Right now I put her down for her morning nap between 9 and 10 am and her afternoon nap between 1 and 2 pm.  All I do before her nap is nurse her.  She doesn’t like me to read or sing to her.

We’re thinking about switching the nursing to be just after she wakes up.  Before her nap, I think we might try giving her a massage or rocking her in the dark room.

I feel like this time with Sylvia is particularly hard because it’s really just me who is responsible for her napping.  When Andrew was little, Karen, Bryan, and I were all sometimes responsible for putting him down for naps.  That had it’s own challenges.  But with Sylvia, there’s no outside-the-family childcare, and due to division of labor and doing what is easiest, I’m the one who puts Sylvia down while Bryan takes care of Andrew.  I guess that makes it a little easier to be consistent, but it also makes me feel that the responsibility for Sylvia’s sleeping unhappiness rests primarily squarely on my shoulders.  It’s a heavy weight.

OK, I think I’ve had enough feeling sorry for myself.  Off to get dressed and fold some laundry.  Have a good Sunday!  Wish Sylvia a long nap.  It’s been about 20 minutes now since she stopped yelling…

Oct. 2: Well the good news is that Sylvia is sleeping much better at night and took some good naps yesterday.  I only really had to let her cry yesterday morning (it was a 40 minute doozie), and then she seemed to remember how to fall asleep and stay asleep.
I was about to write a post about how much I was enjoying my quiet morning with Andrew at preschool and Sylvia napping when I heard a “clunk” and she woke up yelling.  She’d only been sleeping for about 40 minutes, so I gave her the pacifier and left her to fall back asleep.  Well now she’s been crying for about 10 minutes, and I don’t think she’s going to get back to sleep.  Poor girl!
I’m going to rescue her now.  I hope she’ll stop trying to crawl around the crib while sleeping!

Oct. 1: This morning, Sylvia and I were lying in bed while Bryan got ready for work.  Sylvia kept repeating, “Dadadaddadadad.”  I was trying to figure out if she was talking about her Dada, so I said, “Dada is going byebye.”  She waved and said “baba dada baba dada dada dada.”  Bryan didn’t feel like it was a certain enough statement to be her first word, but it was at least her first meaningful babble!
In other news, I took her to the doctor this morning to check her ears to see if they are all clear.  And…they are healthy ears!  So that’s the upside.  Sylvia might not like the ramifications, though, because I am currently letting her holler in her crib.  She’s forgotten how to take normal, decent naps, and now that I know that she’s not suffering from an ear infection, I’m going to be a harder-hearted mommy and try to help her re-learn how to take naps and sleep for longer stretches at night.  Wish us luck!

Sept. 25: The sun is out, the September air is cool and crisp and fair.  Sylvia is nursing and not all-together happy, but it’s worlds better than the nighttime agony that the poor little dear was experiencing last night.  From the time we put her down until around midnight she woke up arching her back and howling every 20-30 minutes.  We’d bounce her and I’d nurse her and we’d let her fall asleep in our arms.  We’d carefully lay her down in bed, and either she would immediately wake or she’d wake after a short interval.
At least Andrew is a sound sleeper!
We let her cry herself to sleep around midnight, and she slept until 2.  Then around 5:30, she was up again and wouldn’t let me lay her down.  So we dozed together on the sofa.  She slept upright on my chest, and I dozed-while-sitting.  We were able to lay her in her bed around 7am.
I called the doctor, and they said to keep her dosed on Motrin and to give the antibiotics another day to kick in.
Figuring that overnight stays in a hotel would be a complete nightmare, I canceled our trip to Northfield (for my Alumni Council meeting).  Bryan’s parents were going to meet us in Northfield because Bryan’s dad is giving a talk in the Twin Cities today.  Instead, they’ll drive down to Madison on Friday and spend a couple days here before driving back up on Sunday.
Andrew’s at preschool this morning…having a blast.
poor little Sylv.  I hope she feels better soon.

Sept. 24: Sylvia’s face looks almost normal this morning.  However, if you look down at her torso or legs, she’s still a splotchy, red lobster.  Last night she had a hard time.  She was up every half hour from 7 until 1.  I gave her Benadryl at 10 or 11, and at 1am I gave her some Motrin.  Seemed like maybe she was in pain as opposed to itchy because the Motrin did the trick.  She slept from 1 until 4 or 5.
My poor little chipmunk.  I hope her ears start feeling much better soon.

Sept. 23: Here’s a video of Sylvia munching on some food and being cute. That was before she was a spotted lobster.

Sept. 23: Sylvia is taking a nap. She is one very itchy, splotchy, rashy girl.
I took her in to the doctor last night, and the guy we saw said that they don’t differentiate between an allergic and a non-allergic rash reaction to penicillin.  His opinion was that there are plenty of good alternatives to penicillin and it’s not worth the resources to do a skin allergy test.  I’m not sure if I agree, but it might not matter, because late last night, Sylvia’s rash was really itchy.  It was driving her nuts.  And according to what I’ve read, that’s a sign of a true penicillin allergy.
She’s still running a low fever, and the doctor last night said that her left eardrum was still red and swollen, and he said that the right ear was also infected!  Poor sweet girl!  Ear infections and a body-wide rash.
The doctor switched her to an erythromycin-based antibiotic and told me to give her oatmeal baths, cold compresses, and Benadryl if she got itchy.  A few hours after our doctor’s visit, she did indeed get hugely frantic and itchy, and I rushed over to Walgreens to get some Benadryl for her.  I can’t believe that I’m giving my small, sweet baby so many drugs, but I’m glad they’re available for her.
Here’s for hoping that the rash goes away in the next few days and her ear infection clears up!  I posted some pictures of her rashy progression in the gallery (I know, I’m odd).

I found an interesting article on drug-induced skin rashes on Medscape.

Sept. 22: A couple moments ago, I noticed that Sylvia is developing a light, blotchy rash on her face and neck.  Since she’s taking amoxicillin (she’s on day six), I called her doctor right away since it may be an allergic reaction.  She’s feeling much better in general.  Her fever went away yesterday.  It’ll be interesting to see whether they’ll test her to see if the rash is an actual allergic reaction or if it is (like Dr. Greene notes below) a non-allergic reaction.  We shall see.

From Dr. Greene.com

Penicillin Allergy

Parents are often led to believe that their children are allergic to amoxicillin or one of the other penicillins. Problems such as skin rashes, nausea, diarrhea, or the fact that they have relatives with penicillin allergies, result in 8% to 20% of children being identified with these allergies.
When these ‘allergic’ children are actually tested, 80% of them turn out not to be allergic, according to the December 2000 issue of Infectious Diseases in Children. And of those few who are allergic, 80% will no longer be allergic if retested years later.

Much of the confusion comes from the fact that up to 9% of healthy children will develop a non-itchy, non-allergic, red rash 7 to 10 days into a course of amoxicillin. Why is this distinction important?
Labeling a child as allergic might prompt a doctor to choose a more expensive, broader spectrum antibiotic next time around — resulting in more side effects and more resistant bacteria. If you suspect a penicillin allergy in your family, tell your doctor exactly what led to this suspicion. If your child needs antibiotics often, a skin test to confirm the problem may prove worthwhile. Most children can safely receive these gentler antibiotics — if an antibiotic is needed.