Reflux makes for a rough couple of days...

We (read — Mum) first thought Otis may have been suffering from reflux a number of weeks ago. He's such a spewer!! He vomits a little after almost every feed. However, since that single insufferable night when he took about 3 hours to stop screaming and get to sleep, he's been really, really great. Easy. Sure, a little whingey each evening, but happy for the most part, settled and serene. I thought, "This is getting better! It's getting easier!" In hindsight, that was a mistake. Babies can go from charming and cheerful to scary and scrappy in mere moments. The only thing you can ever predict with any accuracy is just how UNpredictable they are.

I've always had a bit of an issue with control. I like to feel in control of situations, I like to feel that I can solve problems and manage everything in my life. I knew the innately uncontrollable nature of babies would cause me some grief once I became a mother. And the last few nights really demonstrated this. On Monday night, Otis woke every 2 hours from midnight onwards. I actually swore at my helpless little boy, and immediately hated myself for it. I just didn't know what was going on — was he hungry? Was I making enough milk? Was I simply too tired to try other settling techniques, and hence a crappy, neglectful mother? Was in pain? Was it wind or reflux? Was he just in a bad mood? Was he too hot? Or maybe too cold, seeing as I'd only dressed him lightly due to the heat? Anyway, you get the point. The questioning went on and on. I posed all of these queries in Phil's presence, but he has the fairly useful ability to sleep through Oti's whinging and my ranting.

He was fine during the day yesterday, but when it came to getting him to sleep for the night, he started whining. I persisted with my rocking/patting/You Are My Sunshine routine. He started crying. I kept going. He got to screaming. Finally, worn out, he fell asleep... Or so I thought! Minutes later, the eyes opened wide, he started screaming again. I — almost — threw him down on the bed, walked out of the room, and passed parenting duty over to Phil. And then I cried. It just seemed so unfair! I had believed I had learned how to control him, and it freaked me out to realise that things could change so easily, so inexplicably, and, conveniently, the night before I returned to my writing! I called Mum, and she was wonderful as always, telling me she believed he had a moderate case of reflux, and that we should be giving him Mylanta a couple of times a day. She described what she thought was happening inside his little body, and it all made so much sense. He cries because he's been vomiting throughout the day, and is in pain from the burning, plus tired and cranky. The screaming leads to him gulping in air like a drunk swallows liquor, which then leads to wind pain. He then feeds because it soothes him, but this, of course, leads to more reflux. It's an awful cycle that needs to be broken.

So I calmed myself down, and administered the Mylanta. Her didn't pass out immediately, but within minutes he was calmer, and the-much-more-patient-and-saintly-Phil managed to get him to sleep. He then slept for 6 hours!! That's the longest he's ever slept.

Fingers crossed the Mylanta helps me regain some control. Failing that, fingers crossed I learn to cope with things being out of my control.

He's with Mum today. It's my first day back on the thesis.