Brokedown Baby

I thought about titling this post 'Hot Mess' but then I thought that might be inappropriate.... Things kind of suck over at the GVZ house these days. Norah has apparently forgotten how to sleep, either during the day or at night. According to Dr. Google, at her age she should be sleeping 16 hours a day--about 11 to 12 during the night, and 4 to 5 during the day. I have been keeping track the past few days and she is getting about 11 total. She refuses to nap during the day--I can only get her to doze off in the swing or in the car for 15 or 20 minutes at a time. Forget about even trying the crib and even laying her down in our bed (which used to work like a charm), gets us 10 minutes tops. She goes down for the night at about 8 (this is after an hour of bath, rocking, stories, eating, etc) and then is up every 15 minutes or so until we go to bed at about 11:30. Then she is up at least every 2 hours, either to eat or scream about it. I feel like we have a newborn again.

I won't bore you with our sleep training details (it even bores me). We are trying very hard to break some bad habits and instill some new ones, but in the meantime we are all very, very tired. Did I mention that BVZ has been working until 11 pm or later every night? Oh yes. That's been great. It has gotten so frustrating at times that I have taken to singing 'You are an asshole' to the tune of 'You are my sunshine'. I figure it isn't the words that matter, rather my tone. And saying asshole makes me feel better.

In other news, our girl had blood in her diaper several times yesterday. I was certain that it was a reaction to dairy in my diet, but we (and by we, I mean I) took her to urgent care just to be on the safe side. She checked out fine and the pediatrician on call agreed with my diagnosis. She said there are two schools of thought on the matter, one being that as long as the baby shows no other signs of distress and it doesn't happen all the time, a little blood isn't a big deal. The second school of thought is that blood in the intestinal tract of someone less than 120 days old is always a big deal and everyone needs to do whatever they can to make it stop. I tend to side with the latter and so no more dairy for me. She doesn't seem to have an out-right allergy to dairy, but rather a sensitivity. It will be tough, but I look it as the only thing preventing me from eating ice cream all night, every night, so I am embracing it. I also hope it will improve her general disposition (although she's still pretty happy), and/or help her SLEEP.

This update has now officially taken me 4 hours to write.