Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Luckily, The Baby's Head Still Smells Amazing

Boy, I'm just a real Pollyanna these last few days. Seriously though, there have been many omg-my-head-is-going-to-explode-with-frustration moments recently. The baby hasn't pooped in two days, so he's basically grinching and fussing nonstop all day. He only sleeps in little increments here and there, no real naps even in the car, and thrashes his angry little head into our shoulders and then bonks himself and screams and makes us feel terribly bad for him and also terribly sorry for ourselves. I am really dreading the diaper blowout that is inevitably coming, let me tell you. And hoping there isn't something WRONG with him. I don't remember the other two ever getting, er, backed up when they were this little.

The worst thing about the fussing is that he also hates slings and carriers in general, so my hands are basically half tied all day long. I can't lay him down when he's awake, unless I'm sitting right beside him bouncing his chair and cooing at him, or he cries. So I basically spend all day trying and failing to get even the most basic things done, which makes me all kinds of crazy. Along with the general crazy of fatigue. He'll have good spells where he's not like this, but then every week or so he'll have a bad day and then it's back to Fuss Fest again for the next few days. There is no schedule, everything is unpredictable, and I basically count it a success if I manage a shower every other day. Bonus points if the shower occurs before noon.

Also, did I yet complain about how we had to get new tires and then of COURSE they found something else wrong the car? Never fails. At least my sister happens to be a rep for a tire company, so we could use her discounts. But seriously. Oh and they also discovered that we were completely out of power steering fluid, even though I JUST had the oil changed and they said that they had checked all the fluid levels and everything was fine. Nice.

OH and if anyone knows what to do about a three year old who was once completely potty trained and night trained and now requires a Pull Up all the time and is even sometimes POOPING in his pants again, do let me know. Something besides hiding in your room and screaming into a pillow, of course. I already know about that trick. Also: wine.

5 comments:

Jules said...

My sympathies! We have had some of the same struggles too as our 2 yr old son just started preschool with his 3 yr old sister. His taking attention away from her resulted in potty training failure with 2 accidents in one week (and regression of speaking goo-goo-gaa-gaa for things).
More or less you have to start again with a rewards system, or so we found. And a little special time when you can. Perhaps he feels a bit out of sorts when you are sleep deprived and trying to manage to do what you can and he still can't vocalize that he needs a little extra attention?
I went through the "let's not sleep but cat nap" phase with my son until he was 11 months. Good thing my tubes were tied cause I was seriously thinking of sending him back!

Jess said...

I just had a friend go through this with her 12-week-old, who hasn't pooped in four days. Her pediatrician said that breastfed babies sometimes go as long as a week without pooping. The fact that her baby's stomach was still soft was supposedly a good sign.

Anyway, I haven't dealt with this myself, but I thought I'd share her experience so you'd know that it does seem to be a relatively common thing, and likely doesn't mean that anything is wrong with the baby!

d e v a n said...

er, the potty thing... just hang on. It's going to pass, I PROMISE, and in the meantime there probably isn't a whole lot you can do about it. I tried basically everything I could think of (bc it drove me insane) but what worked was praising successes and big time ignoring the "accidents" - which, let me tell you... there was a LOT of screaming in my pillow. And wine.

私のコスモス said...

いい仕事。続ける!

Jana said...

What's up with the comment above mine? What language is that? Just curious.

My middle one didn't poop for 10 days one time. The pedi said it was totally normal for a breastfed baby to go a long time without pooping; his little body was using the food very efficiently, she said. Of course, every time he passed gas, we'd look at each other and wonder what died inside him. But eventually he pooped and we all felt better. He had to have a bath it was so bad, but overall not that big a deal. (In hindsight - at the time I was really worried.)