GWENDOLYN’S ADDICTION

Gwendolyn’s problem has continued well into her sixth month and when we called the advice nurse with our concerns she validated those concerns by prompting us to schedule a doctors appointment for her.  Her digestion has always been an issue and she wakes up frequently on a nightly basis, needing Sara and I to help get her back to sleep.  She has been taking gas drops and is even on Nutramogen, a special formula for babies with lactose allergies.  We did not know what else we could do or why her digestive system was not improving.

We always tell ourselves it is probably nothing and that we are just being overly concerned parents, so the last thing we expected was for the nurse to agree that we had a problem.  We set up an appointment to have Gwendolyn seen promptly.  This is no picnic.  We were at the Doctors office recently and found that Gwendolyn had a small ear infection.  During that visit we were told by the staff that we had no insurance!  Wait…What?

Yeah, we spent the whole rest of the day on the hold, getting redirected, on hold, etc. to find out why the insurance we had just applied for last month and paid for this month was not active.  We got it straightened out in time to pick up Gwendolyn’s antibiotics, but this time while we checked into the pediatrician’s office they still had problems confirming our active insurance, and once they did, they had to make doubly sure we were covered at their clinic.  Apparently, a lot of parents have had their insurance changed without being notified and they no longer were covered with the same healthcare provider.

We were lucky, I guess.  When we saw the Doctor, we told her what was going on with Gwendolyn.  I appreciated that she seemed more attentive and helpful than I’ve felt in the past.  She thought it was strange that Gwendolyn’s gas– or what we thought was reflux only occurred at night.  She said that Gwendolyn should be self soothing by now and putting herself back to sleep when she wakes up, but we created a condition where she was always attended to.  She said that it’s normal to wake up at night, and that she is more aware now so anything could cause her to wake up, but it is important that she be given a chance to put herself back to sleep.

It’s true.  Whenever she makes a noise in the middle of the night I’m right there to comfort her.  I’ve become a crutch for her and she now expects me to be there to put her back to sleep every time.  The last two nights we have tried to head our doctors advice to only respond if Gwendolyn is really crying.  The first night did not go well.  I never got back to bed after she awoke at 3:00 and would not go back to sleep.  The next night was much better.  She did wake and I had to intervene a number of times to get her to calm down, but she eventually fell asleep and allowed me to get some sleep as well.  She woke up a few more times, but she did self sooth and nod off again.

Last night was the best.  She only woke up once.  She has been taking  breast milk with her rice cereal for a few days now and it doesn’t seem to have hurt.  She is still her beautiful, electrifying self all day.  At night, with just a little more effort, I think she’ll be sleeping like her baby brother.