I jinxed it

I bragged to my girlfriends on Saturday that Copper was sleeping through the entire night. I swore that it wasn't a fluke. The child went 5 nights in a row. Apparently I spoke too soon. She was up from 4 to 5:30 Sunday morning (pooped twice) and up this morning from 5 - 7 (again pooped twice). Please let her sleep till 8 tomorrow. Like in the good ol' days.

Green Poop

Don't worry, I don't have a picture to go with this post. Although I am given numerous opportunities to get one if you need a visual. A little over a week and a half ago Copper's poop turned green. I thought that maybe it was from the chili that I ate the night before, but it never went back to the weird, but normal, yellow. Pretty soon along with the change in color, also came some variations in texture and frequency. We're talking 8-10 poopy diapers a day! I got online and googled "green baby poop" and found many sites that talked about and showed pictures of baby poop. One cause of green poop can be not enough "hind" milk, but I dismissed that prognosis since I always feed her on one side only each feeding. The other cause is dairy in my diet. I wasn't thrilled to be reading that especially after my sister-in-law, Rian, brought up eliminating dairy while we were in Texas. Copper is a bit of a fussy baby and Rian had asked if she is always fussy and the answer to that is "yes." I wouldn't say that she's colicky since it's pretty easy to make her happy again and it's usually not a super serious cry, but she is pretty high maintenance. Dairy allergies are a pretty common cause of a fussy baby. Copper had a doctor's appointment last Friday and she seemingly on cue provided a stool sample. I had never seen blood in her poo, but the doctor ran a test on it and there is blood in her poo. The doctor then asked if she was a fussy baby (we were having this conversation over Copper's crying). When you combine fussy with green bloody pooh, you most likely have a baby with food allergies. Lucy had/has an allergy to the proteins in milk and it's possible that Copper does too. The doctor suggested that I elliminate dairy, nuts, fish, and soy from my diet for about 5 days to see if there is a change in Copper's mood and poo. There is a certain protein that is in all of these foods that baby's can be allergic to. If you weren't aware, I LOVE dairy. Milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese...these are some of my favorite foods! I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to drink milk with pizza (my favorite combo) when I realized that it wouldn't matter since I wouldn't be able to eat pizza to begin with. Heavy sigh. It's been 2 days now without all of those wonderful foods and so far there hasn't been much of a change. I'm now aware that Copper's crazy little fits are most likely stomach aches since they are generally followed by an explosion in her pants. She may be a little less fussy, but it's hard to tell. While I'm not thrilled about eliminating so many wonderful foods from my diet, I do hope that this takes care of her discomfort and constant poops. If it is going to be a long term adjustment, we'll look in to alternative ways to eliminate the allergies. I plan on breastfeeding until she's at least one and that's about 10 months away. Asking me to not eat dairy is like asking me to forgo dessert after dinner. It will be a long, hard journey. But hopefully the rewards will far outweigh the sacrifice. Anything to make my little girl happy.

Sleeping

The past two nights Copper has slept through the ENTIRE night! No boobie break or anything! She's been a pretty decent sleeper for quite a while now, but it's just gotten better. I hope that I'm not jinxing the situation, but is it possible that we may never have to deal with breaking her of a early morning feeding? Before she slept about 4-6 hours and then she would start stirring and I would eventually just get her up and change and feed her, but the last two nights she slept soundly for over 9 hours straight. There is one downside to this though...I start waking up around 6am because my boobs feel like they're going to explode. I then wake up about every 20-30 minutes to see if she's awake yet to eat. Wait, there's two downsides. The other is that when she does wake up and eat, I still have to pump. I spend close to an hour sitting in bed dealing with boobie milk in the morning now. Thank God I don't have to be to work early.

Up until about 1 1/2 weeks ago, Copper had never gone to bed before midnight. We tried every night to get her down early, but she would always wake up within 10-15 minutes and start fussing. Since we're new parents and hate hearing our precious little girl cry, we would always pick her up and try again 2 hours later at her next feeding. When I told her pediatrician about this, she bluntly told us to let her cry. This advice came from a few other sources over the net week also. The pediatrician wanted us to put her down at 7:30 and while that hasn't worked so far, we are now getting her down before 10 every night (with the exception of last night which was closer to midnight due to a late and long afternoon nap). I still don't like to hear her cry, but I managed to listen to a full hour of half assed fussing last night before I finally pulled her out of bed and changed and fed her again. I knew that after an hour of fussing she had most likely spit up (twice actually) and had a foot stuck up in the leg part of her PJs (both actually). Also by this time it had been about 1 1/2 hours since her last feeding. I was proud of myself for letting her fuss for so long, but the serious crying I can't handle. It's too intense for us to ignore. The nights we've tried putting her down at 7:30 or 8 has always ended in "serious crying" and we always pick her up. There is no way that I could let her wail like that with her little quivering chin for longer than it takes me to get to her bed and pick her up. Tonight we got her down at 9:15 with minimal fussing.

This is what I most look forward to at the start of my day. She is all smiles the moment I pop my head over her crib and say "good morning."

Quote of the Day

"Hi Copper. It's me, Lucy."

-Lucy

A few days ago Copper was sitting in her bouncer in the office. Lucy came in and squatted down in front of her and started talking to her. After introducing herself a few times, she then pulled down a wooden necklace that always hangs in the office and showed it to Copper telling her what it is. It was crazy cute. I can't wait for the girls to get older and be able to play together.

Soon, I Swear

I swear that I'll get LOTS of pictures posted soon. The subject of this blog keeps me very busy and my computer time is often very limited. Not to mention that we were just in Texas for 2 weeks. Busy, busy!