Reflux, baby and milk sensitivity

Our struggles with Jeremiah's reflux seemed to have diminished and the spitting up wasn't so bad for a while. He has been an enthusiastic eater and has had little trouble with all sorts of foods. He eats what eat now, as his interest in baby food was very short lived! I stopped nursing him about two months ago because of his enthusiasm for food and he has had a bit of regular formula (I've questioned if I should have weaned him, I've questioned so many things!). But when we tried to gradually introduce dairy, like milk and cheese, the spitting up has increased again. He also has had trouble settling at night, and has some sleepless nights as he woke every hour all night sometimes. After trying a prescription medication that had little effect we have not given him medicine for reflux. Sometimes I wonder if that would help now. The chiropractic visits helped and we may try taking him again, but insurance balks at taking a small child so many times and we will have to pay the whole amount out of pocket, if we go.
My solution for now: cut dairy out of his diet. We've been told numerous times by doctors that it is extremely rare for babies to have milk allergy. I am not a medical expert but I see evidence in Jeremiah that there is at least a sensitivity to cow's milk. The other aspect is that Gaylen also had similar symptoms when he was a baby and dairy was limited in his diet too. I think this will be something that Jeremiah grows out of. Kaity had similar symptoms and has no trouble now with dairy at all. Now, even more than before, we just need to make sure his meals are healthy and balanced and that he gets his liquid vitamins every day. I think that is always a challenge when babies grow from their liquid diets into eating food. We are also making sure he gets enough healthy fats in his diet. We will see how this affects the reflux. Already today, the first day of no dairy, there has been less spitting up.
On a happy note, our Easter celebrations were great. Some friends from church invited us over for lunch and it was good to chat and watch the kids play. It is so moving for us to keep teaching the kids about our faith. I love the depth our faith gives our everyday lives, the hope it brings. I am looking forward to stepping into what God has for us in Kansas. I have no idea what that is, but I love being able to trust Him and knowing that it will be great.

Overdue update

We've still been trying to get to the bottom of Jeremiah's troubles. The reflux medicine did not seem to help. We took him to a chiropractor today, on recommendation from several people.

The big kids and I have used some of our summer days to do a little schooling. We had much fun going to Houston Children's Museum with family and will return there soon as we purchased a season pass. We can't go soon enough, according to Charlie. I'm trying to get organized for diving into our full schedule this fall. That is a difficult thing to do with an unhappy baby. It seems like his naps are just long enough for me to wish they were longer!

We are looking forward to a road trip in August to go to family reunion. Not sure how the baby will do- it is a very long drive.
I'm wondering if the ad campains for "back to school" know the effect they have on me. Part of me wants to go buy school supplies. Part of me has a little anxiety about my lack of preparation!

Jekll and Hyde

There are times when it feels like we are living with two different infants. One is calm and smiling. The other is back-arched, limbs stiffened mouth open wide screaming. Screaming like his limbs are being ripped off.
I've said that my mantra right now is "I just don't know." There are so many things to which I just do not and may never find the elusive answer. Although my goal is not to be whiny, one purpose of this blog is to remember this time period so I will continue. If you don't want to hear about the difficulties we're having with colicky baby behavior, stop now!

I don't know if the Prevacid is working. I may need to ask the Dr. about the dosage. It seems to help a bit, since we've had fewer inconsolable crying jags with it than without it. We still do have periods of inconsolable crying.
I don't know if Mylicon is working for him. I've taken to giving it to him before feedings as a friend mentioned it worked for her babies. I think it might help some.
I don't know if I need to limit dairy further in my diet. I already am abstaining from drinking milk, milk in my morning bowl of cereal, cheese, ice cream (yeah I did tear-up a little at that one. Oh how I miss ice cream). I know there are all sorts of other ways dairy is in our diets. When I have any of the aforementioned dairy sources the baby's crying brings me to tears.
I don't know if the colic we are still experiencing is just normal baby crying. I know babies fuss and cry. I'm not expecting a perfectly angelic baby.
I don't know to what extent the other foods I am eating are affecting my breastmilk. I also don't know, if the foods I eat are affecting my breast milk, how a 2 month has such a discerning palate!
I don't know if milk overproduction and a too strong let-down reflex are a small portion of his fussiness at some feeding times. I don't know how to counter these, as I thought my body is supposed to "just know" what he needs and is eating. I thought it would adjust accordingly (maybe I just need a bit of patience in this!)
I didn't think I could keep breastfeeding, but then we tried giving him soy formula and he got constipated. That was bad crying too. I would rather breastfeed than deal with that. We got a baby swing for him and that helps. He is starting to focus on what is happening around him and that helps too- distracts him from everything else, I think.

I do know that I will survive this. I do know that my sanity will be intact. I do know that there will come a day that I sleep all night long. I do know that it is worth it when Miah's big, deep blue eyes look into mine and make my heart flutter. I know that somewhere in his little heart he knows how much we love him and that we're doing all we can to help him adjust to this big, bad world. I know that he is our gift from God and God knows what He's doing.

Just a week?

I know the last post said I wrote it a short while ago, but that just doesn't seem possible.
We are living at that place where the baby cries so much that even when he's not crying, our ears still hear it. I guess it is colic, or baby-reflux (which I have never heard of till now) or just a baby crying because he can. Whatever it is I have had enough. I told Jeremiah that, but he didn't seem to pay me any attention. He just threw his head back and cried.
Can you tell I've progressed passed the point of frantically trying to find out why he is crying? I do try to tend to all his needs. He is fed regularly, burped, diapered, smiled at, held, sung to, bathed, burped more, introduced to his mobile and laid to sleep in a safe, clean crib. So when he cries still, even after our best efforts to console him, our eyes sort of glaze over. My husband said that this will either drive us insane or enable us to deal with incredibly stressful situations. I let you know which of those is the end result. We have spoken with the doctor about it, we are trying a medication for baby reflux, it is too soon to tell if it will be helpful.
For two weeks now we've been attempting formal homeschooling. Math the first week, Math and Spanish this week. This week we've also focused on getting the kids back on a chore schedule. We've been trying out "Handipoints," an online site for managing chore charts. They can keep track of what they've done, make saving goals and play online games with points they get just for doing what is on their charts. Kaity loves the online games, Charlie doesn't. It seems to be working well, as opposed to me forgetting to print chore charts and forgetting to ask them to complete them. We usually do two morning and two afternoon chores, just simple household tasks. They also have things that are automatic, like keeping the bedroom clean and keeping toys and shoes picked up from around the house.
The school room is no more. It has made its transformation into a bedroom for my in-laws . I am confident that the school storage I have in the dining room will be more than enough. It will also force me to clean up school after each day, a habit I should've been making myself learn anyway! I'd like to use an modified "workboxes" method to organize our daily work, and I have some drawer space set aside for that, but have yet to organize that. In the weeks to come I will, for now I am focusing on day to day goals for myself and for our schooling goals.

Day to day. God's grace is enough for today. I'm confident I will be able to say that about tomorrow too.