one way or another

Reflux and sleep

My last post was a little too optimistic. The gaviscon didn't really do the trick. It even seemed to make things worse for Lola. Besides that it was very hard too make the babies swallow the medicin as each sachet needs to be dissolved in 15 ml of fluid. The recommended dose for their weight is 2 sachets. So how does one give small babies 30 ml of yukkie stuff without choking or total meltdown (6 teaspoons!)? I think I need a first aid course first as at some stage I thought Charlie was drowning. Very scary and traumatic for all of us.

I went to see a doctor. She seemed a nice and competent woman (after our very strange encounter with the last GP we visited who obviously knew nothing about thrush on nipples - but that's another story...) She pressed on Lola's belly and clearly squeezed some acid into her very sore oesophagus. She screamed like a little piglet, very sad, but also making the diagnosis very clear: Acid Reflux. The remedy: 4 weeks Losec for Lo and two weeks for Charlie.

Losec prevents the body from making stomack acid. Without the acid the irritated oesophagus gets the chance to heal. The meds don't improve the spilling, the babes need to grow over that. In time the valve between the stomack and oesophagus will close better. And starting solids in a while might help to keep the stomack contents down.

Problem remains: how to get (only 5ml of) medicin into the babies? We tried it in a bottle and in a syringe (without needle ofcourse) but it is a big drama every time. The kids get very upset and manage to spit out most of it. Sometimes it even comes out of Charlie's nose. Can you imagine the stress and the mess?!

Anyhow, the reflux seems to be getting better. The babies sleep longer and better and cry less and seem to be more settled. And the more they sleep during the day, the better they seem to sleep at night as well.

What also might help is that I lifted the head end of their beds a little. The reflux slowly started after the babies moved from their (slightly upright) baby hammocks (see photo) to their flat beds (next photo). That is perhaps no coincidence.


Co-sleeping like this in the livingroom (the only heated room) really worked for us in the winter. Now we have moved back to the bedroom and the babies sleep together like this (normally under blankets ofcourse and with a heavy pillow in the middle):



Talking about sleeping and crying. The nights are getting better! Usually at 7pm, after a bath and a last feed, the babies go to bed. I used to let them cry, just tucking them in every 5 minutes or so. The crying could last up to 20 minutes. Very frustrating because I hate leaving them to cry as the plunket nurses tell you to. Last night I read to them, they slept in a few minutes and didn't cry at all.

At 1.30 or 2 am they wake up for a feed and go straight back to sleep till 6, sometimes 7. I feel better now and look less like a junkie.

The daytime sleeps can still be difficult. I watch their sleepy signs: frowning, clenching fists, wingeing, crying, red face, rubbing eyes etc and put them in bed as soon as they show them. We tried to learn the babies to sooth themselves but letting them cry doesn't work, especially not with twins. Charlie cries longer and keeps Lo awake. If I let her sleep in another room I end up with him falling asleep by the time she wakes up. That seriously screws up the day because then everything gets out of sync, doubling the work.

Today I'm trying to read to make them go to sleep in the daytime and it works just great. They sleep after 3 pages in stead of crying for up to half an hour or sometimes not managing to get to sleep at all and ending up very tired and very upset.

I'm reading a very old Dutch book to them. I usually speak english to the babies and only a little dutch to my old dog and the horses. But I think it's nice if they get used to the sound.

posted by heleen + rod @ 12:46 PM