I mentioned sleep routines in my last post.

Ingrid has always been a lousy sleeper, and her sleeping habits were almost an obsession for me. (See this post, and this one, and this, this, this, this and finally this one.) It goes a lot better nowadays – she no longer fights sleep, and goes to sleep pretty easily.

But she does not want to do it on her own. She is quite cuddly in general: she likes to cuddle up with me when we read or watch a movie, to hold my hand when she is upset and wants help calming down, and so on. And at night she very much wants to hold her hand on me to go to sleep. (Also some time in the middle of the night she still wanders from her bed and her room over to ours.)

Getting to this point took some effort: when we stopped breastfeeding, I’d lie down next to her. Then I’d sit next to her on the bed, so she could cuddle up next to my legs. Only then could I sit by the side of her bed and let her hold my arm.

This closeness seems important to her. She gets visibly upset as soon as I mention the possibility of changing this routine. I’m sure I could just ignore her wishes and decide to stop, to force her to do it some other way. But if it is that important to her, I don’t see why I should. It’s actually a pretty nice ending for our days: quietly, pleasantly, together.

We have made sure that it doesn’t absolutely have to be this way. Weekend nights are Eric’s, and she manages those just fine. But she clearly views them as second best.

Adrian is a much better sleeper. He goes to sleep in bed every night, with a bit of fussing but usually no screaming. He does need breastfeeding in the evening, though. (And just like Ingrid used to, he gets hungry at night: usually wakes every 3 or 4 hours and eats a proper meal each time, despite eating frequent large meals during the day as well.)

So I’ve ended up putting both kids to bed most nights. This can take over an hour even on a good day, much of which I spend sitting in one dark room or another. Pretty boring. Added to that, Ingrid, being tired, is often less than cooperative during the bedtime routine (brushing teeth, going to the loo, putting lotion on her dry skin, getting into her pyjamas). She whines, complains, wants things done like THIS and not like THAT, etc.

Afterwards I am always drained.

This has been the part of my day that I am least happy with, so as part of my non-New-Year’s resolutions, I’ve decided to change it.

The new routine is that I continue putting Adrian to bed (easiest for all involved parties that way) and I will sit with Ingrid while she falls asleep, but Eric takes care of the practical parts of Ingrid’s bedtime routine. This way I still do a fair amount of sitting quietly in a dark room but at least I don’t have to get struggle with Ingrid’s whims, and am in a much better mood afterwards.

And, knowing her, I suspect that she will not come up with so many delays and objections during the pre-bed-routine, because the faster she gets them done, the sooner she gets to hear her bedtime story with me. Whereas when I do the pre-bed-routine, she has every reason to drag her feet: being with me is preferable to being asleep, even when she is making me cross.

Plus, this way Ingrid will start the bedtime routine earlier (since she doesn’t wait until I’m done with Adrian) so she gets more sleep, and I get more free time in the evening.

The results after the first few days are encouraging. We’ll see about the next step once this routine is firmly established.

As of this morning, Adrian weighed 6.95kg and was 61.4cm long. Nice and chubby. (Impressive precision on the length measurement, don’t you think, given that it involves holding a wiggly baby flat on its back and then trying to straighten its legs while keeping the head still?) He is roughly a size 68 in bodies and 62 in trousers.

New skills: smiling (yay!) and cooing. A typical “word” sounds like ngaanh. He has found his fists and will try to stuff them in his mouth when he loses his dummy.

He has a strong neck and back and has no trouble holding his head upright and looking around in all directions. He likes sitting or even standing up (both with me supporting him under his arms) when awake and not tired. He will push with his head against whatever he is leaning against to signal that he’d rather be upright. Our favourite activity is cooing at each other, with him sitting or standing or kneeling on my thighs while I lounge in the sofa.

He is already quite sociable and curious. Generally he’d rather sit in his bouncy seat and watch the world, than lie on his play mat – I don’t think he’s ever accepted more than 5 or 10 minutes on the play mat. When left on his own, he usually gets bored & lonely pretty soon and starts making unhappy noises, so I often have him with me in the bouncy seat while I’m hanging laundry, eating lunch etc.

He is not too fond of lying on his tummy except when asleep. On his back he will flail, push with his head and definitely not go to sleep. If I nurse him to sleep and then put him on his back, he will inevitably wake within 15 minutes.

His eating and sleeping are becoming roughly predictable. He can stay awake for about a hour or maybe one and a half, and will then sleep for one to two hours. After around 3 or 4pm he will take one or two short naps only, maybe 15–30 minutes. So on a normal day he gets 3 proper naps and one or two brief ones. He wakes with us at 7am, and we put him to bed for night some time between 7 and 8pm. At night he usually wakes 2 or maybe 3 times, nurses, and then goes back to sleep without any fuss – except if he happens to wake and feed after 5.30, after which it is hard to get him to settle properly again.

He still likes his dummy but only for sleeping. Until very recently that was true for the sling as well: he falls asleep very quickly in the sling but does not like sitting there when he’s awake. He usually cries when I put him in, and often wakes crying as well. (If anyone sees me put him in the sling, they’re probably not going to become babywearing converts.) But a few times now he’s woken in the sling and been pretty content to just watch the world from there.

He has also been out in the pushchair a few times, and been happy enough as long as (1) it was moving, and (2) he was sleepy. But given the current road conditions (lots of mushy snow) and the difficulty of arranging our life around his not-entirely-predictable naps, I don’t use the pram except in rare circumstances. The sling gives me so much more flexibility.

He has a semi-permanent little frown. His mouth is more similar to mine than to Eric’s, but his eyes are not mine. He drools quite a lot.

He still has some sort of tummy troubles although not as bad as before. Still investigating as to the cause.

I’m having some trouble getting used to the idea of Adrian being allergic to milk. To anything, for that matter. We don’t “do” allergies in our family. Allergies are for other people, for people with bad genes, generally weak constitutions and too-clean homes. But Adrian obviously doesn’t have any bad genes (since he got them from us), and it’s obviously not due to excessive hygiene either (since he had his allergy pretty much from birth).

One of Eric’s siblings has some minor allergies, and nobody on my side has any. When I grew up we knew exactly one allergic kid. I’ve read in various places that (food) allergies are far more common than they used to be. Now I have personal experience of it.

PS: Technically what he has is milk protein intolerance, not allergy – the immune reaction mechanism is different but the end result is the same, he feels bad if I eat dairy products.

Yep, it’s milk sensitivity all right.

I’ve been on a milk-free diet for the past three weeks. Adrian’s general state and disposition has improved immensely during this time. He behaves like a normal baby (as far as I can tell). He cries when he is unhappy with his current situation, but it is almost always possible to deduce what is bothering him, and fix it.

But perhaps this was just a coincidence? Perhaps he just outgrew whatever problem he had?

Now Christmas is lurking around the corner and it is time to bake gingerbread cookies and saffron buns. This weekend the question arose: do we have to bake our gingerbread cookies with margarine instead of butter, and to look for a recipe for milk-free saffron buns? We needed a decision on the milk-free diet.

So today I did a milk provocation / challenge: I ate what I would eat on a normal day when I’m not avoiding milk. Milk in the breakfast porridge, and a glass of milk on the side; butter on my sandwiches; a yoghurt for my afternoon snack. Yum.

By 5 o’clock in the afternoon there had been no signs of adverse reaction. I was already celebrating in my mind, thinking of all the nice stuff I can eat again. My mouth was watering just from thinking of it all.

Then at 6, The Screaming was back. Adrian woke, fed, and the moment he stopped eating, he started crying. Reflux, arching his back, painful burps, inconsolable crying until he finally fell asleep, and then some more reflux while he was sleeping.

I don’t know which felt worse: to see him in such pain again, or to know that I will not be eating any of the nice stuff for a long time.

And I really like milk and milk products! I am one of a very few people among my acquaintances who actually drinks milk with meals. Used to drink, that is.

After the situation stabilizes again, the next step will be cautious experiments with goat’s and sheep’s milk products. Cheeses are easy to find, but I wonder if it’s possible to buy, say, cream or yogurt made of sheep’s milk. Can you even make sheep milk yogurt?

Now that I am living without milk, I notice that…

• oat milk is a poor replacement for the real stuff, as is margarine for butter
• I really miss yoghurt, grilled cheese sandwiches, fresh warm bread with melting butter, and creamy sauces
• I am spontaneously eating more nuts and pulses, probably because my organism needs alternative sources of protein
• I never really feel full and sated after a meal – instead I stop eating when I think “surely this ought to be enough”
• I am lugging home lots and lots of juice
• ordinary restaurants have almost nothing on their menus with neither meat nor dairy

Adrian has been so much better during the past two weeks compared to the two preceding weeks, and our lives so much calmer, that I’m continuing for now. In a few weeks it should be time for a provocation – drink a glass of milk and see what happens to him.

According to official measurements as of this morning’s two-month checkup, Adrian is 58.5cm and 6130g. He has outgrown most of his size 56 clothes.

His awake periods are getting longer but they’re not particularly predictable. Sometimes when I think he should be alert and perky, he tires after half an hour. Other times he seems really tired but still won’t sleep more than short stretches.

My cautious assessment is that his stomach problems have improved during the last 10 days, since I excluded milk from my diet. We actually had 4 days of no reflux screaming at all. While it hasn’t been that rosy more recently, he spends some time awake and happy after every feed. The doctor told us that if the milk-free diet seems to help, keep it up and re-evaluate at the next checkup in a month’s time.

Adrian now seeks eye contact when held (since about 2 weeks ago), and works his facial muscles hard when I talk to him or make faces. Smile-like movements have been observed but no unambiguously clear smile yet.

Unlike Ingrid he likes his dummy and wants to suck on it when going to sleep, no matter whether in bed or in sling. Also unlike Ingrid he does not like the pushchair or the pram. Both have been banished to the basement for the time being.

Most recently he’s started to like being completely upright, not reclining in his bouncy chair or against my legs. He pushes away from my legs with his head in order to be more upright. When held upright he can hold his head pretty well. Sometimes he pushes away with his legs and refuses to sit, so I hold him standing up on my lap.

1.
I’ve been experimenting with a milk-free diet now since last Friday, hypothesizing that perhaps Adrian’s tummy troubles are caused by a milk protein allergy / oversensitivity. Apparently reflux can sometimes be due to milk allergy. Given how much his reflux is hurting all of us, it’s definitely worth a try. Since I cook almost all our meals from scratch anyway, it’s not difficult, really, just a bit frustrating. I like yoghurt, and cheese, and creamy sauces, and milk in my porridge.

Friday afternoon I forgot my diet and took some cinnamon swirls from the freezer, and for Sunday lunch I grabbed some leftover leeks in white sauce before I realized that white sauce is mostly milk. But apart from those lapses I haven’t ingested anything with milk in it.

And I do think it may be working. He’s been mostly scream-free since Monday: four days now. There’s some crying now and again, but not the endless inconsolable screaming we used to get. Last time I thought I saw an improvement it lasted two days only. I don’t yet dare to think that this is the new normal, but it is very nice while it lasts.

2.
Meanwhile Adrian has hit a growth spurt and is eating every 2 hours during the day (and every 3 hours, occasionally 3.5) at night. I feel like a milk machine. He barely has time to get a nap before he wakes up hungry again.

He’s already outgrown his size 50 bodies and now size 56, too. Next week he’ll be getting his 2-month checkup and we’ll find out what he weighs.

Aargh. The screaming is back. We just had a few days’ reprieve, that was it.

In part the screaming is caused by reflux. All of Adrian’s burps are “wet” and they often make him cry, and he throws up a lot, sometimes as much as an hour after feeding. Last week he lost his voice for several days, and since he had no fever I am pretty sure this was also due to reflux (although the screaming probably contributed, too).

But much of the cause sits in his head. While reflux is often the trigger, once he’s gotten started, he continues “just because”. And when he’s underway, most kinds of stimulus or change make things worse. Just when I think that nothing I’m doing is helping and he couldn’t possibly scream any louder, something happens – a door latch clicks too loudly, or I make the mistake of turning off a lamp – and he still manages to escalate.

Holding him so he can arch his back sometimes helps. Apparently this helps alleviate the reflux. A certain kind of vigorous patting also works to some extent. Unfortunately patting often leads to burps, which cause him pain, so he starts screaming louder again… Walking at a brisk pace also helps, and loud shushing. Swaying and rocking have almost no effect.

I think that often he needs not calming, but a stimulus that breaks the spiral of screaming causing more screaming. This is why the shushing needs to be loud and the back-slapping strong. Both just strong enough to get through the wall of noise, but not so strong that they would hurt or shock him.

Looks like things are turning around (fingers crossed) and the screaming is abating. Today again Adrian sat in his bouncy chair for long enough that I could have a very quick lunch AND take photos of him. And no screaming!