This little bug keeps us on our toes. He is a very happy baby thank goodness, but he is still quite the high maintenance little boy. He is actually pretty good about playing on the floor by himself or sitting in the bouncer while I shower, or the jumparoo, so it definately could be worse. (And obviously there are much much worse things than having a wonderful baby to keep me insanely busy) Mostly this kid just struggles with sleep.
So at his last well baby check I mentioned how awful his sleep was to his pediatrician. Well, as usual in the medical field, he said that's normal. It is normal for a baby to be a cat napper. I didn't really agree with him but said, okay we will wait it out. I started to study Bennett while he slept to see why the heck he only stayed asleep for 20 minutes MAX. As I watched him sleep I noticed that he would twitch a lot. Every couple minutes he twitches and acts very restless and it wakes him up. He then falls back asleep and a couple minutes later the same thing happens. Again and again. Finally after 10 times, he is no longer able to put himself back to sleep and he wakes up for good. Well silly me, I decided to google 'babies twitching while falling asleep'. I found some serious disorder that I convinced myself that Bennett had which would cause major brain damage and he would never progress past infancy. I had myself pretty freaked out and may have cried to Jared about 'losing' our baby and never seeing him smile again. It really felt similar to losing Mason and Carter...it was a bad night after dr. google helped me out.
Anyway (sorry this is a long story...but hey you are reading my journal!!), the next day I recorded his twitches, and took him into the pediatrician the saturday before Christmas. He watched the video and said, "Well, it does not look like Infantile Spasms (very terrible disorder), however it does look like sleep apnea. Like he is making these movements while he sleeps to get air in." HUGE sigh of relief, and the terrible knot in my stomach disappeared. I was also glad, in a weird way, that I was right about something not being normal about his sleep patterns.
We are scheduled for an appointment with a sleep specialist in a couple weeks where she will be able to evaluate him and see if this is what is happening. I am hoping we can figure out a way to help him sleep better! (This kid woke up 6 times last night between 8:30 and 7:45) He sleeps less than Ava does in a 24 hour period.
As you can see, my life completely revolves around how little sleep Bennett gets these days.
BUT don't you worry, Bennett is becoming such a fun baby these days that it is making it so worth it.
Bennett is a rolly-polly these days. Anytime he is on the floor he rolls from his back to his tummy. He will lay there for a few minutes happy (trying to crawl and looking like he is swimmin'). Then he gets mad becasue he has not figured out how to roll back onto his back.
He really wants to sit up! He is always doing little crunches when in his car seat, or if he is laying on the floor.
He is sooo smiley. I am amazed at how happy he can be on such little sleep. He did NOT get my sleep genes. I love making him smile and it is soo easy! He loves to watch mouths make big movements. He loves watching me sing, and make weird noises.
He is chewing on everything! I call him my baby shark because anything he can get his hands on goes straight into his mouth. He also really likes to grab my face while he is eating. He is a drooling machine, and even has a red rash on his chin from so much drool. Teething maybe? We shall see.
He loves Ava so much. She can get a smile out of him so easily. It is so cute. I love watching them begin to interact with each other. Ava adores Bennett too and often tells me how much she loves her baby brother. She says "He is just too cute!" all the time. Tonight she told me, "I just love kissing his cheeks! They are so red and precious!" He especially likes Ava to sing twinkle little star.
We really can't imagine our family without Bennett and are so grateful that we get to be the parents of this happy happy sleep-deprived big blue eyed baby.
SO CUTE! And good for you for following your gut about his sleep problems. I had that feeling about Pierce's reflux and I'm glad I listened to it. You know what is normal for your babies and what isn't. Hope you get it figured out soon! My little brother had his adenoids out when he was 6 and it helped his snoring and sleep issues a ton.
ReplyDeleteHe is such a cute little boy!!
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