Hello Friends,
My son will be two in March and he has never STTN. It is complicated by eating issues. Quick history: LO had a terrible case of coxsackie virus when he was five months old, which caused painful ulcers in his throat. Overnight he quit the pacifier and bottle and would only allow the breast in his mouth. Two weeks later I had to go back to work. When I went back he would hunger strike for the entire 8 or 9 hours I was at work and only eat when he could nurse, despite my pumping and leaving milk for him with his loving, patient nanny. He would not take any bottle. We tried them all. Our nanny resorted to using an eye-dropper to get any calories into him and his weight plummeted. It went from 33% to 8% that first month I was back at work and has since continued to go down. It is now below 1%. We have a feeding therapist and nutritionist trying to help us with his eating (even now, over a year later, he still has an aversion to food and would prefer to nurse). Because his weight was so low and we knew he was truly starving I continued to nurse him at night. Though he has his own crib I would get up to nurse him 3-5 times a night. Now he sleeps in the same room with his big brother (5 yrs) but is still waking two or three times a night to nurse. I have not had more than 2-3 hours of sleep in a row since he was born almost two years ago. I am desperate for sleep and am starting to feel angry and resentful in the night when I am awakened. Here is a typical day/night:
6:15 up for the day, nurses 15-20 minutes
7:00 Mommy and big brother leave
7:15 Breakfast
7:30 Nanny arrives, daddy leaves
Btwn 10:00-11:00 goes down for nap, sleeps 1 - 1.5 hours
When wakes, has lunch
Snacks are offered regularly and he is always given food upon request
5:00 Mommy and big brother come home
5:15-5:30 nurse
6:00 dinner with whole family
7:00 bath, pajamas, book
7:30 Nurse - about half the time he falls asleep at the breast in the first 20 minutes and I put him down in his bed asleep. The other half of the time he will nurse for 45-60 minutes and become acutely upset if I try to pull him off.
7:45 big brother gets into bed, daddy tells a story and signs a song
8:00-8:15 parents leave room
At this point if he is not asleep he will talk to his brother or sing to himself. If he still can't sleep after about 20 minutes he calls for mommy and becomes increasingly frantic if I do not come. If I come in and try PU/PD or singing, etc., nothing will soothe him except to nurse. This means I often nurse him again for 45 minutes until he falls asleep and I put him in his bed. By now it is often 9:30.
11:30 wakes to nurse. Nurses 20 minutes, goes back to sleep
2:00 wakes to nurse, 20 minutes then back to sleep
4:30 or 5:00 wakes to nurse - He is often brought into our bed for this one so that he'll go back to sleep and we can get a bit more sleep before the alarm goes off at 6:00.
I feel overwhelmed by the feeding and sleeping issues, which we think are connected. He is very very intense about nursing and he becomes desperate if I try to put him off ever.
Any advise on how to handle the NW or eating would be so so appreciated. Has anyone dealt with anything like this? We feel very alone.
Many thanks,
Kim
