Up yours, acid reflux.

Newest development, is that baby A is on acid reflux medication. Because I asked the doctor to try it. Sure, she's sensitive and has a hard time settling on her own, but when we take all these "high needs baby" things into account, we're still left with a baby who has a hard time breastfeeding and sometimes bottle feeding (pulls off a lot, lots of burping, arches her back, cries, wants to eat constantly) and doesn't sleep more than one hour at a time (EVER) without our intervention - my holding her on my lap in my arms, or having her bouncing in the baby hammock.

These behaviors and her wheezing right after eating seem to point to silent reflux. Oooh, nasty nasty thing that has no spitting up to help diagnose it and just gets chalked up to "she'll grow out of it."

And as usual, I've learned something about myself with this all. At first, when a friend suggested I look into silent reflux, I went online, saw all these symptoms exactly like A's, and with almost every post was the warning "doctors won't believe you", "we went through three pediatricians before one sent us to a GI specialist who immediately saw a silent reflux baby in her behavior," etc. Great. Even a pharmacist here said that doctors here don't always believe babies have reflux so don't send you to a specialist. And, in fact, one doctor I spoke to while ours was out of town gave that exact solution....no, it is gas, have you tried Flatulex? (yes, didn't work) Give her fennel tea (ditto), wheezing is a respiratory infection (no, I said it is just after eating, don't you listen?).

Anyway, I found myself heading to the pharmacy to ask for somthing like Mylanta, something over the counter we could try to see if things improved to help me make my case. Fair enough, others on the forums had suggested this.

But at the pharmacy I also found myself explaining myself in detail to an assistant pharmacist. To try to get her to believe my theory. When I was asking for over the counter medicine. See something kind of off with this picture?

I'd been doing this kind of super-explaining to everyone. The litany of baby A's problems. In hopes they would not think I was a pushy mom and realize this is just what I have to do to try and figure out why she's still screaming sometimes, not eating calmly (albeit gaining weight....which means she doesn't raise any red flags for the doctor!), sleeping poorly. And why we can't come to your place for dinner (I go to sleep at 7pm to try to get in 3 hours of sleep while M watches her), or come to your party on the weekend (she has trouble feeding calmly in new settings and I need to be able to keep my attention on her, and if the trip is longer than 30 min....).

See, there I go again. Doing it to you, now.

Really, it doesn't matter. You don't need to know all my experiences with the little buddha. She'll probably coo and smile while you're around, and that is wonderful. She has some really good times. And the bad times, well, I'm in charge of helping her through them, and I don't need to apologize for all I will try. Or explain.

And yes (sigh), I'm a pushy mom. This baby needs a pushy mom. So that goodness I'm willing to become one. And I am willing. Finally.

There, I've said it, I'm a pushy, 10-theories, here's a printout of a new study, have you thought of this medication mama. And if it helps her cry less or sleep more, then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

It takes another 4-5 days for us to know if acid reflux is part of the problem. Fingers crossed. It doesn't have to solve it all, but a bit of improvement would be golden. Go mess with someone else, reflux.