One word: reflux

A quick post to say I am sorry I have been so quiet on here. I’ve not had a lot of spare time to knit or crochet and have had even less time to blog, or even read the blogs I follow.  And there is one main cause for this: reflux. I don’t know if many of you that follow my blog have experienced reflux, but let me tell you if you haven’t that it sucks.  My daughter thankfully never had any problems like this, but my son has had it since he was born.  Seemingly endless screaming, fussy when eating, very short naps (that’s when you can get him to sleep which some days is not at all) and pretty much the only perfume I have been sporting these days has been eau de vom. It is relentless. Difficult for parents, difficult for siblings, awful for baby. (I just want to put an aside here, that I know there are many children who are more poorly than my wee one, and many parents who are dealing with much more difficult circumstances than mine. My heart breaks for them and I have nothing but compassion and respect for those parents).

We have had good days, when he will sleep, but then you’ll find me running round like a headless chicken trying to do some housework/cook/shower…  What I am not doing is sitting on the couch with my needles or hook.  The knitting and crochet that I have managed since he has been born has been done at the weekend if my husband takes my children out for a few hours to give me a break.  Every day I plan to do some in the evening once the kids are in bed, but the reality is that it can take until 9 or 10 at night to get my son down, then it’s time for dinner (oh to be a parent who is organised enough to have prepared food to eat at 5) and bed. Which means no crafting is done. And don’t get me started on our sky box: the memory has been down to single figures on more than one occasion –  I don’t know about anyone else but it’s enough to bring me out in palpitations.

He was officially diagnosed by a paediatrician recently and has been started on some different medication, although unfortunately he is not a fan and tends to spit most of it out.  In sheer desperation I also tried going dairy free but the doctor suggested I re-introduce it to see if the medication works by itself – which might never happen if I can’t find a way for him to take it – any suggestions welcome!!  What has seemed to help has been a trip to see my local chiropractor a couple of weeks ago prior to the paediatrician appointment.  She found some tightness in his neck, spine and pelvis and has done some adjustments to loosen him off.  Since then we’ve had definite improvements with less screaming and more naps.  Which you would think would have left me more time to craft, but in reality has just meant I’ve been able to tackle the mountains of washing that we manage to generate seemingly every day (I swear it spawns itself when no-one is looking). As you can see from the picture above, when he’s not in pain, he’s a happy little monkey. So hopefully we are getting somewhere and I will have a more content baby going forward. Fingers crossed!