solution?

Today we may have found a solution to Little Bird's sleep problem. 

Little Bird has always woken up multiple times a night. When she was an infant and we finally stopped feeding her at night, she still woke up 1-2 times. We would just go in and give her a lost Nuk or roll her over and that seemed to do the trick. 

Lately, however, she has been waking around midnight and crying a lot. We still go in and roll her over and maybe give her a drink of water. She quiets down but 20 minutes later is crying again, this time standing up. We give her more water and lay her back down. I tell her that I'm not going to come in her room anymore, but 20 minutes later  she's crying again. I keep my word and don't go in. She typically stops 10-15 minutes later. Most of the time she is good for the rest of the night, but sometimes (like this morning), she wakes again around 5:30. 

She (and the rest of us) are not well rested. We talked with her pediatrician last week and she recommended seeing an ENT. Along with the waking at night, I've noticed that Little Bird is a mouth breather and can actually be quite loud when she is sleeping.

Today we visited the ENT. Both girls were on their best behavior. We brought some crayons and books to keep busy and we were fortunate that there was only one other patient in the office at the time. The nurse really loved the girls and thought they were so cute. Little Pie did a great job keeping herself occupied while the doctor talked to me and examined Little Bird. 

The doctor thought Little Bird's ears looked good and that her tonsils were not too large. He then wanted to take a look at her adnoids so he had to put a scope up her nose. I was hesitant about doing this because I knew Little Bird would hate it considering she hates having her ears looked at. He said it would take 5 seconds so we went forward with it. The nurse came in to help me keep Little Bird contained while he looked up her nose. It was awful!!! The doctor had trouble seeing because she had too much mucus in her nose so the procedure took more than a minute. Little Bird wiggled and screamed and the nurse and I were squeezing her so tight. I almost cried because I couldn't believe it was taking so long. I felt so bad for Little Bird. She had no idea what was going on. Finally it was over and she got her yellow Nuk and her cuddled her frog. Little Pie was proud of her sister and told her she did a good job. And she did!

The doctor concluded that Little Bird's adnoids are large. They aren't extremely large but are large enough to maybe be causing the sleep problems. He can't guarantee that if he took them out she would sleep better. He does think that it's related and that she could benefit from their removal. He went on to say that kids with sleep problems can have other growth and developmental issues because of their poor sleep. This is what worries me. Daddy and I need to talk about what we should do. She could have them removed as early as January. It's an outpatient procedure and she should be back to her normal self within a day. As much as I don't want to put her through a surgery, I think it's necessary for everyone's health.

It's been a rough week and it's only Wednesday. I don't know why doctor's office don't have any morning appointments. Little Bird's appointment was at 1:30 today so we didn't get home until 2:30 and the girls barely slept an hour. It's an early bedtime tonight.

Our Christmas tree fell down this morning. This tree is ridiculous. It weighs a TON. I could hardly get it back  up. When it fell it broke several special ornaments so I'm extra mad. I don't know if I have it secure enough so I'm just praying it won't fall down again. Thankfully the girls were eating at the time and weren't in it's path.

I CANNOT wait until Daddy is home on Friday. I get to go get my haircut in the afternoon and then go out with my girlfriends to celebrate my birthday. This is what is keeping me going this week!