Life with a Heart Baby

I know that I wrote about how Olivia hasn't really been sleeping well since her vaccinations two weeks ago today and that's a side effect that a lot of parents see regardless of healthy heart or not.  Olivia did not take her naps for us all weekend.  30 or 40 minutes here and there but no two hour snoozes like she normally does.  Brian and I made excuses for it saying that maybe she was just excited that we were home and didn't want to miss anything...except her eating was off and she was much crankier than usual the whole weekend. 

Last night was an example of how we don't have a baby with a completely healthy heart. She was up a lot which could have been because the house was warmer than she would prefer since we had a mini heat wave again this weekend.  I know Brian was getting her a bottle around 11:30 which was about two hours earlier than she should have needed one, but finally he threw in the towel at three and brought her in our room.  No big thing, I like when she has to bunk with us, but last night when he brought her in, I felt like her breathing was much more rapid than usual.  She'll have periods during the day when she's breathing heavier or faster but it's during phsyical exertion, not just trying to get in a comfy spot to go to sleep.  So I laid there and laid there some more until I was satisfied with the pace of her breaths, but you can bet that I'm going to call the cardiologist today and talk about the change in behavior over the weekend.

Maybe it's healthy baby stuff like teething (which we've heard she's been doing for weeks without a tooth in sight) but maybe it's something else and I'm not willing to overlook it just in case.

If She Cries, We Will Come

Oh yes ladies and gentlemen, Olivia has us figured out now.  If she cries, she knows that we're going to come relatively quickly.  This is especially true in the middle of the night.  She has been up every few hours for the last five or six days and I'm pretty sure a few times she didn't really need anything other than to see one of us and get some reassurance that yes we're still around and listening for her. 

A diaper change here, a bottle there and back down she goes.  Mostly I just try to offer her the pacifier, re-position her and turn on her lullabies to see if she'll just soothe herself back to sleep without needing to be picked up.  I know post-Glenn it is not a big issue to let her cry but the girl can really hit some shrill notes and listening to that through the monitor is just like listening to nails on a chalkboard so we prefer to get up and head her off at the pass so to speak. 

I swaddled her legs last night thinking that maybe she's flailing in her sleep and that's part of the problem.  She got a little angry though when I tucked her in like a little burrito and she couldn't put her legs just the way she liked them.   If she's fed, changed, comfy temp and clearly tired - anything else we can try?