A "friendly" letter to everyone from a very sleep deprived mommy

mmmmm! Chicken and squash!

Happy Father's Day Daddy! Thanks for picking out my hat!

They were having a very serious conversation.

A dress from Carson's Closet Designs.

Some soft-soled shoes from CCD.


I am exhausted. I get 1-3 hours of very interrupted sleep a night, followed by 2-3 hours of sometimes interrupted, sometimes not of sleep in the morning when Bryan takes Carson so I can get some rest. All added up, we are going on 8 months straight of, on average, 4 hours of sleep a night. In the last 7 months 3 weeks and 3 days, I can count the number of times I have had 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep on both hands, and the number of times I have had more than 6 hours total sleep in one night (uninterrupted or otherwise) on one, its a little depressing actually. But such is life sometimes, so I don't say all this to complain, I say it so you know where I'm coming from. I should also mention that for the past 4 1/2 months I have had to live dairy free, which honestly, it sucks, I don't know how vegans do it. I miss yogurt, I miss bagels and cream cheese, I miss bread that doesn't have seeds throughout it and weighs less than 8 lbs per slice. I think I'd be a little less bummed out about the fact that I can't have chocolate when I'm pms-ing if I had a little more sleep, but that is probably more than you wanted to know, so I digress.

Like I said, I'm telling you this so you can try to get an idea where I'm coming from when I say this next part...

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE, dear friends and family, STOP with the unsolicited parenting advice already.

YES, we have talked, at length, with our pediatrician about each and every one of Carson's issues from food allergies, to lack of weight gain, to lack of sleep. YES, we very much trust out pedi, if we didn't, we would not continue to see him and we would seek a second opinion. He is a top pediatrician, graduated from a top medical school, he still researches and is published in scholarly pediatric journals regularly, and to top it off, he has two small children so it really hasn't been so long since he's been through the baby stage, really, we love him.

NO, we do not need to see a specialist of any kind at this point for Carson's sleep issues. Yes, he wakes up frequently, and he is tough to put down. Part of this is likely just his personality, but a big part of it is the fact that for the first 3 1/2 months of his life, he was in a lot of pain from relux and his food allergies that we were, at that time, unaware of. For the first 3 1/2 months, he would wake up, we would try to put him back to sleep by rocking him or whatever, but ultimately, the only way to get him back down was to nurse. We now know that this was due to his reflux/food allergies, he would eat a small amount, it would reflux, he would want to nurse, which would temporarily quell the pain, but then a while later that would reflux as well, lather, rinse, repeat...Well this taught him the very bad habit of "the only way to fall asleep is to nurse" We have worked very hard to get him to go back to sleep just by being held/rocked, and while this still doesn't help the fact that I still have to get up each time he wakes as he doesn't know how to put himself back to sleep, it is a step in the right direction. So please, know that when I say he wakes up every hour (sometimes more) know that that is actually an improvement from where we were and stop knocking the fact that a textbook child would be sleeping more by now because Carson is anything but textbook.

Please don't tell me that formula would make him sleep better. No, actually, it wouldn't, but thanks for playing. Carson is severely allergic to dairy, and intolerant of soy when he has it directly (ie soy formula) Formula does not make it better, it actually makes it a lot worse, but thanks for telling me that the way I choose to feed my child is what is causing him not to sleep, and I've got to add, its really a nice boost to my self esteem for you to imply that the milk my child is getting is causing problems, thanks everyone, its nice to feel like I, and my body, are failing my son in yet another way, becuase the inability to give birth naturally, and the the fact that I unknowingly starved my child (literally) for the first 4 days of his life weren't enough, lets add my milk keeping him from sleeping to the list. Seriously though, cows milk is for baby cows, human milk is for human babies, and while I wont knock people for formula feeding, in fact without formula my sweet little Carson would have been failure to thrive right off the bat due to the fact that my milk didn't come in for 8 days, and as of day 4 (when we added formula)he had already lost 13% of his body weight, but lets not kid ourselves into thinking that formula, a substance derived from cows milk, which again, is made for baby cows, and synthetically manufactured to be edible by human babies is somehow better than human milk for a human baby.

You can tell me what you think of vaccinating, not vaxing, delayed vaxing, and why you think that, truly, I enjoy discussing people's views on vaxing, but PLEASE, for the love of all things holy, do not speak to me like I am ignorant or haven't researched my choice to vaccinate my son. Just because I choose to vaccinate does not mean that I am blindly following my pediatrician's advice, I have researched vaxing to death thankyouverymuch, and ultimately, we decided that it was right for our child. You can do whatever you see fit with your baby, but please do not tell me what to do with mine.

For the record, aside from the cold that Carson just got over, he is a VERY happy baby. Sure, he doesn't sleep well, but I've already explained to you why, and it surprisingly has very little bearing on his mood throughout the day. Carson smiles and laughs and plays all day long. Before we found out about his dairy allergy, he was very cranky all the time, it sucked for everyone involved, it really did. But he has been better for going on 4 1/2 months now, so please get it out of your mind that he is always fussy just because I complain about an off day, or nighttime sucking, or the fact that he was all kinds of unhappy while he had a cold. He is happy all the time, other than normal baby fussiness, you know those babies, they do tend to cry on occasion, so PLEASE don't tell me I need to talk to his doctor about his mood, or see a specialist to figure out what is "wrong" with my child. When was the last time you saw him for more than an hour, or at all, that you should be able to tell me how he acts all day, I'm with him basically 24/7, I think I know better, so please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top, for the millionth time, he is not fussy during the day anymore (barring illness of course) so stop thinking that I have this completely miserable child, I don't!

And one more thing...I'm glad that your child/friend's child/coworker's-neighbor's-little sister's-friend's-brother's baby sleeps 12 hours a night without waking up, good for them, but when you ask how I'm doing and I tell you I'm tired, then you ask why, and I tell you that too, it is just not the best time to bring up the fact that someone else's child sleeps like a dream, thanks.

And if you plan on suggesting any of the following books/sleep training methods, please don't. We have already tried Dr. Sears, The No-Cry Sleep Solution, The No-Cry Nap solution, The Baby Whisperer, Babywise, The Ferber Method (I still regret trying this one) and basically every other "method" out there to get out baby to sleep, none have worked, and yes we have gived each more than double what is reccomended in time that each book/method says it should be working by. I'm glad they worked for you, truly I am, but they haven't worked for us so please don't tell me how it will solve all my problems, I've tried it, and all I've ended up with is a whole lot of money wasted on books that I should really get around to selling on e-bay.

I don't want anyone to feel as though this rant is directed at them and them alone, I promise it isn't. This is directed at everyone who has given me unsolicited parenting advice regarding those things written about above, and I promise that each and every one of the issues just laid out has been commented on by at least two people, so really, this is not directed at anyone in particular, so please don't feel like it is.

Also, if your name is Cami, please disregard everything I just wrote, because you, dear cousin, have been there. You and your dairy allergic little Clarendon have gone through so much of what we have been through with Carson, so you can tell me anything you want to that you think might help because you actually get it.

Now that that is out of the way and off my chest, here is an update on Carson. We stopped supplementing with formula after a couple of days because Carson was having issues with the soy, turns out he does have an intolerance for it, it just isn't as severe as his dairy issues so I can eat it without enough getting into my milk for there to be a problem, but he can have it in the nice concentrated amount in soy formula. Despite not supplementing, he managed to gain 11 ounces in 10 days(this is nearly double what he gained in the last 3 months!) YAY!! The antibiotics worked wonders and his infection is now gone. His doctor thinks that he has likely had the infection for a while but the only sign was lack of weight gain, it is rare, but sometimes UTIs and kindey infections only manifest themselves in low weight gain, they dont always include the typical fever and other symptoms, so without his doctor's concern over his weight gain, we may not have known until it got even worse. His doctor ordered a kidney ultrasound, which we are waiting on radiology to schedule, just to make sure that he isn't having urine refluxing into his kidneys, which could cause problems and recurring UTIs/kidney infections, but we are hoping that this was a one time thing. If the ultrasound is clear then we will consider it to have been a one-time thing, but keep an extra eye out for low weight gain, unexplained fevers, and general unexplained, out of the ordinary fussiness, and if any of those occur then we will be immediately testing his urine to check for infection. If he does get another infection, then he will have a VGUC, which is a bit invasive (catheter, dye, etc) so we are holding off on it and hoping that this was one time and wont happen again.

Carson is reaching milestones like its going out of style. He can pull up from his tummy to standing in like a millisecond, he plays peek a boo all the time, he will stand, leaning his tummy against the coffee table and let go with both hands to play with a toy (or fabric, because its a toy too!) He cruises all over that coffee table too. Today he even tried to stand without holding/leaning on anything, but no success on that one yet.

My clothing, Carson's Closet Designs, is now a part of the Simply Serendipity Congo on Hyena Cart. Our next stocking is July 3rd, so my stuff wont be available until then, but you can check out the congo by clicking here you'll see Carson's Closet Designs on the list of vendors at the top of the page. There isn't anything on my page yet, but there will be soon, its very exciting!