Friday 25 May 2012

Ellen Barron Family Centre (take 2) - Day 2

Sleep in, yaaaaay!!! The little poppet didn't stir until 8:15am after her 5:30am feed so I just lay in bed and enjoyed it.  I was a bit in shock that she slept in so late actually.

I rang the nurses to let them know we were still alive and they came down for the morning debrief then we headed down for brekky and Merryn ate half the kitchen, as usual.

It was almost embarrassing how much she ate when sitting beside the other parents trying everything to coax their kids to even eat a few bites.  Some parents come in to the centre for eating problems and one poor little baby (6 months old) would hardly have 500ml of milk a day and was about to have a nasogastric tube put in if things didn't turn around.  My Merryn shrieked at me if I didn't feed her fast enough and ate 2 or 3 courses every meal.

Merryn enjoying a snack in the dining room
I headed up to the first class (Responsive Settling) of the day after brekky, but only lasted about 15min before Merryn started getting cranky and showing sleep signs.  Seriously, it wasn't quite 10am!  I let the nurses know we were going in, fed her and started trying to settle her (with a nurse by my side).  It did not go well.  She screamed and shrieked until 30min later she puked.

I'd been told to watch for sleep signs, I'd done that, but it had completely failed to work.  The nurses said often when kids haven't been getting enough sleep they do a lot of sleeping when you get them into a good routine, so her wanting to sleep again so soon in the morning hadn't seemed strange.  Still, it hadn't worked and despite her STILL seeming very tired, I gave up and played quietly with her in our room before heading down to lunch.  The idea of Responsive Settling is about listening to your child and understanding the difference between a cranky baby and a distressed baby.  I felt she was getting way too distressed and needed to reset after our first attempt.

When I put her down at 12:20 after a breast feed, she went instantly to sleep after 10min and me only going in once to quietly tell her to lie down.  She then slept for 2.5 hours.  Very civilised.

I did another debrief with the nurse before having a sleep myself.  Every morning and afternoon there is a debrief and we decide if we are on track with the plan.

On my way out of our room later that afternoon with Merryn, I came upon the mum across the way in tears and the sounds of her 6 month old son screaming from inside their room.  It reminded me of my days with Connor in Ellen Barron.  After standing and trying to reassure her for a few minutes I left her to go back into him and went down to the nurses station to mention to them they should have someone in with her.  It was only the second day afterall.

Merryn and I had a lovely time at playgroup.  She started out very shy, but was soon in amongst it all and loving the singing.  The afternoon and evening were just lovely and ended with my putting Mez into the cot and her smiling up at me before falling to sleep without a sound.  Oh my!

I spent some time writing some notes about the gems of advice I was starting to get.  Every nurse does things a bit differently, which you can either get frustrated by, or just use it to your advantage to develop your own style.  Mez and I are just refining ours.

One of the exercises I did with the nurse today was when she asked me what three words I would use to describe Merryn (they do a bit of a psych profile on you using some sneaky little questions *grin*).  They words I came up with where, Joy, Mischievous and Strong Willed.

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Monday 21 May 2012

Ellen Barron Family Centre (take 2) - Day 1

Merryn in the play room
After the two weeks from hell I was relieved and excited to be checking back into the Centre. My only concern was Connor, he has been having panic attacks if I leave him with anyone else.  I'd left him with his grandmother and my sister at her house in the hopes he would be fine with familiar people in a familiar environment.  My fears were realised about 20 minutes after we had checked in when my sister called to say he was hysterical and getting to the point he was going to vomit.  I suggested she try taking him home (I owe her a case of wine for all she did for me this week) and see if he would calm when in his own house.  A few hours later she rang to say it had worked.  So now it appears, if I want to leave him it can only be when he is at home and someone else comes and stays with him.

In the meantime Merryn and I were settling right in.  She went down for her morning sleep with not too much fuss (about 15 minutes of yelling) and I got all the usual 'admin' done with the nurses and unpacked.  Unfortunately I'd been up since 1:30am with Connor so what I really wanted to do was sleep while Merryn was sleeping.

After lunch we went to have a play in the play room until Mez started to show signs of being tired then I tried for her afternoon sleep.  I say tried, because it was a complete disaster (even with the nurse there assisting) as all of my attempts at getting her in for an afternoon sleep have been for a while now.

Andrew and Connor came up and saw us after dinner.  When Connor saw me he put his little hands together in front of his chest and he just quivered with excitement.  It was so adorable.  The kids had bath time together before Andrew and Connor went home.

I was very nervous about how the night was going to go but it pretty much went to plan.  The idea was to stop breastfeeding her to sleep all night (with the exception of a feed if she woke around 10pm) and of course no co-sleeping.  I had done ok trying to stick to the plan in the past two weeks so I was hoping we could work out the 'kinks'.  It took 15 minutes for Merryn to go down for the night (not surprising considering she'd been awake most of the day), she woke at 10:30pm for a breast feed and went straight back to sleep, and I was able to pat her to sleep quickly at 12:30am.  At 5am she woke and I figured it was the start to the day so I gave her a feed, but instead she went back to sleep and didn't wake until 8:15am!

It seemed like a very good start.


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About Ellen Barron Family Centre

I realised I haven't really talked much about what Ellen Barron is really like, so before telling you all about our week there, I thought I'd paint a picture.

The facility at Ellen Barron has been custom built on hospital grounds.  There are rooms for up to 20 families and it has a large dining area with microwaves, fridges, toaster, sandwich press, kettle and sinks.  They provide lots of snack foods and breakfast stuff and meals arrive in the fridges for lunch and dinner.  There is also a play room and outdoor play area for the kids and three lounge areas where they do classes (how sleep works, nutrition, parenting, stress management, circle of care etc.) all through the days or for you to relax if you get a chance.  Each room has it's own bathroom and separate room for the nursery (with the most enormous cots you've ever seen).

It is a fabulous place and has been really well thought out.  As well as the facility itself it is staffed with nurses who are assigned 'pods', so you  have two or three nurses looking after five rooms for the first few days when we are all going out of our minds and the babies are going nuts (by the last night they scale it back to only a few nurses for the whole centre as you are supposed to know more about what you are doing by then).  Each morning and afternoon one of your nurses goes over how things are going and makes sure the plan is on track and discusses if we need to change our strategy.  There is also a doctor and a pedeatrician who check the kids over to make sure they are all ok health wise.

http://www.health.qld.gov.au/rch/professionals/cchs_rsp.asp

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Back In Ellen Barron Family Centre

Checked back in to EB yesterday morning. It's going fabulously and I almost feel the one night in and two weeks out is an advantage as both Merryn and I are far better prepared to really take advantage of it.

I have heaps and heaps I want to say but typing in this app on my iPhone is painful so I'm making notes and might have to do proper posts when I get home.

Suffice to say I've had the best nights sleep I've had in years probably and I got a nanna nap this arvo too. Luxury! I love this place. :)

Friday 11 May 2012

Connor Update

Getting the X-Ray
In the end Connor had the drip in for about 6 hours.  It would have been longer but he ripped it out of his arm. We never made it up to the ward as they didn't have any rooms, so we spent nearly 24 hours in emergency instead.

Thankfully once the antibiotics, Nurofen and numbing gel (for his throat) took effect he started to eat and drink again.  If he hadn't we would have had to move up to the ward and he would have been back on the drip.

We are now home with the antibiotics, he's been absolutely dreadful at night, but his old self during the day.

Tuesday 8 May 2012

41 Degrees

Trip number three to the ER in five days. Despite assurances last time, Connor wasn't getting better and the drugs just seemed to be working less as we progressed.

This time I came up with Connor and Andrew stayed to wrangle Merryn. After hours of waiting, poking, prodding, an X-ray and a number of Doctors the final verdict was upper respiratory tract infection and pneumonia requiring a hospital stay and antibiotics.

Connor has been cracking it all night about having ears, throat and chest inspections, I'm not sure how well the drip is going to go.....

Monday 7 May 2012

40 Degrees

After the visit to the emergency room Connor continued to have temperatures and lie in my lap groaning and grizzling.  By lunchtime Sunday I was convinced the Dr had it wrong and he really did have some sort of infection and we needed to take him back in.

All four of us trooped up to Emergency and waited the 2 1/2 hours to get in to the Dr.  I'm glad we did.  His temp had reached 40 Celcius by then and he does indeed have an infection.  The Dr said his eardrums had probably perforated in the past few days from the pressure and his tonsils are red and swollen.  

They gave him a dose of Pain Stop and within 10min he was leaping about like a maniac.  He was his normal self.  In short he's been in terrible pain and the Panadol we've been giving him hasn't been enough to control it.  He's now on Pain Stop for a few days and should stop having temps by Tuesday (or we need to take him back in).  It's going to take a few months for his ears to properly recover and we need to get him checked by the GP in a few weeks.

So after the week from hell, I'm hoping (I seem to say I'm hoping a lot) this week is going to calm down and both my kids will get more sleep and feel better.

Merryn's Week Since Ellen Barron

Overall this week has been an improvement from where we were up to before we had the night in Ellen Barron.  Merryn has slept in her cot every night and been settling (for the most part) without breastfeeding.  In fact on Saturday night she had one wake up at 11:30pm, when I gave her a good feed and then she slept through.  I was soooo thrilled.

Of course she then followed that up with waking every hour last night and screaming at me hysterically.

Around 9:30pm last night she was going absolutely nuts and I just curled up into a ball on the bed and felt like we'd achieved nothing at all.  Then Andrew tried his usual technique, which didn't work, and mum was trying to come in and try hers, and I woke up to myself and got back in the game.  I did the first three steps, lie down, good girl, sleep time, and then rubbed her back and shushed her and she responded to me.  Within 15min of in and outs she was fast asleep.

Lesson learnt.  I need to use the techniques I've learnt and maintain control (over myself, I can't control the rest of them).  Last night, after the long week and stress we've had, I was in danger of backsliding.  I'm really glad I didn't.  It was still a long, long night and I was up and down with her.  But we didn't loose ground and are still laying a foundation for when we get back in.

Saturday 5 May 2012

39 Degrees

Andrew ended up taking Connor into Emergency around midnight last night with a temp of 39 Celcius. It meant they didn't get home until 3am(apparently he has no infections just a virus so we have to ride it out). During that time Merryn kept waking and was cranky and hard to settle so I resorted to some old bad habits. It resulted in hardly any sleep for either Andrew or I last night so we are both the walking dead today and cranky as well. It's certainly not happy families here today with two zonked parents, Connor grizzly and burning up and all over me, and Mez cranky. The plan of a day out cycling has gone out the window and it's more about musical beds as we each take turns trying to nap. I just hope tonigt is better.

Friday 4 May 2012

My Sick Boy

This week just keeps rolling on. Connor woke up coughing and having problems breathing which meant he was hysterical. I was already dealing with Mez again by then (about 10pm) so Andrew tried to calm and settle him. Eventually we did a swap (after Connor had vomited all over himself, Andrew and his bed) and after cleaning up the mess and breaking out the serious drugs for Connor I got him to sleep while Andrew got our girl sorted. The little man was passed out until 5am after those few hours of mayhem, but woke up and vomited all through his bed, so I had to clean him up and pull him into my bed where he passed out again. I think the stress, discomfort and mucus is making him sick. He has a tendency to vomit when he is overwhelmed and unwell. The little girl is feeling unwell but is definitely not nearly as bad and only woke three times letting me resettle her back in her cot each time. I'm so proud of her. I hope Connor is feeling better soon!

Thursday 3 May 2012

Musical Beds

Last night was good and bad.  The bad was I only got a few hours broken sleep again, the good was Merryn did really well and spent the night in her cot.

Merryn woke at 10pm, 1am, 3am and just before 6am.  I fed her at 10 and 1, but I only did the 1am feed because I was out of it I had fed her before I realised what I'd done.  She settled within about 20 minutes everytime, so I'd call that a success.  When she woke up just before 6am I fed her and then came out to the lounge room and promptly fell asleep.  Andrew woke me asking where she was (she was playing in Connor's room) and I realised I couldn't stay awake so I knocked on mum's door and thankfully she took her for me so I could go and lie down again.

Connor woke at 3am.  Despite medicine, cuddles, a nappy change, milk and firm instructions to stay in bed and sleep, nothing worked.  By after 4:30am I was completely out of energy and ideas so I went back to bed and within 15 minutes he was standing by Andrew's side of the bed.  With a little help he was up and over Andrew and in the middle of us.  I was terrified he was going to wake Merryn and start jumping about but after a few minutes he just cuddled in with me and went off to sleep.  I think it was about 8am before he woke up.

It's like I'm just getting Merryn into her own bed and Connor is moving back in with us!  I'm hoping we can get through these colds and then perhaps both will start sleeping a bit less restlessly.  I choose to be optimistic so I don't go completely insane.

I still have another appointment with the Mater Sleep Clinic for Connor and another go at Ellen Barron with Merryn so even if the next few weeks don't get better I've got plans and options in place.  I find that helps to keep going, knowing there are still things to try.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

The Day After We Got Booted

Well it's been a pretty rough day with the kids.  Both are sick, so they are cranky and Merryn is showing she is more than capable of having a temper tantrum, which is a new discovery.  We did go to playgroup this morning, which the kids loved, but we had to leave early as they were both so tired.  Connor then refused to have a daytime sleep and Merryn only had about an hour.

I'm absolutely wiped out after last night and really not looking forward to tonight.  It's 7pm, both the kids are asleep, I'm going to watch some reality television and then hopefully get some sleep before the festivities begin.

Wish me luck!

Ellen Barron Family Centre - Day 2

The day started at 7:10am......Woohoo, sleep in and what a fantabulous night!

A fashion parade in mummies shoes and undies
We had a morning meeting with the nurses about the previous night then headed down for breakfast, where the little poppet didn't eat much, and then went to the play room for a little play.  By the time we'd done all that it was about 9:30am and Merryn was starting to show signs of getting tired.  Time for our first effort of a daytime sleep using the new techniques.

As with all the previous efforts there was a nurse there with me but I was making the decisions about when to go in and what I wanted to do.  It only took us about 20 minutes to get her down and settled and then I sat with the nurse and we had a big chat.

One of the things I've noticed is that all the nurses spend a lot of time talking to you about how you are doing and what it's like at home and what you have in the way of help.  They are very obviously making sure the whole family is coping and digging into the reason why you are in there with your baby.

Mez slept for 3 hours for her daytime sleep, which I was completely unprepared for.  I messed around and played some games on my iPhone and made some phone calls before I realised I could actually have a nap myself.  Awesome!

After her sleep we headed down for a late lunch and it was after this that things went downhill.  On the way back up I mentioned to the nurse she wasn't really eating much that day.  The nurse suggested we take her temperature just in case and it turned out she was 37.2 degrees celsius.  An hour later it was 37.5 and the administrator had decided we had to be confined to our room and head home as soon as Andrew could come and get us.

I was really torn.  On one hand you can't sleep train a sick baby, on the other hand she had been picking things up so well and going home was just going to mean more endless nights of being up with the kids for me.  But it wasn't up to me anyway, so by 6:30pm Andrew had us home and I was putting Mez to bed.

The nurses have assured me we will be back in Ellen Barron in a few weeks time to have a full week with them.  I just have to try to do my best with the start we made.  Unfortunately last night reminded me why I had wanted to have dedicated time to Merryn and I got about 2 hours broken sleep as I bounced between 2 screaming (sick) kids.  I can't wait to get back to Ellen Barron!

N.B. I did manage to keep Mez in her cot until about 5am, despite all the mayhem, which actually made it easier for me to spend the hours with Connor in the middle where he refused to sleep.  I also didn't breastfeed her every single time she woke up, but settled her with pats and shushing.  Small step in the right direction I hope.  *cross fingers*

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Ellen Barron Family Centre - Day 1

After dropping my boy off (he was quite upset about it which broke my heart) Merryn and I checked in. The whole process took most of the day, even though we arrived at 9am, as there were lots of forms, settling in and getting the tour, the paedeatrician check up and planning for the week. Mez seemed to not mind at all but she did stick close to me at all times.

Merryn in the play room
Putting her in for her afternoon sleep took about 1/2 an hour, which actually isn't too bad for her. But I used lots of cuddles and breastfeeding to do it and that will be the last time we will be allowed to do that.  We finally finished the planning about 4:30pm, I can't believe it took so long, just in time for play time, dinner, bath and bed.

I was very, very nervous going into the night, I didn't think it was going to go well at all.  Merryn surprised me.  The plan was no co-sleeping, breastfeeding or cuddling or patting to get to sleep.  Mez was to go cold turkey in a cot with me coming in and out to her and putting my hand on her if she needed it.  Of course it wasn't that perfect and I did pick her up twice, but she did sleep in the cot all night, she only had one feed at 11:20pm and she only woke at 11:20pm, 1:30am and then 5:45am (when she went back for another hours sleep (that was a surprise!).  There was some screaming and hysteria, but it wasn't for hours on end like it usually is.  They must have something in the food here.  :)

So day 1 is down, 3 more to go.  I hope it keeps going as well.