9 month appointment/stats and a new game plan

Today was Cooper's 9 month appointment. Here are his stats:

Weight: 20 lbs, 5 oz and 50th percentile (up from 25th percentile)
Height: 28 inches, and 40th percentile (up from 7th percentile - wow!)
Head circ: 46.5 cm and 80th percentile! (up from 60th percentile LOL)

Needless to say, my little preemie has been growing leaps and bounds these past few months. Amazing! I hope that big head of his is filled with smarts and not ego haha.

Even though it hasn't seemed to bother him too much, he has a bit of a red/sore throat and the sniffles - a minor cold. He's teething and trying to get those top front 2 teeth to come in and he appears to be preoccupied and bothered by that much more than the cold. Either way, Dr.M said to give him Tylenol to help him through the sore throat and the teething.

We spoke about his (our) sleeping issue at length. Dr. M couldn't believe how long I've survived the extreme sleep deprivation. We basically figured out that I hardly ever enter into REM sleep based on the timing of Cooper's frequent night wakings all night long, every night. She's going to help us get past this and get him sleeping better and wants me to start calling her a couple times per week so she can get updates and support me through the rough part that usually goes along with sleep training. We can start the sleep training as soon as Cooper has been off the Prevacid for a week and shows no symptoms of acid irritation/reflux recurring.

So - the reflux - the GI doc (Dr.E) and the pediatrician (Dr.M) both agree that the only way to know if he's outgrown it other than invasive testing is to wean him off the Prevacid and see how he does. We started weaning him a week ago. It's a 4 week process. Week 1 we reduced his medication by a quarter dose. We started week 2 on Monday so now he is on just half of his original dose. Next Monday we'll drop him down to a quarter of the dose, and the following Monday he'll start his first week without any of the medication and a week later we should know if he's good to go or if we need to reintroduce it.

Once he's good to go without the medication and we are sure he's doing OK we will eliminate the night time feedings. Dr.M is convinced that all the eating he's doing at night is what is causing the wakings. She thinks that eliminating the feedings will show him that it isn't worth waking up since he's not going to be fed. There will be some crying involved since he's used to being fed throughout the night but I will be able to rock him or otherwise soothe him back to sleep without feeding him (hopefully) and we're not resorting to crying it out (not yet anyway) - we see how he does once he learns he won't be fed at night and take it from there.

Once he's sleeping for longer stretches without being fed at night, we'll transition him to his crib. With my extreme sleep deprivation it has been safer for us to co-sleep because getting up every 60-120 minutes all night long, every night, for the past 5 months is less dangerous when you don't have to get in and out of bed and walk the hall and lift the baby in and out of a crib while exhausted beyond comprehension. Many docs feel co sleeping is not safe, but our docs agree that in our situation with what Cooper has been through with the reflux related risks and history of aspiration and the frequency of his wakings, it was actually safer for us this way. But it's definitely been hard on us and has created some habits that now need to be broken and it's time to move past this stage and on to the better sleep and crib sleeping stage.

So that's the current plan. Keep weaning him off the Prevacid and once he's been off of it and is doing OK we can proceed to eliminate night feedings and do some sleep training to get longer stretches of sleep out of him and then transition him to his crib. This could take a while and will be stressful at times but it can't be worse than being a walking zombie all the time worrying about what kind of stupid mistake I'll make out of sheer exhaustion.

This vacation couldn't come at a better time. I hope my mom is ready to get some major quality time with Cooper so I can get lots of make-up sleep time LOL. Mom, are you ready for that? :)