SLEEP!!

It took THREE AND A HALF hours to get Sedona to sleep tonight. That's virtually unheard of for this child---she's such a better sleeper than Sierra ever has been. She's either on the verge of crawling or walking. She'd get mad if you held her and the second you put her down, she tried to crawl (she still does a weird beached whale movement to get anywhere). She was also happy being stood up in the play pen, where she'd hold on to the side and look at you all pitiful like, as if it's our fault she can't get this forward motion thing down.
Here's what a very sleepy baby that's fighting hard to stay awake looks like:


I forgot to update about her GI appointment last week. We started out going over the constipation issue--what she's eating, how much, etc...and decided that she's doing better on that front, but we need to be giving her the lactulose (a laxative--it's basically derived from milk sugar and draws water into the intestine to soften stools) on a bit more regular basis. Then he looks at her growth chart and says, "oh, her weight gain's not very good. Actually, it's pretty bad". Seriously, I about fell out of my chair in shock. FINALLY after 7 months, someone besides me notices and comments on this without my prompting. There's been a lot of "there, there, she's chubby and happy, it's fine" talk going on up to this point. Anyways...the child's gained 6 oz per month, every month since she was 2 months old. Babies' growth is NOT supposed to be linear. Even at this age (when, all else equal, a 6oz/month gain would be okay), that is not enough to maintain a growth curve. There is still the possibility that she is settling into her genetic potential (we are tall, skinny people), but we've kinda all been watching and waiting for that and she just keeps dropping curves. She started out at the 90th percentile (yes, I know, too big for our genetics) and has drifted all the way down to the 25th since this started. She's also dropping "weight for length" growth curves big time, which all means she's getting skinnier. When you see her, please please please do not comment how big and healthy she looks. I know she's got fat rolls--babies are SUPPOSED to have fat rolls, I want her to KEEP her fat rolls until she naturally runs them off in toddler-hood. I really don't think the pediatrician with over 30 years experience and the GI from Texas Children's with over 30 years experience and my maternal instinct are all just completely wrong. So, the plan we agreed on was kind of a little more wait and see. Since the bloody stools have stopped and not resumed, there is not a pressing need to justify putting her through a bunch more tests. They had us track her calorie intake for 3 days--it wasn't 100% accurate b/c we chose to go ahead and nurse her at night and had to pump and bottle feed her (no way I can pump what she usually takes, and we got some milk out of the freezer, but the bottle flow is so fast that that could have been "force" feeding her), but it gave us an idea. Her calories aren't super low (which would mean she's just not getting enough), or super high (which would point towards metabolic problem). The GI had us fax our log down to him and he's sending it to a dietician at Texas Children's to go over. We haven't heard back and since there was nothing alarmingly bad about it, I'm not sure we will. We will see the GI again (actually, the guy above him, b/c he's retiring) at the first of June. If I understood correctly, we will test her for Celiac at that time if she continues to drop on the growth chart.