Current issue with sleepless baby girl 7/20/12

     For the last 3 weeks our 6 month old baby daughter (foster) has been in a state of sleeplessness. The screaming at the top of her lungs fills most of her day as my wife is drained further and further of energy. The child is rarely happy. Leaving her with toys on her stomach to try and get her to strengthen her arms and legs to crawl lasts for all of 10 minutes before she is crying and if not addressed she will continue to cry for a couple of hours finally falling asleep. My wife and I believe that holding a baby all of the time ruins their ability to self soothe, and this is an important learned trait if you ever want to accomplish anything during the day and sleep through the night. She is cuddled and played with enough throughout the day, but even this is short-lived and the crying continues. It is unbearable and wearing on our family unit. My wife experiences most of it as I have to work.

     This behavior continues through the night as well. The nighttime restlessness encompasses her body jerking awake from a dead sleep and then crying out loudly until she is comforted which doesn’t always stop it. Sleep is only taking place for an hour before this happens, so my wife is constantly awakened by the young child if she is even able to get to sleep. Another issue with the baby is her constant grunting during her short lived sleeping moments. She cannot just sleep easily. She will even cry out loud then stop and be quiet for some time. We are not quite sure of what to do, but had hoped it would subside and it hasn’t. We know that she is teething but I and my wife have both been exposed to many babies in our lives. We both babysat from the time we were around 12 years of age and have never witnessed such behavior. My wife has also been a nanny to several babies. My own daughter was a colicky baby and it was stressful enough, but the way our 6 month old girl cries constantly makes that look like a day at the park. 

     Originally, when she was 3 months old we discussed with her pediatrician that she had irregular bowel movements. They were not as often as they should be and harder than normal. We were given some remedies to try (switching to soy formula, gas drops, watered-down juice) and still to this date she has never had regular movements. I figure this issue causes a lot of pain, and can account for much of the crying; however, not all of the crying can be attributed to it because it continues after one of these movements. The doctor told us that some babies are happy and some are not, but this is an extreme case that leads us to believe there is another issue.

     One thought of ours is that the baby's meconium tested positive for cocaine directly after she was born. This test was performed because of the past history of her bio mother. The baby girl was not said to be addicted to this drug, but it had to have affected her brain, growth, or something in a negative way that is causing this turmoil. This is not the first baby that this "mother" has done this to. Her tubes should have been tied years ago; prior to these three children being conceived. This is part of our system that is flawed, in my opinion. If you are as irresponsible as to have lost multiple children in the past then you forfeit the right to bare more. I don’t care if they change themselves in the far off future. The penance should at least be no more innocent lives affected by your ignorance. If you fix yourself, adopt children to help out the society you failed earlier in your life. The negative impact of these types of individual resonates throughout history. The affects can last for generations from just one individual. It is each of our social responsibility to stop this madness and forbid people like this from hiding behind a constitution that was not meant to protect them in the way we let it.

     Alight now that I have gotten way off track here, I will stop the rant. Our current plan of action: 1) take the baby in to the pediatrician to address this issue 2) both of us will have to speak to convey the seriousness of the issue 3) if the doctor does not agree with our plight and chalks it up to colic we will get a second opinion. Hopefully someone can help. There has to be a test or some form of baby valium or something out there to help both the baby and us. If all else fails, we will research it ourselves and use whatever natural techniques we can find to help her through this pain.

     In three days, we start our one-week vacation, and the children are being placed into respite care as I have mentioned in another post. It is due to their bio mother not giving the permission for them to go. Yes, even though she cannot be trusted to raise them herself, she gets to choose if they have a vacation with us. We are going to Disneyland, and with the last three weeks of uncontrollable crying of the baby we feel it is best now that they did not get the permission. As unfortunate as it is, the break will be nice; but, we would love for the 2 and 6 year olds to experience it. They may never get the chance again, but it was already decided over a month ago that they could not go with us. The action plan mentioned will occur when we return from this trip. Something has to change.