What's Up With Jack?

From birth to sometime around three months, Jack was a wonderful baby. Very quiet, laid back and didn't cry unless he had a good, obvious reason. Then one day it was like a switch was flipped and he became this monstrous screaming demon. There are times when the child cries from the moment he gets up to the moment he falls asleep, only stopping to whimper in between cries. He also lost his appetite and rarely will eat more than two ounces at a time which is weird for a four-to-five-month old.

We have tried everything we can think of for this child and have been to the doctor numerous times, with numerous diagnoses. The most likely culprit is acid reflux, so we give him a dose of Prevacid every morning. The acid reflux diagnosis was given at his four month check up and we were told to come back at five months to see if his weight had gone up.

Yesterday was the five month check up and he had only gained 6.5 ounces, which isn't very good for one month. The weight line on his growth chart is almost horizontal. The doctor will usually tell you that your child is in the X percentile for other kids his age for height/weight. Jack isn't even on the chart because he is so light.

Unfortunately, Jack is also currently battling RSV, which has made him lose his appetite and be cranky. Dr. Yost (our wonderful pediatrician) said that right now is not a good time to try to find out the underlying cause for Jack's problems because he has struggled with goopy viruses all winter and now has RSV to boot.

For now, we will continue to give Jack Prevacid, we changed the type of bottle he drinks from to see if we can help increase his suction and ability to eat and then we will check back when he is six months old. By then, he will have grown enough (we hope!) to have an increase in his Prevacid dose if that is what is needed and if the problem isn't acid reflux, then we will look elsewhere for the problem. Dr. Yost says that Jack's behavior is weird because he sleeps through the night just fine but he is so crabby during the day. If it was acid reflux, theoretically he would be crankier when lying on his back.

All together now: hmmmm....

He isn't always crying, as he showed while we were at the doctor's office. He actually smiled and cooed throughout his entire exam yesterday. I promised the doctor that that wasn't Jack's usual behavior and he just laughed. I guess it's pretty common for kids to be super crabby at home and then perfect angels when the doctor sees them.

We really hope that Jack either outgrows this phase or we can figure out what is ailing him because it's so hard to see the little guy so uncomfortable.