{"id":169,"date":"2013-02-02T07:00:22","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=169"},"modified":"2014-02-07T09:51:58","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T14:51:58","slug":"the-scream-heard-around-the-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/02\/the-scream-heard-around-the-neighborhood\/","title":{"rendered":"The Scream Heard Around the Neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Sugarplum was a tiny baby, she has had a scream that could be heard for miles.\u00a0 We brought her home from the hospital when she was 19 hours old and that night when we sat down for dinner, she showed us her true colors.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about a cute little cry like most babies or even an unusually loud cry.\u00a0 What Sugarplum\u00a0has is a high-pitched, ear-piercing shriek that makes her daddy\u2019s hair stand on end and his blood boil (not that I particularly enjoy it either).\u00a0 It\u2019s that extended, high pitched kind of sound that eventually causes your ears to pop.<\/p>\n

As a newborn she was a decent sleeper.\u00a0 She would wake to nurse every 1-2 hours during the day and by a few weeks would go 3-4 hours between feedings at night. She would often fall asleep nursing as most newborns do but was easy to move around as necessary and didn\u2019t seem bothered by noise.\u00a0 By the time we returned to Dublin she was 6 weeks old and once we got back into our daily Dublin routine, her nap times starting becoming a big issue.\u00a0 She would not fall asleep at all for naps though she did fine at night.\u00a0 We\u2019ve never been the pacifier (binkie, soother, paci, dummy, etc.) type of family and Sugarplum refused to suck her fingers as Honeybun had.\u00a0 She would nurse fine but stopped falling asleep that way.<\/p>\n

We got in a routine of swaddling her super tight, wedging her on her side between 2 soft animals (at her torso, not near her face) and rocking her moses basket somewhat violently back and forth until she finally screamed herself exhausted.\u00a0 She always needed noise or the TV on and it was essential that no one talked (even poor little Honeybun).\u00a0 Eventually even this routine stopped working and I had reached my wits end.<\/p>\n

While in Dublin I met an amazing woman from London who was also in Dublin for just a few years.\u00a0 She has a daughter between Honeybun\u00a0and Sugarplum\u00a0in age and we clicked immediately (she is still one of my dearest friends).\u00a0 The first time we had them over for a playdate, I laid Sugarplum\u00a0down for a nap and the usual chaos and screaming ensued.\u00a0 I had forgotten that our baby monitor automatically came on when there was noise in Sugarplum’s\u00a0room so my new friend heard a good amount of my frustration before realizing how to turn the monitor off.\u00a0 When I finally got Sugarplum\u00a0calmed down and returned to my company, I was a wreck. \u00a0I apologized for taking so long and she admitted she\u2019d heard a bit of the struggle.\u00a0 I broke down and shared my supreme frustration and her response was simple, \u201cit\u2019s okay, honey.\u00a0 Maybe you just need to let her cry. Maybe that\u2019s what she needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sugarplum\u00a0was not yet 6 months old and just leaving her to cry wasn\u2019t something I had considered up to that point.\u00a0 But it was becoming too much and I had run out of other options I was willing to try.\u00a0 So that afternoon at nap time, I put Honeybun\u00a0in bed then put Sugarplum\u00a0in bed.\u00a0 I decided to take a shower so I wouldn\u2019t have to listen to the screaming that could be heard throughout the entire house.\u00a0 I was pleasantly surprised that after my (admittedly overly long) shower, she was asleep.\u00a0 We continued this routine through the day but her nights weren\u2019t getting better.<\/p>\n

I stopped nursing Sugarplum\u00a0at night when she was around 4 months old and we moved her out of our room but she was still waking at least once every night.\u00a0 Hubby or I would go in and rub her back, make shushing noises or rock her in her bed until she calmed.\u00a0 At 7 months old I was done with the night waking and one week when hubby was away travelling I just let her cry.\u00a0 Within three nights she stopped waking and even the first night she only cried about 8 minutes before settling herself.<\/p>\n

\"standing\"<\/a>We later learned she had a tightness through her right hip that was probably causing her pain and discomfort.\u00a0 Although all of her well checks came back fine, I decided to take her in to a specialist when I noticed at around 20 months she never sat down on her bottom for very long. \u00a0She was always getting up or moving to a kneeling, squatting or standing position. \u00a0Even while eating we would sit her down, strap her into her chair and she would find a way to wiggle herself out no matter how tight we thought we had her strapped.<\/p>\n

\"standing<\/p>\n

Looking back the signs were there from the beginning. She rolled from tummy to back when she was only 18 days old but now when I watch the videos, I see she never bent at her right hip.\u00a0 She used to scream when I would put her in the Bumbo chair and her right leg was always turned in at the hip when she sat in the high chair.\u00a0 I was concerned when she was pulling to stand at 7 months and cruising around furniture but wouldn\u2019t push things or stand on her own and when she walked holding my hands she would drag her right leg. \u00a0She didn\u2019t take her first independent steps until 4 months later (and I cried).\u00a0 My worries had been dismissed by the Doctor in Ireland and we weren\u2019t able to make it home to our wonderful Florida Doctor until after her birthday at which time things seemed \u201cnormal\u201d.<\/p>\n

This part \u00a0in my mommying journey was by far the hardest and Sugarplum’s\u00a06-11 months is truly the only time I\u2019ve felt any kind of baby blues.\u00a0 But what I\u2019ve learned is to trust my instincts.\u00a0 When I became worried about her dragging her leg, I should have done something right away.\u00a0 I shouldn\u2019t have listened to all my well-meaning friends and family who tried to reassure me.\u00a0 I should have listened to my own mommy instincts and taken action, it would have saved our entire family a lot of stress.\u00a0 I still feel guilty about waiting so long and not advocating harder for my poor little baby.\u00a0 And it still makes me tear up to know how it tore our family apart for a short time.<\/p>\n

All I can say now is: Lesson learned.\u00a0 Next time, no matter how big the hassle, I will help my child when my mommy instincts say he\/she needs it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Sugarplum was a tiny baby, she has had a scream that could be heard for miles.\u00a0 We brought her home from the hospital when she was 19 hours old and that night when we sat down for dinner, she showed us her true colors.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about a cute little cry like most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-family-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3090,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/3090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}