Last night Sophia woke up at midnight and four in the morning. She slept in until nine in the morning. It hasn’t been until recently that I realized Sophia has never slept more than four or five hours at a stretch since she was about four months old. Lately she has developed a habit of waking up at eleven, at one and sometimes a third time at two or three. I only feed her for the first one (usually) and then for the other two I pick her up, hug her, hold her for a minute and then put her to bed and listen to her scream for twenty minutes or more. This has only gone on for the last couple months, prior to that her wake up times were more spread out and she genuinely seemed to need to eat.
Yesterday was Sophia’s one-year checkup. She is thirty and a half inches tall/long and weights eighteen and a half pounds. She’s in the eighty-fifth to ninetieth percentile for height/length and the twentieth percentile for weight. I didn’t catch the size of her melon but it’s in the seventy-fifth percentile.
On this visit, Sophia received shots on three of her four limbs. I intended for Sophia to receive all of her shots according to schedule and all that except for the chickenpox one. I didn’t know that was given at one year. I had not had a chance to read up on that one. No, I’m not worried about her getting autism or any other neurodevelopmental disorders from vaccinates. I’ve done enough research to know that thimerosal, the evil ingredient in question has been removed or reduced to trace amounts from all vaccines for children under six except for the flu vaccine and because there was never any hard evidence of a relationship between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. I still think sending parents to jail for not vaccinating their kids is bullshit.
I’ve never thought of chickenpox as such big a deal that it warrants a vaccine. I asked the nurse, “Whatever happened to chickenpox parties? You know, the Smith girl has chicken pox. Everyone bring your kids over so they can get it too.” The nurse said, “Well one hundred people a year die from chickenpox.” I didn’t say anything but I’ve turned into Kurt after ten years (only I still can’t do math in my head) and I’m thinking, as of July 2007 there are 301,139,947 people in the United States – that’s .000033% (I didn’t actually come up with that number in the office, I just knew it was a very very tiny percentage). It’s like nothing. It might as well be nothing. Granted, it would suck the big one if we hit the lotto in this case, but unlike the lotto the odds are in our favor in this one. The scare tactic for this one isn’t working on me. I had heard that even with the chickenpox vaccine kids were still getting chickenpox and that they could still get shingles, so what’s the point of getting the shot? I didn’t want to delay her getting chickenpox as a kid and risk her getting it as an adult. The nurse told us that the chickenpox vaccine is now two vaccines. With only one vaccine, about 85% would never get chickenpox and after the second vaccine, it was more like 99%. Also, those that do get chickenpox after the vaccine usually have much milder symptoms and fewer blisters. Ok fine, I’m sold. Sophia got the chickenpox shot.
We shared our concerns for the baby pincushion about her not sleeping through the night. When I told the doctor my routine with her at night and ended my statements with something like, “it’s just easier that way”. He gave me a look like, “You know this is your fault.” Yes, I know. *hanging my head in shame* He suggested that I wake her up at ten or eleven before I go to bed because Sophia’s bed time is seven and she isn’t up for the day until eleven or twelve hours later. He said that it’s reasonable for her to sleep eight hours without food at her age, but eleven or twelve is too much. When she wakes up after the midnight snack we (I) just tell her from our room that everything is ok and to go back to sleep. He also said to push the solid foods in the evening more so she has enough calories to make it through the night.
Our other concern for the baby pincushion was that she isn’t talking. I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t know if it was clear that her babbling “ma ma ma” and “da da da” are just babbling. She isn’t attempting to identify anything or anyone with those syllables. The doctor said at this point babies only have about four words and they usually don’t come gradually but suddenly in bursts so it’s not time to worry. I’m a mom, it still bugs me.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:51am
Wow… I didn’t think you would be swayed on the chickenpox issue. I’m surprised.
Meanwhile, stop pressuring your brilliant baby. She will talk when she’s ready. All other signs of development are normal, so there’s nothing to worry about.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:58am
Gawd can I ever relate to the sleepless nights.
If it helps any, that usually only goes on for a couple of years and then they finally settle down.
Mojos latest blog post… (Not Quite) Wordless Wednesday - Special Thursday Edition: Gandhi in the Hood Redux
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:57am
My kiddos are now 19 and 15. I can’t get them to NOT sleep!
Hallie
http://wonderfulworldofweiners.blogspot.com/
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:57pm
I’m telling you: Sophia will talk/walk when she is ready. Now please tell me the same thing about Chloe because I worry too much! As for being a pin cushion, yesterday we took big head (95th percentile -I kid you not) for a lead test. Henry held her and two nurses held her arm out and I almost cried watching them drain two vials of blood. She may not be able to talk, but as we left she made sure everyone saw what happened to her as she thrust out her arm at random strangers and cried at them like, “Do you see what they did?” She even tried crawling at home and for dramatic effect stopped periodically and shoke her sore arm and looked at. God I love my little drama queen
October 4th, 2008 at 1:13pm
i went thru the chicken pox shot thing. i think that those who actually die from chicken pox are probably mostly adults as it affects them far worse (for whatever reason). now that my oldest daughter is 11, i’m dealing w the possibility of the hpv shot, and she just got a tetanus and meningitis shot. (the meningitis shot is given at the age of 11 i guess as my stepson got it about 3 yrs ago). they wanted to give her a hep A booster because they said she only had one on record. i don’t know what it is, but no one ever sees the 2nd one when plugging the info into a computer. i said NO, i don’t want her to have that as she’s had both. i have to bring the records in AGAIN. sheesh.
ciaras latest blog post… Hot For the Holidays-Week 4
October 4th, 2008 at 1:27pm
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October 7th, 2008 at 9:54am
I never thought much about chicken pox being a problem, as my siblings and I had them got to miss school for a week or two, and moved on. Then my brother’s two girls got them and ended up hospitalized for dehydration and needing pain medicine just to eat, because, did you know that you can get chicken pox INSIDE your throat? I never did.
This was way before the vaccine, so when it became available when my youngest was a baby, it was an easy decision to have the shot-I will never again think of CP as a benign childhood illness. It’s not just about kids possibly dying.
This isn’t a debate about vaccines, but I will say this: many mothers today are too young to remember the days when children were born with birth defects from their mothers being exposed to rubella-I am one of those babies. I am partially deaf and had open heart surgery to correct a birth defect when I was a toddler. Same goes for polio-I’ve met older people living the the devastating results of polio. So for me, vaccines are a given in our household.
PS: Read the newest post and I am glad Sophia is sleeping through the night pretty much. I am so glad those days are over for me. I swear my IQ dropped by 50 points the entire time my youngest was a poor sleeper.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:07pm
Agibean - I’m all for getting all the shots, but like I said chickenpox just wasn’t that big a deal to me and it’s really so rare that someone dies from it. Anyway she got the shot and she’ll be getting the second round of it when the time comes. Now I just need to read up on the hpv one, but I’ve got a few years before that one becomes an issue for us. I just like to be informed about what the doctors and nurses are doing to my kid.