The Changeling

Have you ever heard of a Changeling? It's this human-like creature that you normally hear about in folklore. Depending on where the story you're listening to originates, trolls or fairies take a human child and replace it with one of their kind. It was often used as a way to explain diseases and illnesses that were happening during these times as a child, usually, a baby, would start looking very sickly. There are also stories where it's said they show great intelligence or barbed teeth.

The Changeling story is one that is very interesting and it's been brought to my mind recently because for the last three weeks it's like my calm and easy-going baby has been replaced by an unhappy creature that doesn't want to go to sleep.

In reality, we've just been hit with one thing after the other in regards to AJ's development.

First, we hit that first mental leap. It was like a switch had been thrown on in her mind and we were starting to see her do new things, like smile, which is all very exciting. However, this leap was the beginning of our issues with AJ refusing to sleep and I get why it started here. All of a sudden her mind has made this huge growth and she's still getting used to it. It's like us being unable to turn our minds off when we're trying to sleep.

Then just as we were getting over that we're hit with a reflux flareup. I've said before that AJ's reflux is very mild compared to what other babies go through and normally she just throws up and is back to her normal happy self. But during these few days, it happened to overlap with her first leap and the combination of the two resulted in her fighting sleep like crazy as her mind was whirling and she was getting irritated with her reflux.

Things looked up for 48 hours when we switched her to her new formula and then we got constipation. I can't blame her for not being able to sleep during this. I've had instances where I've had stomach pain and it's woken me up, so I could just imagine what it much it must hurt for her. But we worked through that, giving her extra water, 20mls of apple juice and massaging her stomach, and finally, we were seeing the end of that...

Then sleep regression hit.

I know that in a couple of weeks this is all going to be a blip on the radar and I'm going to have my happy baby back. It's just in this moment it's incredibly frustrating.

You just have to look at her and know that she is tired. She wants to sleep. She drifts off and for 10 minutes she's golden. Then something happens and she stirs and we're back to the beginning again. Occasionally we're able to get a good 40 minutes sleep in and somehow over the past 3 days, I've managed to get a longer sleep into her over the middle of the day, either by babywearing or somehow being able to transfer her to bed successfully. In fact, as I write this, she is currently sleeping in the carrier as I was unable to find any other way to get her to sleep for longer than 10 minutes.

However, this will pass and the Changeling will be banished from my house.

Until the next thing hits us.