22 months- the bad and the ugly (March 2003)

I think I confused some people. I wanted to start from the beginning as my son is now 6 years 2 months old and we have come so far. I wanted to tell you how we got here. I mentioned in the first post that my son was 6 but if you missed that you may not realize that all this is in the past so I am adding the month and the year to the posts. I hope that clears up that I am talking about the past.

The good mentioned that M's first word came this month. That was amazing but it was mixed in with much confusion and much turmoil. We have not yet seen the Child Development Specialist, we do not yet have any idea what is going on. We only know it is SOMETHING. SOMETHING is wrong.

M had his MMR shot and chicken pox shot the day after his first birthday. He was also switched to whole milk that same day. I was not told to slowly wean, I didn't know anything about that. When my formula was out, I switched to milk. Our Ped said it was important to use whole milk so we started buying whole milk for M along with our 1% milk for us. That was at 12 months and now it is 10 months later. M is drinking copious amounts of milk. So much milk that I am watering it down. Almost a gallon every two days and that is with watering it down. I asked our dr about this and was only scolded for not feeding him enough food that he was drinking because he was hungry. I fed him till he was full (baby food) and he was still crying for milk. I found out much later that milk is alkaline going down but acidic in the gut.

M was having screaming fits at all times during the day for no apparent reason. We would be sitting and playing blocks and then he would throw himself back and wriggle and scream. The only thing that calmed him down was to get a bottle with his milk. This was no where near when he last ate or drank. We thought he was hungry/thirsty.

He was also waking in the middle of the night and screaming. Again, I asked our dr about this and was told it was night terrors and normal. I did not believe it. I had nightmares as a child and remember that when you saw mom you stopped crying and felt better. We would get to M and he would still be screaming. His eyes were open, he was awake and clawing at you. One minute he would be pushing you and the next he would claw at you to hold him. His face was bright red from the screaming. This would go on for 45 minutes to an hour. Milk and Baby Bach would be the only things that would calm him and get him to sleep.

We went no where without a bottle of milk and maybe two. NO WHERE. Not even a quick trip to the grocery store. Never knew when he would start screaming and we would need to give him some milk to calm him down.

This was a time of many questions and very little answers. We were able to get an appointment for May with a child development specialist. We were looking forward to getting some answers at this appointment as well as some direction on how to help our son.