GERD, Sleeping & and a Nanny

Over the last 3 weeks we've had several horrible nights where Liam was up every hour fussing or he'd just be up from like midnight on. He refused to eat more than an ounce at a time, which was probably contributing to him waking so often, but he also just seemed generally uncomfortable and sometimes would even cry while he ate (poor little guy!). So, we suspected that Liam also had GERD and we started him on Zantac. After a week on Zan.tac things hadn't improved, so the pedi added Prev.acid. Literally within a day of being on Prev.acid we already saw an improvement--Liam ate more, didn't fuss while he was eating, and slept for longer periods of time.

Both boys usually still eat every 2-3 hours, so we aren't getting huge blocks of sleep at night. However, on occassion they sleep a little longer (i.e., 4 hours) between feedings. We usually try to have the boys in their cribs for the night between 7-8pm, which is when the boys seem to naturally want to go down, and this is when they have their best sleep.

Silas is very good at falling back to sleep after his night feedings and doesn't require too much rocking. Liam on the other hand needs a lot of rocking and cuddling before he'll fall back to sleep. Sometimes when I put him in the crib he immediately wakes up and I have to start all over. We read Weissbluth's sleep book and plan to start implementing his strategies. I hate the thought of letting the boys cry (and no I don't mean cry it out), but understand the need for them to learn self-soothing techniques.

I am on maternity leave through the end of the summer, but plan to go back to teaching in the fall. My mom is going to watch the boys two days each week and we are looking for child care for the other three days. Because of our need for part-time we decided to look at in-home day cares rather than facilities, which charge extra for part-time. Plus, I don't want to have to pay for the summers when I'm off. We visited two in-home day cares and didn't care for either of them. Both were way too dirty for my tastes (e.g., stains on carpet, smell of cat urine) and one of the gals actually said "I don't know how you manage twin infants"--hmm????!! What the hell?! She was hoping to care for our two, a 12wk old girl, and her two boys, ages 2 and 5. Needless to say both we immediately crossed her off our list.

After striking out twice with in-home day care providers we decided to take our friends' advice and post an ad at the local university of a part-time nanny. We already have 6 applicants after a day of having it posted and three of them sound like very good candidates. On a whim I messaged a former student of mine, S, to ask her if she knew of anyone who might be interested in the position. S messaged me back saying that she is transferring to the local U and would love the job. S is absolutely AMAZING and has tons of experience caring for babies/kids. She's babysat for a handful of my close friends, including K, and they all rave about her. Also, S nannied for a woman who lost her husband when she was expecting twins (horribly sad I know), so she even has experience with twin infants. J works with S's mom too, so we know her family. S came over today to meet the boys and Silas couldn't take his eyes off her--he smiled and cooed to her the whole time she was here. S is still registering for her classes and plans to try to work it so she can cover all three days. Needless to say I feel as though I won the lottery!!

(I tried to upload some photos of the boys and the boys and K, but it keeps saying there's a problem. Grr! I'll try tomorrow.)