irritability

[Guest guest]

Caitlyn is now 4 yrs old but was very irritable day and night up til age 2

yrs. At that time she came down with a mild viral infection that did not

cause her discomfort (no sore throat, etc) but made her very tired. For this

reason she slept through the night for the first time every night for 2

weeks. Therefore she wasn't irritable during the day. That's when the pcp

agreed that we should give Caitlyn something to help her sleep at night. I

don't like doing it but doing it made Caitlyn spend her day productively

learning and playing as opposed to crying and whining all day. When you

give the Tylenol, is he taking a nap or sleeping more at night

because if so, the calming effect might be the adequate sleep as opposed to

the Tylenol.

Most of our kids have sensory integration issues. Not only are these

exhibited when we try to oral feed them and get them to touch things but

just being alone sometimes what they see and/or hear might be too much to

take in thus making them irritable. I believe sensory overload often would

give Caitlyn headaches. OT has helped tremendously with this area. Also

playing calming music or white noise during the day to keep her grounded.

Making the room where she spends most of her day less " busy " has helped too.

Caitlyn didn't like most of her toys at that age so it didn't really pay

off to have them all sitting out in the open even though they were on her

shelf. We ended up putting many of them in the attic.

As far as other pains, Caitlyn suffers a lot from gas pains and bloating and

constipation. She's still unable to communicate it, but we've learned when

her stomach gets rock hard, it's usually the source of her distress. No

medications have helped as of yet so we just put on her favorite Barney

video and massage her tummy until the gas passes. We've recently learned

that being unable to pass gas naturally is often a problem with kids who are

low tone and poor body awareness but that it should get better with time.

Jeanne mom to Caitlyn age 4 cHaRgE

I think the C should also stand for Colic--because our kids never outgrow

it!