Eli Iron Update- 1 Month

Several people have asked me for an update related to Eli and his sleep, and I truly appreciate the interest and prayers for our family.  We started giving Eli the iron supplement right about 5 weeks ago.  It is very easy to give- just drops in his mouth- and he seems fine with it, despite all the warnings that it tastes terrible. He wont drink the juice he's supposed to have after (just plain apple- seriously, this child is so picky! He doesn't even like JUICE!), so we use a syringe to give some to him because it is supposed to help with absorption.

A few weeks after we started the iron, he started sleeping longer chunks, like 6-7 hours! And I noticed his sleep was so much more peaceful.  He even went almost 9 hours one night, and then, lo and behold, about a week ago he slept ALL NIGHT LONG! In his crib from 8:45 PM to 7:15 AM. Nothing even close to that had ever happened before! We were thrilled.

But such is Eli's life: he got sick the next day, was sick all through Easter weekend and into the next week, we took him to the doctor and he has a double ear infection.  So since getting sick, he's been up and down all night again. However, I am confident it's just the sickness and hopefully when he's well, he'll start trucking along the path he was on.  I got the same cold and have been sick for almost two weeks now too.  So it's a long one.

I would like to ask you to continue to pray. I am cautiously excited because it seems like the iron is helping and we are seeing progress. But at the same time I have some fears. I fear that even once he is ABLE to sleep all night, he won't because he's never had the training.  He is a very very busy kid and does not like to slow down. It's fair to say he doesn't like to sleep- like a lot of kids- but I also give him grace because who would like to sleep when your whole life it's been a terrible experience for you? Without sounding too self-absorbed, I guess these prayers are really for me: I am exhausted still.  I dream that one day it will be a normal event for us to put him down in his crib and to not see him again till morning.  I know we'll always have the usual "interruptions", but I'd love it if a good night's sleep was the norm. I have a little trouble believing we'll get there.  (Forgive me, Lord, I am tired!)

I will give another update in about a month and hopefully we'll have fantastic results to share! Thank you again for caring about our family.