Wednesday, July 06, 2005

The Benadryl Test

We have a 13 hour plane ride looming in our future. We have a very squirmy little girl. This is not a good combination.

So, on the advice of no less than 2 pediatricians and leigions of adoptive moms, we have decided to see if we can dope our daughter up and induce sleep with Benadryl. However, you can't just dope them up blithely because while it has a sedative effect on most kids, there is that small percentage that it works on like little baby speed.

Therefore we have administered the Benadryl Test: Tenley woke from her nap just before 6. We gave her a very heavy bottle (which she sucked down 10oz of!)at about 6:15 to make a nice base for the medicine. At 7:15 we hit her with 1.25ml of "plesant tasting cherry" Benadryl, tossed her in the Bjorn, and headed out to the Park & Shop for another package of Pampers. She was looking pretty loopy at 7:45 as we waited for the subway back to the hotel. The eye rubbing and yawning started at 7:55 as we rode the escalator out of the subway station. Her eyes popped right back open at 8:00 when I tripped on a sidewalk tile sticking up and almost took a header. We got back to the room and tossed her on the bed to have her diaper changed and get into her pjs, and she was just laying there babbling and chewing on her hand. As usual, she protested her diaper and clothing change, but there was little fight in her. Then she happily rolled around on the bed babbling and giggling and chewing on my watch. At 8:00, I called and left a message for one of the other moms who has done this before to check her dosage and see if we didn't use enough. At 8:10, Jeff decided to begin the holding and rocking and I decided to hit the shower. The phone rang at 8:25 and Jeff popped into the bathroom to tell me to call my experienced mom back, and to tell me Tenley was out cold. Jeff moved her to her crib at 8:30 and she's still snoozing. Looks good!! Now we'll see if she sleeps all night.

Standby for final test results in the morning.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey! Congratulations, Tenley is so beautiful...I have followed/caught up on the blog in the past few days...I should have known that you would be documenting, but I thought things might be busy for you three. I am so very happy for you. Take Care and have a safe trip home...Jo

Anonymous said...

You guys were lucky. If she had been like Jeff, she would have been swinging from the chandeliers. So I am glad it worked. I am so antsy I cannot work or do anything. I just sit around looking at her beautiful pictures, which I saved and then enlarged to 8 X 10 and put them in my grandma book. Aunt Carol says that my book is going to be heavier than Tenley. I just want to make sure everyone can see how wonderful she is and how happy her parents look. They already know she has an excited grandma because you have to sit on me to keep me still. So hurry up Saturday. I want to see my baby girl in person. I want to see you two too. I love you more than I can say.
Love, Mom