Yesterday, I said:

Sometimes I feel like all I do is get her food and drink and clean diapers and then clean up from the above.

Three of the side effects of ACTH is increased appetite, increased thirst and weight gain. So far all of that has been true for Miss Munchkin:

She’s eating three big (for a two year old) meals a day plus two decent size snacks. For comparison, she used to eat two larger than average toddler meals, two good snacks and one small snack.

She’s drinking 3-4 ounces of water every 1-2 hours a day and has gotten up every 1-2 hours the last two nights for 3-4 ounces of water and then goes back to sleep. So in the last 24 hours she’s drunk about 48 ounces of liquids!!!! She used to average about 20-24 ounces.

On Monday (13 days into treatment) she’d gained three pounds… gone from 24 pounds to 26 pounds, 14 ounces. Most of it is water retention caused by the ACTH, but some is probably increased caloric intake, even if she hardly stops moving while awake.

So what does all this mean for Mommy?

I have to plan three meals a day for us, which is not all bad since I need to be eating balanced meals as a pregnant mama. There’s something about having to plan an official lunch every day that’s really throwing me for a loop. (She used to nap from 11-3 so she’d have breakfast, a mid-morning snack, a large afternoon snack, supper, then an evening snack.)

I’m the drink re-filler. I’ve finally gotten smart and started re-filling the cup as soon as it empties so it’s ready for the next time. (This is an especially good idea at midnight!)

I’m changing diapers every 90 minutes during the day. I’m not one of those crazies who thinks you have to change the diaper every time they wet, but I don’t like sopping. So really nothing has changed except for now I *have* to change every 60-90 minutes or else she’s completely soaked through the diaper and drenched her clothes and whatever she was sitting/laying/playing on.

I have to change diapers during the night! I have *never* had to do that with this child in her 21-1/2 months of life even while nursing through the night! Last night when I put her to bed at about 9:30 (we had to pick Hubby up from the airport) she was in a toddler GMD prefold with a night stay dry doubler and a prorap cover. She was soaking through the cover by 2am (after cups of water at bedtime and 11 and 12:30) so I put her in a two GMD brown edges stacked on top of each other with a microfiber insert (from a fuzzi bunz) between the brown edges and the prorap. She was pretty sopping when she got up at 6:30 (no water breaks between 2am and 6:30… yeah for sleep) but fortunately her sleeper was still dry both times!

(For those who think I should do sposie dipe… tried that. She’s through that in even less time!)

I’m changing her outfits several times a day and sometimes at night. She’s just soaking right through them!

I am running at least two laundry loads per day, one of diapers and another of clothes. (I usually do diapers every other day and clothes once a week, with a load of whites and a load of colors on Fridays.)

I am sooooo thankful for my potty pail. Miralax is helping with the constipation side effects but I cannot imagine having to dunk those dipes. Blech. Related to that, I have decided that I need more cloth wipes. I think some of the 24 have disappeared…

So yeah, it’s been interesting.