Nasty cold
It looks like the crisis is over. We had to take Sydney to the emergency room two weekends ago because her temperature was climbing rapidly. It turned out that she had an ear infection and an upper respiratory infection. The hospital gave her a dose of children's Tylenol, put her on Amoxycillin for 10 days and gave us a prescription for eardrops. As usual, Tracie was right in insisting that we took Sydney to the hospital. Being Sunday night and babies get colds, I didn't think it was necessary. After all, Sydney's temperature was only 102. By the time we got to the hospital, her temperature was already at 103.5. Mommies do know best.
As of today, she is coughing but not running a fever. She developed the cough about 4 days ago. The poor thing can't get a break. We have been having to suction the snot out of her nose, literally, to keep the post-nasal drip to a minimum. She HATES getting the bulb up her nose as always. She didn't like it at the hospital when they decided to flush her nostrils byt sticking a syringe of saline up one nostril and pushed the saline through while suctioning it out of the other nostril. She let the entire hospital know about her unhappiness. She cried a few buckets of tears during those few minutes that felt like an eternity. At least her battle with the diaper rash is over. We took the advice of one of the staff members at the daycare to try different brands of diaper. We had stocked the drawer at the daycare with Pampers Swaddlers. At home, we were using Huggies Gentle Care. We just couldn't figure out why she kept coming home with a rash even after careful instructions for the staff to change her every hour and make sure her skin is completely dry before putting the new diaper on. Finally, someone explained to me the difference between the two types of diapers. The Swaddlers are designed to stay snug (thus the name based on the word Swaddle...duh, why didn't I think of that??) while the Gentle Care was designed to be much looser to keep moisture from the baby's skin. After a few days of using nothing but the Huggies and heavy applications of Balmex and Desitin, the bumps and blisters are gone. Her little bottom is smooth as a baby's bottom. Oh wait, it IS a baby's bottom. It's baaaaack!!! The problem was so bad that the bumps had spread up her torso. Her entire body felt like sandpaper. She's on the path to recovery. Most of her skin is soft again. What a relief!
This week, as her reward, we allowed Sydney to sleep in her own crib. It's in our bedroom, so it's not like we have exiled her to Siberia. We have far exceeded our plan to let her sleep in her own bed after 3 months instead of sleeping between us in our bed. Better late than never, I guess. Surprisingly, we have not had much trouble out of her. The first couple of nights, we kept having to get up to put the pacifier back in her mouth to stop her from waking up and crying too long. Since last night, she's been stirring every couple of hours and whimpering a little but falling back to sleep on her own after a few seconds. She's doing great. We don't even have to feed her around 2:30 anymore. Yes, yes, yes!!! My baby is doing fantastic. I'm so proud.
Sydney is actually doing great overall. She weighed 14 lbs 11 ozs at the last check-up. We thought for sure she would be over 15 lbs from the way she felt when we held her. Tracie had started to feed her solid food for about 2 weeks now. Tracie even prepared some baby food made from pureed meat, green beans and potatoes. Sydney was not too crazy about it. From the look of it, I don't think I can blame her. Sydney might grow up to be a vegetarian from this experience. :-) I am just really glad she is pretty healthy, despite the colds and other mishaps along the way.
One of those "mishaps" occurred about two weeks ago. Sydney didn't exactly get the kind of birthday that we wanted for her when she turned 6 months old. The day started off well enough. We spent an hour outside to let Sydney get some fresh air and morning sun to help heal her poor little red bottom plagued with the bad yeast infection. We then fed her some sweet potatoes, which she loved. Pushing our luck, we decided to go to see a movie with Sydney for the first time. As we packed up the diaper bag, we found some pre-made jars of Good Start formula that the hospital gave us when Sydney was born. Since these will expire soon, we contemplated trying some. These were not the soy formula that Sydney had been on. They were milk-based. After a few seconds of debate, I egged Tracie on to take some jars with us to try at the theater. "What the heck," I said. "She's only on the soy formula because we're being cautious of her having milk allergy. She probably doesn't have it."
At the theater, Sydney was great. She spent a lot of time watching the screen intently for the commercials and previews. We decided to feed her when the movie started. I emptied two of the milk-based pre-made into a feeding bottle. She drank about 3 ounces and fell asleep. All was well. After the movie, we went to Babies-R-Us to pick up some supplies. I let Sydney play in one of the "saucers" which is a seat in the middle of a plastic tray surrounded with little toys for babies. Sydney was having a great time, so Tracie left us in the aisle and went off with the shopping cart. I sat against one of the shelves, admiring my beautiful daughter playing with all the toys. But then she started spitting up. Formula was coming out of her mouth and dribbling down on the plastic tray in front of her. I jumped up and searched my pockets frantically for a Kleenex or something else to wipe her up. I had nothing. Tracie was nowhere to be found. What's worse, the spit up kept coming. We had a puddle. I picked up the baby and held her well in front of me while racing to the back of the store looking for Tracie. I found her three aisles down.
"The baby is spitting up!!" I yelled.
Tracie grabbed a washcloth from the diaper bag and cleaned the baby up. I grabbed the washcloth as soon as she was done and raced back to clean up the saucer. I felt so bad that we soiled the display at the store. Luckily, the entire puddle was on the plastic tray so it was easy to clean up. I quickly put the saucer back where it was and went back to find Tracie. The baby was spitting up again. This time, it looked and felt more like she was vomitting. The formula was coming up hard, and the baby was almost gagging. We headed quickly to the restroom with the baby to clean her up some more. We decided to wrap up our shopping and head home. The baby was apparently allergic to the pre-made formula. As Tracie was paying for the items, Sydney started gagging some more. That was it. We decided to never give her milk-based formula again.
As we were heading home, Sydney fell asleep. But every 10-15 minutes, she would stir and then started gagging like she was about to vomit. We kept having to pull over and hold her to let her recover. It was like she was experiencing car sickness. It took forever and a day to get home. At one point, she vomitted a little bit of bile so at least I knew she finally got all of the bad formula out of her system. She was exhausted. I held her for 3 hours while she slept, which gave Tracie time to recover from the shock. We gave her a bottle of the soy formula when she woke up. She happily drank it and didn't have a problem afterward. Man, oh, man. We were jumping for joy. We didn't think we would suck this badly as parents. Someday, Sydney will repay us for our mistakes. I wouldn't blame her one bit. Let's just hope she'll be gentle with the retribution.
As of today, she is coughing but not running a fever. She developed the cough about 4 days ago. The poor thing can't get a break. We have been having to suction the snot out of her nose, literally, to keep the post-nasal drip to a minimum. She HATES getting the bulb up her nose as always. She didn't like it at the hospital when they decided to flush her nostrils byt sticking a syringe of saline up one nostril and pushed the saline through while suctioning it out of the other nostril. She let the entire hospital know about her unhappiness. She cried a few buckets of tears during those few minutes that felt like an eternity. At least her battle with the diaper rash is over. We took the advice of one of the staff members at the daycare to try different brands of diaper. We had stocked the drawer at the daycare with Pampers Swaddlers. At home, we were using Huggies Gentle Care. We just couldn't figure out why she kept coming home with a rash even after careful instructions for the staff to change her every hour and make sure her skin is completely dry before putting the new diaper on. Finally, someone explained to me the difference between the two types of diapers. The Swaddlers are designed to stay snug (thus the name based on the word Swaddle...duh, why didn't I think of that??) while the Gentle Care was designed to be much looser to keep moisture from the baby's skin. After a few days of using nothing but the Huggies and heavy applications of Balmex and Desitin, the bumps and blisters are gone. Her little bottom is smooth as a baby's bottom. Oh wait, it IS a baby's bottom. It's baaaaack!!! The problem was so bad that the bumps had spread up her torso. Her entire body felt like sandpaper. She's on the path to recovery. Most of her skin is soft again. What a relief!
This week, as her reward, we allowed Sydney to sleep in her own crib. It's in our bedroom, so it's not like we have exiled her to Siberia. We have far exceeded our plan to let her sleep in her own bed after 3 months instead of sleeping between us in our bed. Better late than never, I guess. Surprisingly, we have not had much trouble out of her. The first couple of nights, we kept having to get up to put the pacifier back in her mouth to stop her from waking up and crying too long. Since last night, she's been stirring every couple of hours and whimpering a little but falling back to sleep on her own after a few seconds. She's doing great. We don't even have to feed her around 2:30 anymore. Yes, yes, yes!!! My baby is doing fantastic. I'm so proud.
Sydney is actually doing great overall. She weighed 14 lbs 11 ozs at the last check-up. We thought for sure she would be over 15 lbs from the way she felt when we held her. Tracie had started to feed her solid food for about 2 weeks now. Tracie even prepared some baby food made from pureed meat, green beans and potatoes. Sydney was not too crazy about it. From the look of it, I don't think I can blame her. Sydney might grow up to be a vegetarian from this experience. :-) I am just really glad she is pretty healthy, despite the colds and other mishaps along the way.
One of those "mishaps" occurred about two weeks ago. Sydney didn't exactly get the kind of birthday that we wanted for her when she turned 6 months old. The day started off well enough. We spent an hour outside to let Sydney get some fresh air and morning sun to help heal her poor little red bottom plagued with the bad yeast infection. We then fed her some sweet potatoes, which she loved. Pushing our luck, we decided to go to see a movie with Sydney for the first time. As we packed up the diaper bag, we found some pre-made jars of Good Start formula that the hospital gave us when Sydney was born. Since these will expire soon, we contemplated trying some. These were not the soy formula that Sydney had been on. They were milk-based. After a few seconds of debate, I egged Tracie on to take some jars with us to try at the theater. "What the heck," I said. "She's only on the soy formula because we're being cautious of her having milk allergy. She probably doesn't have it."
At the theater, Sydney was great. She spent a lot of time watching the screen intently for the commercials and previews. We decided to feed her when the movie started. I emptied two of the milk-based pre-made into a feeding bottle. She drank about 3 ounces and fell asleep. All was well. After the movie, we went to Babies-R-Us to pick up some supplies. I let Sydney play in one of the "saucers" which is a seat in the middle of a plastic tray surrounded with little toys for babies. Sydney was having a great time, so Tracie left us in the aisle and went off with the shopping cart. I sat against one of the shelves, admiring my beautiful daughter playing with all the toys. But then she started spitting up. Formula was coming out of her mouth and dribbling down on the plastic tray in front of her. I jumped up and searched my pockets frantically for a Kleenex or something else to wipe her up. I had nothing. Tracie was nowhere to be found. What's worse, the spit up kept coming. We had a puddle. I picked up the baby and held her well in front of me while racing to the back of the store looking for Tracie. I found her three aisles down.
"The baby is spitting up!!" I yelled.
Tracie grabbed a washcloth from the diaper bag and cleaned the baby up. I grabbed the washcloth as soon as she was done and raced back to clean up the saucer. I felt so bad that we soiled the display at the store. Luckily, the entire puddle was on the plastic tray so it was easy to clean up. I quickly put the saucer back where it was and went back to find Tracie. The baby was spitting up again. This time, it looked and felt more like she was vomitting. The formula was coming up hard, and the baby was almost gagging. We headed quickly to the restroom with the baby to clean her up some more. We decided to wrap up our shopping and head home. The baby was apparently allergic to the pre-made formula. As Tracie was paying for the items, Sydney started gagging some more. That was it. We decided to never give her milk-based formula again.
As we were heading home, Sydney fell asleep. But every 10-15 minutes, she would stir and then started gagging like she was about to vomit. We kept having to pull over and hold her to let her recover. It was like she was experiencing car sickness. It took forever and a day to get home. At one point, she vomitted a little bit of bile so at least I knew she finally got all of the bad formula out of her system. She was exhausted. I held her for 3 hours while she slept, which gave Tracie time to recover from the shock. We gave her a bottle of the soy formula when she woke up. She happily drank it and didn't have a problem afterward. Man, oh, man. We were jumping for joy. We didn't think we would suck this badly as parents. Someday, Sydney will repay us for our mistakes. I wouldn't blame her one bit. Let's just hope she'll be gentle with the retribution.
posted by DaddyEyeduck at 1:01 AM
1 Comments:
GIANT HUGS to poor Sydney! And her parents! Just one thing after another. Hopefully she's doing much better now. Hopefully she never gets roseola....Hayley's temp went up to 105 which freaked us and the ped out. Course the spots came out AFTER the fever and AFTER she got cath'd twice to see if she had a UTI. ;)
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