winner’s smile
Written by jlz on August 27, 2006 – 4:59 am -It’s my night to take care of anZel. Beeber’s had some rough nights lately and needed some additional sleep. I had been sleeping quite a bit coz I was feeling ill on Friday. Anyways, she asked me to take anZel for the night. I enthusiastically agreed to.
The night got off to a pretty good start. We fed anZel some rice cereal for the first time. He took it pretty well. Still learning how to swallow the rice cereal but we all had fun watching him eat. He seemed to have enjoyed eating it as well. We then mixed a few small spoons (his spoon is TINY) of rice cereal into his formula to get him used to it. He takes SIX ounces per feeding now!!
Anyways, no big issues. I put him to sleep. Took 2 songs from the baby CD before he fell asleep. Not too bad, before it took 1 song, but these few nights he’s struggled a bit.
Normally he would wake up after 4 hours for his next feeding. I figured that given he’s had rice cereal, he will most likely sleep longer. I had the baby monitor next to me. No big deal. I’ll wake up when he wakes up.
4 hours later, I hear some banging of the mattress. anZel’s doing his normal kicking. No signs of waking up.
5 hours later, a bit more banging and a few noises. I woke up, figure it’s time to feed, and put the bottle in hot water to warm the formula up. Checked on him, sound alseep, no signs of waking up.
6 hours later, some more noises. He’s struggling. (We still wrap him as he has a bit of ezcema and he would scratch himself silly if we don’t wrap him.) He’s starting to waking up. He’s also starting his cry for food.
I quickly took him downstairs. By now the formula had already cooled. I reheated up the water in the microwave, put the bottle in the water, took him to the changing table and quickly changed his diapers.
All good, pretty normal routine, not a big deal.
I picked up the bottle from the hot water, it felt a bit warm, probably ok, not too bad. At this time he’d starting to scream. Something’s itching him. He wouldn’t take the bottle!!! Sup w/ dat!!!
I thought, oh, the bottle is too warm. I quickly poured some cold water into a cup and put the bottle in to cool it down a bit. In the meanwhile, he wouldn’t stop screaming.
I started rubbing his head really fast. He liked that. He stopped screaming, closed his eyes and enjoyed the rubbing. As soon as I stop though, he started screaming again. I can’t stop!!!
A couple minutes have gone by, the bottle should be cool enough now. I grabbed it and shoved it down his mouth. He spitted it right out. He wouldn’t take the bottle!!! Sup w/ dat!!!
He continued to scream. I put the bottle down and started rubbing his head again. He quited down. By this time he’s already woken up beeber. She came down to check on us. I sent her back to bed.
After going through the rub-his-head-stop-shove-bottle-in-put-bottle-down-rub-his-head-daddy’s-arm’s-getting-tired routine several times, he finally takes the bottle.
I am golden! Who’s your daddy now!!
He usually takes the whole thing in one feeding, no need to stop or anything. Sometimes he will leave an ounce, but that’s ok. I watched him drink. He continued to struggle a bit. Throwing his arms around and moving his body. But he was sucking.
As I was getting pretty happy to see the formula slowing being drained, he stopped. He spitted the bottle out!!! Sup w/ dat!!!
Ok, gotta be the air he swallowed. He needed to be burped. I putted down the bottle and started burping him. After a couple of minutes, I tried to give him the bottle, he didn’t even spit it out. He literally pushed his tougne out to block the bottle from going in!!! Sup w/ dat!!!
Ok, more burping. Few more minutes later, he let out a pretty big burp. Kewl. I am good to go again!!
Nope. He wouldn’t take the bottle anymore!!! I got up, walked around a bit, tried to talk some sense into him.
I told him that he should finish the bottle so everyone can get some sleep. I told him that if he doesn’t finish I will not be very happy. I told him that he WILL finish the bottle! I told him that if he doesn’t finish I will punish him by leaving him in the bouncer with no toys.
He looked at me intently as I spoke to him. He saw right through me. He’s almost asking, “what ya gonna do?!”
He still wouldn’t budge. Everytime I gavehim the bottle he cried bloody murder. My patience was wearing thin.
Finally I told him if he doesn’t drink I will put him up to bed. He didn’t drink. Given that I am the man of my words, I took him upstairs!
I wrapped him, put him in his place, and watched him stuggle a bit to get himself lose. I rubbed his head to try to get him to sleep. He stared at me and continued to struggle.
He likes to kick his legs up and hit the mattress hard. I put my hand on his knees to stop him from doing that. Usually that will get him to sleep faster.
He continued to stuggle. He turned his head a couple times, but eventually will turn back to stare at me.
Finally, his eyelids were starting to close. That’s a good sign!!
I left him alone, sat next to him quitely as he tried his last ditch effort to not fall asleep.
His breathing went from fast to slow. He’s finally asleep. I WIN!!!
Or did he? He’s got the food and the sleep. What did I get, nothing!!
I left the room, walked downstairs to turn off the light and get a drink of water. Couple minutes later, I walked back up to check on him.
As I approached the crib, his head turned a couple of times. He opened his eyes. He looked at me.
He smiled…winner’s smile!!!
He fell back asleep.
Posted in anZel |
September 1st, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Hi! I was looking for reviews on strollers and saw yours and decided to check what your site was about.
First of all, you have a beautiful baby and congratulations to you and your wife. It’s hard having your first child, specially when it is one with a strong personality like you recounted for us in this blog.
Being the mother of two boys and after reading some of your blogs I have a couple of advice for you which I hope you’ll use:
1) Best book to get right now (run to the bookstore that is!) - “Caring for your Baby and Yound Child” the complete and authoritative guide by the American Academy of Pediatrics by Shelov. It’s got the most updated info on what to do with craddle cap, eczema, seborreah, etc. It’s what your ped should go by. My son had cc too and based on this book I abstained from oil and just brushed it off during bath.
2) Aveeno is very good for his skin. Use then one with almost no perfume. Once he gets older, use Cetaphil -it’s great! You could even buy it now and alternate to see how you like it.
3) Based on your “end of the quarter story” and based on my own experience (my oldest is 3 and a half and the second one is 7 months), I truly think that your son suffers from Eczema rather that seborreah and that he is allergic to the Formula. This same description of symptoms and behaviors happened with my two kids!! The scratching, the crying and with the first one it was even harder because I had never done it before so I didn’t really now what he wanted or needed. Don’t worry, by the second one it gets easier!! Solution? Very expensive formula like Similac’s Alimentum or Enfamil’s Nutramigen at $23 p/can that lasts about 3 to 4 days depending on what he eats. Both my kids have been on Nutramigen since they were 4 months until they turned 1 y.o. This expensive formula is hypoallergenic and will help with the eczema which is his body’s way of rejecting the formula -if he had seborreah and too much oil, he wouldn’t be scratching or oozing!
4) Based on your last recount of your night watching your son, I am about 99% positive that your son had a bad case of acid reflux!! I just went through it last night with my baby but because I gave my son some LoMein noodles which probably I shouldn’t have given him at this age! Anyway, was he stretching his neck -as if to make longer- while you held him? He was probably aching in his throat from the reflux…. and if this has been happening lately you may want to take him to his ped to look at his throat. Sometimes it gets burned by the acidity of the reflux. NOTHING TO FEAR!! Now they have infant Zantac and even Prevacid so it can be fixed! Four months is around the time most infants show signs of reflux and they outgrow it by around 10 months so I’m still crossing my fingers to be out of the woods by then! All babies have reflux at birth because their digestive system is so immature but if it persists by four months it should be checked with the pediatrician to see if it’s worth prescribing something… and by your story, that may be the case! When he was pushing the bottle away is because it bothers him to drink. What worked for me last night and per doctor’s advice, was to give him some Tylenol to help him go back to sleep (I had already given him his Zantac dose for the night but the noodles were killing him b/c too salty and seasoned).
Also, if you end up changing him to the hypoallergenic formula, you’ll see an improvement on him wanting to eat, sleeping the full night, etc. If he’s in regular formula right now, it may be too thick for him to digest and process in his stomach and this is what’s causing the reflux. The hypoallergenic formula is already broken down so that is easier on his stomach and thus on his throat.
Believe me, when a child is hungry, it will take the bottle even from your hands. And soon, you’ll see that the moment he even spots the bottle with his eyes, he’ll go crazy! If I were you, I wouldn’t even bother with warming it. I used to do it with my oldest son and then I realized he liked it better at room temperature. If he is on Formula, take to your room the bottle with water only and when he wakes up mix it on the spot. If its breastmilk, put it on a baby cooler with an ice or just plain so when he wakes up it’ll be room temperature. It’s exhausting having to warm up and you risk warming it too much and burning him…. you’re tired and asleep so you can make mistakes.
Another thing to do for acid reflux and simply because is to incline your son’s mattress. Babies R Us sells a wedge for that. Even a thin pillow underneath it works.
4) If the diaper was not full, try not to change him on a night waking at this age. It would only make him more awake and harder to fall back to sleep. You may even want to put him on a diaper one number up for bedtime… just as long as he is already borderline with the next size available.
Lastly, I’d like to recommend to you the web site of my own pediatrician, whom I love and adore and is a god to us. His web site is very complete with advice and monographies that condense all the important lit about specific subjects to help you learn as much as possible about anything and act on it. The site is http://www.drsenders.com. I hope you enjoy it.
We had a really tough time learning to care and understand my oldest son’s queus (sp?) and we couldn’t believe it when our baby was showing many of the same signs of reflux, allergy, etc. as the first one, but fortunately we reacted more quickly this time and help him feel better faster. I saw your blog and felt compelled to help you. I hope this note is ok with you and helpful too! I hope your son feels better today. Feel free to contact me for more advice, I feel like I have a PhD on fuzzyness, reflux, eczema, bottle nipples, etc!