Pregnancy and Motherhood Archive

Eleven days ago I wrote a post about Sophia’s colic, and despite the more medically sound site saying not to limit the foods I eat because I’ll find myself eating nothing but white rice, I chose to cut my intake of all dairy (again). Most of the sites said that it would take seven to ten days for the cow’s milk proteins to leave my milk, so I was mentally prepared to not see any results for a while, but it made an immediate and complete change with her! The first day I thought it was just a fluke and maybe she was just having a good day, but it has lasted.

The reason I chose to cut off my dairy intake as opposed to the other possible allergy causing foods is because I think dairy is the most common and children under one year cannot digest the protein in cow’s milk. Also, before Kurt went to Spain in 2005 I started having stomach problems and I discovered it had to do with dairy. My mom and one of her sisters also have the problem. When I was pregnant, my dairy problem magically went away so I ate and drank every dairy thing I could get my hands on. After delivery dairy is still good with me. When Sophia is three or four months old, because that’s how long the ‘colicky’ stage usually lasts, I can start to introduce dairy into my diet again. We will see how it takes for the both of us. For now, I’m just enjoying the fact that she only cries when she’s overly tired and that doesn’t last nearly as long.

Our doctor told us that Kurt and I should get out flu shots so that we don’t bring the flu home to Sophia, so on Tuesday when I had my six weeks check up (seven weeks) I also received my flu shot. My appointment was late in the day so that Kurt would be home and could watch baby squishy pants, so I didn’t feel any affects that day. Wednesday however was completely different. Most of the day I just felt very tired. Sophia and I took a nap from one to three. When Kurt got home I went to the store to get a few things and by the time I got home all of my joints were aching. I felt like I had arthritis in my fingers, the house felt like an ice box and I had a headache. Kurt made dinner and afterwards I asked him to watch the baby. I just didn’t feel good at all. I tired to take a nap but fuss budget just would cooperate with dad and kept wanting to eat. At nine Kurt brought her up AGAIN to eat. I told him to wait a minute while I went to the bathroom. Dinner came up soon after. - That’s not on the list of flu shot side effects. Last night I was so cold I used an extra blanket and woke up in a puddle of sweat (attractive eh?), and today I’m not feeling much better.

The CDC says you can actually get the flu from the flu shot, but then again they don’t list throwing up as a symptom either. From the CDC:

• Soreness, redness, or swelling where the shot was given
• Fever (low grade)
• Aches

I hope this can’t be passed on to Sophia. It’s painful not being able to kiss my baby for fear of passing this on.

For those with a twisted curiosity last night for dinner we had ham, green beans, and rice - none of which was fully digested. I also drank a lot of the best Martinelli apple juice in the world, so when it came up I had a bit of a hard cider after taste. - Your Welcome.

Can someone please tell me why it’s necessary to wipe a baby girl front to back when she can poop with such force that it comes out front of her diaper thus making the front poopy?

And what is it about white onesies that cause diaper blowouts? This is the second time she’s had a blowout and both times she was wearing a white onesie.

Kurt went to his first appointment with our doctor. All three of us now see the same one. It’s nice having a family doctor that knows and sees all of us, because we can give him updates on Sophia without having to make a separate appointment for her. Unless of course we describe something that he needs to look into further. Kurt told him about Sophia’s screaming sessions that seemed to have started at two weeks of age. She cries to the point of shear exhaustion (of us and herself) every night from about seven to eleven and sometimes one in the morning. She’ll turn beet red and cry with all her strength, complete with tears running down her face, and appears to be in excruciating pain. Before the doctor’s diagnosis I felt like the most stupidly inept first time mom because I couldn’t calm my own baby and so I cried right along with her. Kurt is able to calm her down better than I and that made me feel even more inept.

In the beginning, figured it must be something I was eating as we noticed that she would stop screaming after a good fart and then start up again minutes later. I couldn’t think of where to begin cutting things out of my diet, and in the “Feeding your Baby” class I took at the hospital the nurse made sure to state that breastfeeding moms don’t need to avoid any foods at all except on very rare occasions (caffeine and alcohol being the exceptions which need to be limited according to your doctor’s instructions). It would be just my luck that Sophia would be one of the rare ones. Because this was happening everyday, it seemed logical to me that it would be something I ate EVERYDAY and nothing came to mind. Plus it didn’t appear to be gas every time she cried with such force, so we though maybe the fartty gas was just coincidental.

Then there were the confusing growth spurt times. I had finished feeding her within the last half hour, so would try everything but that to soothe her only to feel like a complete ass for denying my baby food for thirty minutes or more while I fumbled around swaying, shushing, holding her like a football, and wrapping her in the plushest soon-to-be soaked in spit-up blankets. I know about following the threes and sixes for growth spurts (three days, six days, three weeks, etc.), but I think her highness has her own chart graphed out for how things work in the kingdom of Sophia.

We also thought that maybe I wasn’t producing enough milk since she would sometimes become very fussy when I knew she was hungry. She would latch and suckle for a bit and then unlatch and fuss, sometimes screaming. I started pumping milk and then I had so much milk that in the mornings, I was in pain and the first am feeding started to result in milk coming out of her nose. I just recently learned that had to do with oversupply and a forceful “let down”. I also learned that the laying side-by-side nursing position is probably one of the worst to use when that occurs since the milk ejection reflex will practically force it down her throat and apparently out the nose.

Two things seem to consistently calm her, car rides (those will actually put her to sleep for as long as the car is moving), and holding her while bouncing on a yoga ball. I can only bounce for so long though. Just like car rides, the minute I stop, she starts up again. Despite the classes we took that told us, “You can’t spoil a newborn” Kurt was beginning to doubt it. I don’t think it’s possible to spoil a newborn; there is a big difference between an infant is trying to tell us something and one that just wants attention. Sophia does start crying if I stop bouncing on the yoga ball, but she doesn’t stop fussing just because she has been picked up (except when she’s been fussing for a basic need like food)! Besides isn’t attention/affection a basic need as well? Anywho The motion must be doing something for her, so at least for now when she cries I’m going to do whatever I can to soothe her. Swaddling also seems to help a lot, but again, Kurt is the super star swaddling hero. So if I’m having a rough night - it’s just going to be a long night.

Now her fits of screaming red-faced rage also happen during the day. Oh lucky me. I have of course heard of colic and I have a vague idea of what that means, but I also know that sometimes babies just cry. I didn’t know about the rule of three’s for this condition:

• baby cries up to three hours a day
• baby has long crying episodes three or more days a week
• baby is between three weeks and three months old

So we weren’t entirely sure if this was just normal crying baby behavior or something else until the doctor said that it sounds like colic. It’s funny how you’re temporarily relived to hear the doctor give a diagnosis right away. At least it’s not our fault we can’t cure the crying. Then all hope is lost after a brief internet search seeking the easy fix remedy. I did find that the reason Kurt is better at calming her – he’s a frickin’ furnace and warmth on the belly is one thing our books, Pregnancy Childbirth and the Newborn: The Complete Guide suggested. Although last night I bought a hot water bottle and that did nothing for her at all. I’ve read some sites that say colicky babies only appear to be in pain but really they’re just fussy – For our case I’m going to call Bullshit! Last night between shrieks of what they say isn’t pain we clearly heard loud gurgling sounds from her belly followed by a very wet, squishy “productive” fart. Of the sites that say foods might be the cause each have their own list of things to avoid. One site listed cabbage, spicy foods, and beans. Those three particular things are the bulk and staple of EVERYTHING I eat! In my search for “the cure” I’ve found that everyone has their option about what food may cause or increase colicky reactions, and if I follow them all I’d wind up eating nothing but white rice. The only list of foods to avoid that I found credible is from the Medela site. Yep, the breast pump manufacturer.

Research has identified some possible causes for colic. One common cause is lactose overload from switching breasts before baby gets to the high fat milk. If baby is often fussy, try offering one breast at each feeding. Sometimes colic can be caused by an sensitivity to a food in mom’s diet. Rarely, babies can be allergic to a food that mother has eaten, and which may appear in minute quantities in her milk. If baby is crying due to food sensitivity, fussing will begin within a few hours of eating the offending food and may last up to 24 hours. If you can avoid the food that causes the crying, baby’s symptoms should cease within 3-7 days. The most common allergy-causing foods are cow’s milk, eggs, wheat, and peanuts. If you decide to wean to formula, it would be wise to pump frequently for 3-4 weeks so you have the option of resuming breastfeeding if baby’s colic worsens. It can take this long for a formula allergy to become apparent.

They got their food list from this study, “Effect of a Low-Allergen Maternal Diet on Colic Among Breastfed Infants: A Randomized, Controlled Trial“. Published in Pediatrics. Published online November 1, 2005 PEDIATRICS Vol. 116 No. 5 November 2005, pp. e709-e715. The same online journal published another study in 1991 dealing specifically with a protein from cow’s milk causing colic in breastfeeding babies. I only have access to the excerpt of that one, “Human Breast Milk Contains Bovine lgG. Relationship to Infant Colic?” PEDIATRICS Vol. 87 No. 4 April 1991, pp. 439-444. The only surefire proven remedy for colic that all sites agree on is time. SHIT! I hate waiting.

This was Kurt’s first week back to work. Monday went pretty well for me. I got a reasonable about of sleep Sunday night so I was able to give her a bath and managed to get a shower for myself before heading off to our second “living with baby” group date. The group is, well, it gets me out of the house. The facilitator/teacher/whatever of the group is annoyingly sappy. There are lots of hands outs for the group and she doles out a lot of information, which is great, but the nursery rhymes…I just don’t do the gooey baby talk stuff with silly songs. Sophia is just going to have to settle for her dad singing show tunes to her. No, he’s not gay and now (after eight and a half years) I have living proof (yes, Sophia is really his kid)!

On Sunday, I went grocery shopping all by myself. That was the first time I spent anytime away from Sophia. It was great. I love you Sophia but I needed a break from your screaming and by the way, you’re destroying my boobs. Not that I mind going from a large “A” / small “B” cup to a definite “D” but the red stretch marks emitting from the areolae caused by that growth make my boobs look like large eyeball props for a Visine commercial. And my nipples hurt from your milk extraction process. The length of time it takes for you to extract milk is annoyingly long as well, but I digress.

I spent an hour and a half buying groceries for the week and on Monday, I tried out a new recipe for stew. I’m throwing that recipe out. It sucked, but we had some leftover apple crumb cobbler from Sunday night. This isn’t just any old cobbler. This stuff is so sweet I imagine a child’s reaction to it would be similar to that of a cat that has had pot smoke blown into it’s face. I’ve never done that myself, I’ve just heard stories. No, I’m not going to be a puss and say I’ve never inhaled (Sophia don’t do drugs). I just never shared it with a cat. I digress again.

Monday night after dinner Kurt and I are sitting on the couch with our crumb cobbler and tiny baby Sophia is in between us propped up with her Boppy pillow. Kurt thought her so cute at that moment that he was compelled to share a taste of cobbler with our spawn. He swiped a bit of the filling from his plate onto his finger and rubber her gums with it. I freaked, “Don’t do that!” He got mad at me thinking I was merely opposed to the copious amounts of evil synthetic high fructose corn syrup that must be in this stuff, “Oh give me a break!” I’ve been trying to fight the uphill battle of eliminating the high fructose corn syrup from things in our kitchen that shouldn’t contain it at all like ketchup and bread (read the ingredient list, it’s used as a preservative) and the stuff that is sweet enough without it like jams/jellys and pancake syrup (there is nothing natural about Mrs. Butterworth’s). I was successful in those ventures only, not so much with peanut butter, which I have promised him I have given up on. You make keep your beloved Jif extra crunchy peanut butter. *eye roll*

That night our baby Tasmanian devil AKA The Nipple Shredder kept me up till one in the morning and woke up three or four times during the night as opposed to her usual one to two times, and during one of the wakeup calls there was one instance of projectile vomit. It’s hard to say if that was actually vomit or if she just spit up A LOT and the force due to a simultaneous cough, but either way I blame the sugar! She also stayed up all morning and didn’t really crash until Kurt came home that evening. She wasn’t awake that whole time, but she didn’t sleep for more than an hour at any point during the day.

Kurt had given Sophia pure cane sugar on her tongue once before to cure hiccups, which actually did work. I didn’t mind that because it’s just one ingredient, and it didn’t have the effect that the cobbler seemed to induce. What really bothered be (prior to the projectile vomit) was that the cobbler consists of multiple ingredients and we have no idea what may upset her system (high fructose corn syrup). As I put it to Kurt coldly when he arrived home from work and asked me how my day went, “There is a reason babies first foods are strained peas!” Maybe I was too harsh on him but I feel somewhat justified since I’m the one that has the all day milk shift. I also didn’t really want to introduce her to sweets until much later, like age three or four. I want her to learn to eat healthy first, then she can start with the candy. This might be another uphill battle with Kurt. *sigh*

Wednesday Sophia was still way off her typical schedule, which annoyed me because I wanted to leave the house and run some errands during the day but couldn’t. When Kurt came home he asked how my day went. I simply said, “Your turn!” “That bad?” “YOUR TURN!”

Thursday Sophia was back to her regular schedule, but that was the day she decided to introduce me to the world of diaper blowouts. Three cheers for motherhood.

My day started out well. I was allowed to eat breakfast and take a shower this morning. After my shower, Sophia started to wake up and I was contemplating weather to change her or feed her first. As I took her out of the swing/mom’s best babysitter friend, my day took a detour to not so good. I noticed that her white pants were all yellow. She peed on the swing, so now I have to figure out how to take the cover off to wash it. The inside of Sophia’s pants were all poopy so instead of heading out to run errands it was bath time for baby because there was no way I could take her out of her clothes and not get poop on her face - damn onesies!

This pumpkin outfit isn’t Sophia’s “real” Halloween costume. This is just a cute pumpkin hat and booties from Sophia’s aunt for my little pumpkin baby.

For a scary picture, check out the last photo on my baby bath hairdo post.

I’ve decided that if I stay up really late I won’t have to wake up as many times in the “middle of the night” to feed the baby. Today is Kurt’s first day back to work, so last night we went to bed at ten instead of popping a movie in to watch. I was staying up anywhere from eleven to one am, so I only had to feed Sophia once in the “middle of the night”. - three am. Now, if I keep with Kurt’s bed time schedule it’ll be two to three times a night.

Sophia turned one month old yesterday, so I thought I’d list the things I’ve found to be the most helpful so far. The following are on my list of must haves…

1. Lansinoh - Nursing Cream - As a breastfeeding mom this is my absolute number one must have! Yeah my nipples are still a bit sore, but they aren’t cracked and bleeding. I’ve heard it’s also good for diaper rash.
2. Medela: Contact Nipple Shield 24mm (Standard) - I absolutely needed this the first four or five days while Sophia and I tried to figure out how the breastfeeding stuff works. I tried to only use it for the first couple minutes during each feeding and then only if she started to get really frustrated to finally not needing it at all. This isn’t something that needs to be put on a baby registry though. I got mine at the hospital.
3. Boppy Pillow with Miracle Middle - This is great and I needed it to prop Sophia up to breastfeed at first. Now I don’t need it but it is nice to give the arms a rest. I also use it to prop up Sophia in a sitting position.
4. Halo Sleep Sack - Since blankets aren’t supposed to be in cribs this is the new nighttime baby blanket.
5. Quilted Multi-Use Pads from Babies ‘R’ Us - I use these as changing pads.
6. “Gerber” Five Pack Flannel Receiving Blanket - Everyone told me, “you can’t have too many of these.” They aren’t kidding and I’m going to repeat the same. You just can’t have too many of these!
7. Burp Cloths - In addition to a cover for the Boppy pillow I also place one of these burp cloths on top of the pillow to catch all of Sophia’s messy milk wastefulness. I also use these for burping the baby - Amazingly burp clothes are useful in that way.

The following are very nice to have but not absolutely mandatory…

1. Baby Trend Regular Size Diaper Champ
2. Safety 1st Comfy Bath Center
3. Tote Bag and Diaper Pail Liner from Swaddlebees - I use this as a laundry bag. When it gets full of spit rags and clothes soiled from diaper explosions then I toss bag and all into the wash.