My purse

We took LM to the doctor on friday morning just to make sure everything was ok before the long weekend.  He has had stuffiness for a couple of weeks that never turned into anything and then the last week or so he got a bit more stuffy and developed a tiny cough. I wanted them to listen to his breathing and check his ears.  Turns out he’s just fine and he has his first tooth almost ready to break through.  So that’s what’s been going on. It makes sense, the extra drool is probably causing the cough, he has had a diaper rash for a while which is supposedly a sign of teething, and his day time naps have gone from an hour or two to 30 minutes at the most.  The crappy thing is teething plus his reflux has made it even harder for feeding times.  I really hope this tooth breaks through soon!

Ok onto the title of the post….My purse…

I like to be prepared just in case I find myself in a situation where I might need that particular something.  I’m a planner by nature.  I always try to be one step ahead of things.  Therefore, I carry a lot of stuff in my purse.  I got my current purse maybe three months or so ago.  It was on sale and cheap.  However, once I started using it I found that it didn’t have enough room for everything I carry.  I want to go out and get a new bigger bag.  Hubby says I carry too much stuff and should get rid of some of it.  I call it being prepared.  This is what I have in my purse

• Wallet
• Work ID
• Car keys
• House Keys
• Ipod touch
• Small bottle of zantac
• Small bottle of immodium (I have IBS so this and the zantac are for when I’m out and having stomach issues)
• Bottle of water (for drinking and if I need to take any of my tummy meds)
• Eye drops
• Glasses case with terry cloth
• Garmin (I hate getting lost so I use this any time I go somewhere new)
• Cell phone
• Small trinket hubby made me when we were first dating
• Chapstick
• Pen
• Small planner to write my appointments in
• Small brush
• Checkbook
• A pad just in case

I also have one of those purse organizers that you see on infomercials to see if that would help organize things and give me more pockets, but it didn’t help that much.  Do you think I carry too much?  What kind of stuff do you have in your purse?

Solids

I have been thinking about feeding LM solids for a really long time.  I’ve been thinking about what his reaction will be like, how it will go, what foods he will like, making the food on my own since I wasn’t able to breast feed and how that will go, and wondering if feeding him solids will be easier and less stressful because of his reflux than bottles.  As you can see I have been thinking about it a lot.  I have decided that I am going to start him on solids at 6 months which will be January 17th.  I can’t believe he will be six months old in a few weeks.  Crazy.  Part of me has thought about starting a little early with the iron fortified rice cereal.  Though his formula has rice starch in it so I have thought about starting him on something else like bananas or an avacado.  I have a whole book on how to make baby food that I got at my shower, but I haven’t read the whole thing yet, just bits and pieces.

As I said before I decided early on that since I couldn’t breastfeed that I would then make his solids.  This way I can save money that I couldn’t before when I had to buy formula, not have to feed him jarred food that has all sorts of stuff in it, start him out on liking all different sorts of food, and give him lots of fresh nutrients.  When I first started thinking about it I decided I wanted to buy one of those whole systems like the baby bullet.  I have thought about buying one of those for a long time and have watched the infomercial many times.  I thought about buying the regular bullet before, but didn’t because I have read reviews of parts breaking and it not lasting very long.  Then again there are some people that love it and swear on it.

Today while doing a little online shopping I almost bought one, but then decided on just using my normal blender that I have in the house, but never use.  I hope it’s strong enough.  I am also going to get a steamer basket and see how that goes.  I have never used one before and hopefully I will quickly figure it out.  Anyways today on twitter I asked if anyone had the baby bullet and what they thought of it.  Two women mentioned that they were doing baby led weaning and that they didn’t really use a baby food maker.  I was like baby food weaning? What is that?  So I did some research.  Basically it’s skipping pureeing a baby’s food into mush and spoon feeding them.  The parents prepare the appropriate food and cut it into smallish pieces and let the baby pick what they want to eat, how much, and feed themselves.  Basically the whole family eats the same thing together.

I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I think it’s an interesting concept, but I am not sure.  I think I am going to try doing the puree route in the beginning just to start and then see how LM does.  I have thought about doing it for so long I want to at least try it out.  If he does well on purees maybe then we will move towards baby led weaning. I also want to talk to his doctor at his six month appointment, though I think it’s a week or two after he’s six months.  As of now LM watches me when I eat and looks at my food closely, but he doesn’t grab for it.  Though I don’t eat right next to him or have him close enough that he could grab it.

So this is my thinking.  What did you guys do? Did you start solids before your baby was exactly six months? What did you start with? Is there anything I should know? I do know the four day rule or so to make sure they aren’t allergic to anything.  I’m excited to start this next adventure with LM.

Reflux tips

If you actually read my blog from my blog and not a google reader or something you will notice the different look.  I just picked a template that came with wordpress for a change. I will probably change it again at some point.  I am thinking of expanding this blog and writing about more things than just motherhood.  Maybe things I think are cool, day to day stuff, and food/cooking things.  Maybe that will get me writing more and get some of my readership back. Though I should just write for myself.  The rest will come.

Anyways – quick update on LM.  He’s doing well with PT. We go this afternoon and I’m interested to see if she notices differences. I do.  He actually grabbed some toys near his right side and rolled over last night so I think that’s proof.  We took him to the specialist appointment and they said of now he doesn’t need a helmet, yea!  They said wait until he’s about 6 months old and then we will reassess if I want too, but most likely it will get a lot better and to keep up with the neck stretching and PT.  I put him in a clean outfit this morning and it was fitting very tight lengthwise.  I checked the size and it’s 6months! Depending on the brand he’s in 6-9 month clothes, moving towards 9 months.  I’m not sure if I’m ready for this. I hope this means he will be taller like daddy.

Ok onto  my point of the entry.  I wanted to type out all my little hints and trips I have found to work with LM when he is refluxing and not wanting to eat. I know that some things won’t work for every baby, but if this could help someone out there I think that would be great.  I also want to hear other peoples tips and tricks to see if we can come up with a big list.  Ok onto the list.  I will start with the basics:

• Thickened formula (LM is on Similac Ready to Feed for Spit up).
• Have him sit up 30 minutes after eating
• Tire him out a little before eating
• Hold him in a position comfortable to him (on his side, cradle position, sitting up position, his back against mine work well)
• Keep changing positions when he gets fussy
• Breaks during feeding work well.  Come back to eating 5-10 minutes later
• LM loves movement.  A little rocking helps a lot during eating
• Getting up and walking while feeding helps
• Feeding LM in his chair when he can’t get comfortable in my arms helps
• When he is still fussy, making the chair rock back and forth while feeding helps
• When he stops eating and isn’t going back again, burping helps, but sometimes not
• I don’t take the bottle out of his mouth to burp him until he does it himself. That may go against what most people say, but it works for us.
• Shhhhing him.  Sometimes that breaks his focus of whining and gets him back on track for eating
• Going into a quiet room with the lights dimmed and no distractions

I bought a beco gemini soft structured baby carrier to also help. I’m hoping that having him in that and close to me while upright will help him feel more comfortable.  However, so far he has cried to get out of it after five minutes.  I am hoping that both of us just need to get used to it.  It came in the mail on sunday so I’ve only had it a little bit.  I’m having trouble reaching the straps in the back, but I like that it’s more straightforward in putting it on.

4 months

Happy 4 months little man! I can’t believe he is four months old. What is new with little man recently?

• Last time he got weighed he was just about 14 pounds.  He will get weighed tomorrow at a doctor’s visit and I bet he will be 14 pounds and maybe half way to 15 pounds.
• Is now on prevacid for his reflux – 1ml in the morning and 1ml at night.
• I’m not sure if it’s the prevacid helping his reflux or what, but he went from drinking 4oz bottles to 6oz bottles.  When we first started with the 6oz bottles he was eating every 2-2.5 hours.  Now he eats about every three so he is taking in around 36 ounces of formula!
• He is “talking” a lot. He coos and goes on and on for minutes like he is telling a complete story.  It’s pretty cute.
• He has been scratching his face up a lot. I am wondering if his face is dry, but I have been reading that it might have something to do with his reflux. We are going to keep his nails trimmed and maybe put socks on his hands at night.
• He was giggling the other day and it was very cute.
• One of his favorite games is peek-a-boo
• He loves to snuggle on his blankets and bring them close up to his face.  He also tends to kick them off himself while in his chair.
• He has tons of energy and will sit in his chair after eating (we keep him upright for 30 minutes after eating) and kick up a storm.
• He will lie on his back and scoot with his legs and move himself across the changing table
• He is working on rolling over, but gets stuck half way. The pt says that it’s because of his torticollis (tight neck muscles) that caused his flat spot.  We started him in physical therapy once a week to help strengthen his neck muscles and help with his gross motor development.
• We have an appointment tomorrow morning to see if he needs a helmet because of his flat spot. I have a lot of emotions about this, but I will save it for a blog post after his appointment.
• He enjoys daycare and his caregivers. He is a light sleeper there though and doesn’t sleep much while he is there. So when he comes home he sleeps from when I put him in the car to his next feeding which is usually about three to four hours.
• Last night he slept for eight hours during the night! I would say that is sleeping through the night. I was sad I had to wake him up to get ready for work. I wonder how long he would have slept if I was able to let him sleep as long as he wanted.

Stomach bug continued *edited*

I’m feeling better, but now the hubby has the stomach bug. No fun. Since everyone has had a turn with it I hope that means that we will be done with being sick for a while soon. I can hope anyways.

I was really wondering about his reflux medicine trouble so I called my dr’s office’s nurse line. I got lucky in that his pediatrician was on call and got to talk to her. After some run around and having to tell my story three times she said that I should try the prevacid again. He is on 2ml a day. She suggested that I split the dose and give him 1ml during the day and 1ml at night. She said he might just have a sensitive stomach and then the bug made it even more sensitive like I already thought. She said to give him the prevacid that way for at least a couple of days – to maybe tuesday or so and see how he does. If he is still throwing up at that point then she said that we might want to do an ultrasound or something to see more in depth whats going on. She talked about pyloric stenosis, but I seriously doubt he has that. So I guess I’m giving him 1ml of prevacid tonight. Hubs and I are not looking forward to it because we are both so tired of him throwing up and just want it to stop. However, if he does need an ultrasound I want him to get it and to catch whatever is wrong. Though he isn’t doing that horrible off his med’s. Though he is refluxing, you can hear it. As you can see I keep going back and forth. Maybe if we just wrap him in towels it won’t get all over him.

*edited*
I had to convince the hubs to do it, but we gave LM 1ml of prevacid (dividing the dose) before his dinner bottle. We wrapped him up in a towel just in case he did throw up. So far it’s been 20minutes and no throwing up yet, woot. I’ll update again with what happened.

It’s now a bit over two hours since the prevacid and no throwing up! Yea! I think splitting the dose really helped. I’m wondering if him falling asleep and not being as aware helped things. We will see if we can get a repeat performance tomorrow morning

*edited again*
Day lights saving time makes the time LM eats way too early ugh. So far so good on the morning dose. Checked my e-mail while waiting for the prevacid to kick in and got my daily e-mail from what to expect. The subject? How to take care of a child with rotovirus. LOL A little too late wte.

GER and stomach bug

So last I wrote LM had the stomach bug and was throwing up and had diarrhea. We are now on day 6 of this marathon sickness. However, in the last few days I had noticed that he does well during the day with no throwing up and then later in the day he throws up. I started to wonder if it was the prevacid that was bothering him. He had only been on it for a few days (started right as he was getting sick) and I thought it might be upsetting his stomach. So I didn’t give it to him tonight. I did give him his zantac because I wanted him to have some reflux medicine in him. When I had talked to his doctor earlier I asked if he should be on reflux medicine when he’s sick because I didn’t want it to irritate his stomach and make it worse and they said yes keep him on it. So anyways, I gave him the zantac since he had been on it before and done fine and he threw up within five minutes.

That got me to thinking even more about his reflux medicines bothering his stomach. I had increased his zantac by .2 ml a few days before he got sick. I’m sure he did have the stomach bug at some point or still does because I managed to get it. I was up last night throwing up and had the chills. I was not able to get warm under all the blankets with socks and a robe on and my electric blanket on. I seem to be doing a little better now. However, I’m wondering if LM is having some sort of drug interaction or drug allergy to the reflux meds because of or independent to his stomach bug. I wondered if he were allergic, but I don’t think so because he was on the zantac before and he doesn’t have the red irritation around his mouth I keep reading about on the net when babies are allergic to things. However, I am not able to take penicillin type drugs. I don’t get the red rash, but I can’t keep it in me – I either throw up or it comes out the other end. So I’m wondering if this is something similar. I just want him to feel better and stop getting sick. I also want him to be able to have his reflux under control so he can have a calm feed. It makes me nervous because I have read that reflux peaks at four months and he is only a few weeks away from that.

Anyone have any input, suggestions, or anything? I could use some help figuring things out. I’m also not going to give him any medicine for a day or two and let his system calm down. Hopefully that will make the vomiting stop.

Stomach bug

So remember when LM threw up when I picked him up from day care on Friday? Saturday after his dr’s appointment he pooped and it was a different color. Softer, and smelled really bad. After those two episodes LM has been not keeping much of what he eats down. It comes out one way or the other. We have been giving him formula and pedialite. Not fun and I feel bad for him because he’s so small. When he’s not eating/pooping/throwing up he is in his normal cheery mood.

Hubs took him to the doctor this morning after I was on the nurse line all weekend and they said he’s not dehydrated and it will probably run its course any time between a day or so to a week. I really hope it’s not a week. Though I wonder if some of his feeding issues were because of the stomach bug and not reflux. Fingers crossed he gets better soon. We’ve had enough of the sicknesses..

Sat appt

We increased LM’s zantac amount by a little a few days ago. For a day it went well, but then it didn’t seem to be working as well anymore. I was told to give it 3-4 days to see how it goes. Thursday night though, while hubs was feeding him he threw up. LM throws up occasionally when he has too much in his stomach or because of the reflux. Hubs woke me up from sleeping (I had gone to bed) to help him bathe LM since it was in his hair and everything. That was fun to wake up to. Then I went to pick him up from daycare on friday afternoon. He was fine, I put him in his car seat (which was an hour after he ate) and he threw up again. It was all over his outfit and in his car seat. LM normally doesn’t throw up that much and doesn’t normally do it that much in 24 hours so I called the doctor’s office when we got home.

I first talked to a nurse who took all my information down. She being just a nurse didn’t seem to give me a lot of direction, just that I should call and get an appointment with this weekend thing my doctor’s group has. So I called in and got an appointment and we went over this morning at 9am. The doctor’s visit seemed quick, but I guess cause we got right to the point and I had given them all the info that was in the computer already. Basically we switched LM from zantac to prevacid. I am hoping the medicine change will help him to feel better and give us a calmer feed. So *fingers crossed* LM also got weighed again which I enjoy. I guess being a data person I like having the data points. On Oct 20 he was 12lbs and 13 ounces and today 9 days later he is 13 pounds 6.5 ounces. So I guess I don’t have to worry about him losing weight.

Returned

As you can tell by my title, I returned the moby. I was able to follow the instructions pretty easily to figure out how to tie it on myself. I don’t think it was tight enough though and I couldn’t figure out how to make it really tight. However, putting LM in it was another story. The first day I tried it out I kept trying to put LM in and he got frustrated with me lol. He got cranky and was really whiny the rest of the night. I probably should have practiced with a stuffed animal, but oh well. I could get him in on one side, but then couldn’t get the other side right and had trouble pulling the seatbelt part up. I made my hubby try it and he did really well since he is an engineer. He can pick up that sort of thing quick. He was able to get LM in fine, but didn’t think he had enough head support. I was able to get LM in in the end so that he was facing me, but he didn’t feel secure and I felt like he was going to move down lower. He fussed to get out a few minutes later. I just don’t like that I have to tie a bunch of stuff to get him in. I don’t trust my tying. I want something that buckles and gets rid of user error. I think when I take LM to the orthopedic doctor in a couple of weeks for his flat spot and torticollis I will ask him about the bjorn that we already have since I have heard some negative stuff about it and posture.

While I was returning the carrier I picked up something else I needed – a warm cover for his car seat. It’s been cold in the morning when I leave for work and I learned from classes that I’m not supposed to put a heavy coat on LM while he’s in his car seat. So I bought this cover thing that goes over the car seat so he will stay dry and warm during the winter. I’m looking forward to trying it out.

One more exciting thing – well two about one thing. One is that we upped LM’s zantac amount by .2ml in the morning and at night and he seems to be doing well with it. I’m not sure if it’s because of his bath last night or because of the right level of medicine, but he slept in until 5am for the first time in a few weeks! He had been waking up at 4:15 or 4:30am. I know that’s just thirty minutes, but yea for more sleep. The second exciting thing about his reflux is this morning I was talking to the ladies who take care of him at daycare. I asked them if they had any issues feeding him during the day and they said no. I said really? At home a lot of the time he will arch and push the bottle out of his mouth and whine and such. I asked them and I learned what they do to feed him – which isn’t really anything huge, but I think it will solve a lot of the stress we have during feeding which will make LM and I very happy. Basically when eating LM will suck down his first 2-3oz fine. Then he will stop and not drink the rest of it well. They let him drink as much as he want for the first part and then when he stops they put him down and let him have a 15-20minute break. Then they come back to it and he finishes it. They said he likes to eat when he’s tired which I have found as well because he’s not as aware of the reflux I suppose. It sorta makes sense. Your supposed to feed a baby with reflux small amounts more frequently so breaking it up probably helps when it flairs. I was doing this sorta before, but it’s a good reminder. I’m going to do this at our next feeding (in 30minutes) and see how it goes. I know we will still have some days when he fights me at every ounce, but hopefully this will cut down on most of the stress. *fingers crossed*

*edited*
Nope. Still fussed a lot. Cut down a little on the fighting the bottle, but not really. Actually threw up last night when hub’s was feeding him. I’ll keep trying though.

Challenge

Thank you so much for all your advice about wraps. I spent the last couple days reading on the internet for hours trying to figure out the difference between carriers, ring slings, pouches, and the like. There are so many options and types out there it’s confusing. I thought about getting the moby, it has a lot of great reviews on amazon, but it looked complicated to me. I wanted something quick and easy so I was headed towards a ring sling. I looked online and really liked maya slings, but they are so expensive! I tried to bid on one on ebay, but I’m not very good at that lol. I got outbid very quickly and I didn’t keep going. I then just thought about getting a normal easy sling. I did some more research and found that some people found some at tjmaxx’s cheap, which I was excited about. I went after work and I found one carrier, but it was a front/back one like the bjorn I already have and didn’t want. I want one that I can cradle LM in while I feed him as well as other positions. I was disappointed.

While I was out I decided to go to babies r us since it was very close by. I wanted to see if they had anything different than what is on their website. I found the section with help and they didn’t have any ring slings either. They mostly have front/back carriers and they had the moby. I was talking to the sales girl who was really nice and helpful. She recommended the moby a lot and said that it looks scary, but it’s pretty easy to do once you learn how to do it which doesn’t take that much time. We talked a little bit about it and she said if I really can’t get it I can always return it and get my money back. So I bought the moby. It sort of intimidates me, but I’m going to learn how to use it. I’m nervous I won’t tie it tight enough and LM will be loose. Better go watch some youtube videos and study up. I will report back and let you guys know what I think