I went on line looking for support for nursing kids to sleep because that is what's working the best for Nicholas and me. After having heard/read/listened to so many people warn me of the "dangers" of nursing for comfort, I just wanted to hear something that made me feel like I wasn't "breaking the rules" if I let him nurse himself to sleep. Anyway, I found this article that says exactly what I've been feeling lately. I just wanted to share :)
http://www.llli.org/NB/NBJanFeb02p14.html
I also found a lot of cool information about what happens to a baby physically when they nurse vs. when they're "crying it out." Did you know that a baby's heart rate can climb to over 200 beats per minute when they cry without comfort? Also, it diminishes the oxygen levels in their blood, and it causes digestive upset (but I've already experienced THAT side of things).
January 25, 2010
January 20, 2010
Cameras and Laughs
Why is it that a child will laugh or do something else really cute up until the moment you pull out the camera? I have tried SO hard to capture Nicholas laughing on film. He will be laughing at everything until I pull my camera out and then he magically doesn't find anything funny. The other day he was laughing with Mando, and I snuck up and filmed them from behind, but sure enough as soon as the camera was on, he stopped laughing...but I kept filming just in case, and FINALLY he started laughing again!!! But then I looked down and realized that my camera had run out of battery and shut off two seconds earlier. Go figure.
Anyway, I managed to capture a chuckle while I was changing him today. It's not his full laugh, but if you listen, you can hear a chuckle. I couldn't trim the video, so it's like forty seconds long, sorry. He smiles at first, then he'll stare at the camera and THEN he chuckles, so wait for it.
Anyway, I managed to capture a chuckle while I was changing him today. It's not his full laugh, but if you listen, you can hear a chuckle. I couldn't trim the video, so it's like forty seconds long, sorry. He smiles at first, then he'll stare at the camera and THEN he chuckles, so wait for it.
January 17, 2010
Reflux
ATTENTION: This is more of a journal entry for me than a funny or interesting entry for the entertainment of others. Just to let you know ahead of time. You don't have to read it :)
We discovered this week, after much fretting and crying (by me...and some by Nicholas too) that little Nitch has "silent Reflux." It means that all that grunting I thought was so cute and unique was actually him with constant heartburn...poor little guy. It slowly progressed to more and more painful heartburn which kept him from sleeping during the day. Since he was still a pretty calm baby, I just thought he was bothered by something I ate, or he was just an active baby, or he only needed catnaps, or his intestines were backed up, or, or, or, yadda yadda. Finally it got to the point where he wasn't taking any naps during the day and he was so sleep deprived that he would start crying at everything. That's when I started praying about what to do (sad to say I had actually gone down every avenue I could think of before this option occurred to me... I had read parenting books on sleep patterns, I asked all of my "witch doctors" what the problem was, and they all said something different). Almost immediately after the prayer, Nicholas started crying again and I thought, "I'm calling the pediatrician." I got my phone that very minute and called up. (You're probably asking why I hadn't done that before. It's because I didn't really think he was sick--and there's nothing that a western medicine doctor can see in a healthy baby without doing x-rays or more invasive tests. They don't do "body testing" like a wholistic doctor would.) I told the nurse what was going on and she said it sounded like Reflux to her, but she'd ask the doctor. The doctor concurred and told me to try Maalox (an over the counter adult formula antacid) and see if it helped. I was dead set against the idea of it being reflux because he didn't cry at any specific time and he never really wailed like I heard reflux babies do. And especially because he seemed happiest flat on his back, which they always say the biggest sign of reflux is when they cry on their back. And he doesn't spit up, another tell-tale reflux sign. I tried the Maalox once or twice and it didn't really work, so I started stressing again.
Meanwhile Nicholas would only nurse for four minutes before arching back and squirming around so much he couldn't stay on my nipple. I thought maybe it was an ear infection...it wasn't. That went on for a few days, but they were also days when I had started to eat some questionable nursing foods (chocolate, ice cream, broccoli, etc.) so I just thought it was indigestion...again. By this time he was also excessively fussy and almost "colicky" at times. He would rarely sleep longer than 1/2 hour during the day and he would cry inconsolably at nights before he'd collapse from exhaustion. So I just thought it was overstimulation and lack of a sleep schedule... Jeez, writing this down I'm realizing how many excuses I kept making up.
Finally, out of sheer tiredness and desperation for relief I prayed for help again, and I immediately felt that I should call the lactation specialist at my pediatrician's office. I described what was going on, she said Reflux, I said, but thi..., but that... and she helped me see that he didn't have to have ALL of the reflux symptoms to have reflux. Two of her babies had "silent reflux" where they don't spit up, and they just kind of whimper all day because of the pain instead of crying out once or twice and then calming down. Anyway, the point of all of this is: How stupid can I get?
Twice I prayed for help...Twice I received the same answer yet I didn't heed the response I had gotten. I wanted an answer that fit what I thought was going on. I didn't want a prescription to be the answer to my babies problems. I wanted an obscure, natural, or behavioral answer. Now my baby is on Prevacid, and he's peacefully taking two-three naps a day and nursing more and more each day. We haven't had a crying spell since the day before he started taking the medication.
Let this be a lesson to me: Pray early; don't wait for desperation to set in before seeking help. HEED the answer I receive. Sheesh.
But isn't it great to know that Heavenly Father is truly aware and willing to help us even when it seems like a trivial problem even to us? Even the suffering of a small baby and his mother is worthy of divine help and attention :)
They told us to elevate his crib mattress to a 30 degree angle, but this is what he did when we laid him down. An hour after this picture he was all the way at the foot of the crib completely perpendicular to the tilt.
We discovered this week, after much fretting and crying (by me...and some by Nicholas too) that little Nitch has "silent Reflux." It means that all that grunting I thought was so cute and unique was actually him with constant heartburn...poor little guy. It slowly progressed to more and more painful heartburn which kept him from sleeping during the day. Since he was still a pretty calm baby, I just thought he was bothered by something I ate, or he was just an active baby, or he only needed catnaps, or his intestines were backed up, or, or, or, yadda yadda. Finally it got to the point where he wasn't taking any naps during the day and he was so sleep deprived that he would start crying at everything. That's when I started praying about what to do (sad to say I had actually gone down every avenue I could think of before this option occurred to me... I had read parenting books on sleep patterns, I asked all of my "witch doctors" what the problem was, and they all said something different). Almost immediately after the prayer, Nicholas started crying again and I thought, "I'm calling the pediatrician." I got my phone that very minute and called up. (You're probably asking why I hadn't done that before. It's because I didn't really think he was sick--and there's nothing that a western medicine doctor can see in a healthy baby without doing x-rays or more invasive tests. They don't do "body testing" like a wholistic doctor would.) I told the nurse what was going on and she said it sounded like Reflux to her, but she'd ask the doctor. The doctor concurred and told me to try Maalox (an over the counter adult formula antacid) and see if it helped. I was dead set against the idea of it being reflux because he didn't cry at any specific time and he never really wailed like I heard reflux babies do. And especially because he seemed happiest flat on his back, which they always say the biggest sign of reflux is when they cry on their back. And he doesn't spit up, another tell-tale reflux sign. I tried the Maalox once or twice and it didn't really work, so I started stressing again.
Meanwhile Nicholas would only nurse for four minutes before arching back and squirming around so much he couldn't stay on my nipple. I thought maybe it was an ear infection...it wasn't. That went on for a few days, but they were also days when I had started to eat some questionable nursing foods (chocolate, ice cream, broccoli, etc.) so I just thought it was indigestion...again. By this time he was also excessively fussy and almost "colicky" at times. He would rarely sleep longer than 1/2 hour during the day and he would cry inconsolably at nights before he'd collapse from exhaustion. So I just thought it was overstimulation and lack of a sleep schedule... Jeez, writing this down I'm realizing how many excuses I kept making up.
Finally, out of sheer tiredness and desperation for relief I prayed for help again, and I immediately felt that I should call the lactation specialist at my pediatrician's office. I described what was going on, she said Reflux, I said, but thi..., but that... and she helped me see that he didn't have to have ALL of the reflux symptoms to have reflux. Two of her babies had "silent reflux" where they don't spit up, and they just kind of whimper all day because of the pain instead of crying out once or twice and then calming down. Anyway, the point of all of this is: How stupid can I get?
Twice I prayed for help...Twice I received the same answer yet I didn't heed the response I had gotten. I wanted an answer that fit what I thought was going on. I didn't want a prescription to be the answer to my babies problems. I wanted an obscure, natural, or behavioral answer. Now my baby is on Prevacid, and he's peacefully taking two-three naps a day and nursing more and more each day. We haven't had a crying spell since the day before he started taking the medication.
Let this be a lesson to me: Pray early; don't wait for desperation to set in before seeking help. HEED the answer I receive. Sheesh.
But isn't it great to know that Heavenly Father is truly aware and willing to help us even when it seems like a trivial problem even to us? Even the suffering of a small baby and his mother is worthy of divine help and attention :)
They told us to elevate his crib mattress to a 30 degree angle, but this is what he did when we laid him down. An hour after this picture he was all the way at the foot of the crib completely perpendicular to the tilt.
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