Sunday, November 30, 2008

Long Weekend

We have had the best weekend. Baby girl used to be a little chatter box a couple of months ago. Then she decided she didn't want to talk anymore. But this weekend, she has decided she would join us in conversation. And when I say join, I mean takeover. Completely. She squeals, laughs, jumps, and just talks non-stop. It is wonderful. It ashame we can't spend all of our time with her. I guess it makes us enjoy the long weekends even more.

We went to a larger diaper at night, and so far, it has worked. Thank goodness. Thank you ladies sooooo much!! I would have never thought about that.

We are now eating rice cereal again. We decided to try on Friday night and she took to it. It is much easier now than it was all of the other times. She is definitely ready this time.

I have lots of videos and pictures. So enjoy.















Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Back to normal, but need help

Everything is back to normal now. After the stomach virus, we decided we would all get a cold. I felt so bad, I was thinking I wish someone would just take Ivy for a day so that I could sleep. Well, DH did just that. He was wonderful.

But now, we have a problem that we had before hand, it just seems to be getting worse now. It is not that big of a deal, just more annoying than anything. Baby girl uri.nates so much during the night that every morning, she is soaked. Her outfit is wet, the sheet is wet, and 9 out of 10 times, the mattress pad is wet. This is creating an abundance of laundry. I tried 2 diapers at a time. It did not work the second night. The second diaper was a dry as it could be, but everything else was soaked. We have tried hug.gies and pam.pers. Lu.vs seem to be the same as pamp.ers, so I do not think they will be any better than the others.

ANy suggestions? I am open to trying anything at this point.

Also, we have a new camera, and some GREAT (slightly biased) pictures. It takes pictures so much quicker, and I can catch her smiling.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Dr's Advice

I called the pediatrician yesterday to ask them what to do. Their advice: Do not feed her at night when she wakes up, just give her the pacifier, rock her, anything to soothe her, but do not feed her. This will only get her into a habit of eating at night. (I agree with this, but at 1 in the morning, I just want her to be quiet. I know that sounds harsh, but I am tired too.) Also, they said do not feed any more cereal, she is obviously not ready if she is still pushing it out with her tongue. We should try again in a week or two. And do not increase the amount in her bottles, or feed her more frequently. I thought this woman was CRAZY. I wanted to tell her she could come over and deal with the cranky baby who only cried.

So last night, DH attempted to feed her some cereal. Again, all over her, none in the mouth. Then we rocked her and held her, until about 7 and fed her ht bottle. We did put a new outfit on last night for her to sleep in. It was a fleece outfit instead of just cotton. We have had some chilly nights here the last couple of nights. And by golly, she slept until 2, and then just chatted. I got up, went to the restroom and got ready to go in there, when I came out, she was back asleep. (And no, I was not in there very long at all.) She woke up again at 3, and chatted for a little while, then eventually went back to sleep. She did this again at 4, and this time, she did not stop. I went in there, and scooped her up, changed her diaper, and we went and laid on the couch. When DH got ready to leave at 5:15, we got up and I fed her a little bit. She did not even finish the entire bottle before going back to sleep. And she slept until 6:30.

So overall I would call it success. We will see how she does over the next couple of days. I do think she is teething. We also put some ora.jel on her gums to see if that would help. So, maybe a combo of the ora.jel and the thicker nighttime outfit made a difference. I guess we will see.

Thanks for all you help!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Another long night...


...So last night we decided to try again with the rice cereal. Now sweet baby princess had a 7 1/2 bottle at 4:40 pm. We tried the cereal at 6:45. Nothing. Everything was being pushed back out onto the shirt. She did however grab the spoon to put it in her mouth and chew on it. So, after 15 mins I gave in, changed her, and gave her the remaining bottle, 7 ozs. We put her to bed about 7:30. At 10:30, she was back up again. Another 5 1/2 oz bottle. At 1:00 she was back up again. This time she only ate 2 ozs. I am afraid at this point her stomach is going to explode from eating so much. I just thought if we could get some rice cereal in her, she wouldn't be so hungry, but she just won't eat it.She got up again at 4, and I just laid her on me, and we slept together for another hour, before she wanted to eat again.

I am not sure if she is beginning to teeth, getting ready for a growth spurt or what. She has diarrhea, she drools, she chews on everything, including the nipple to the bottle (makes me extremely happy I am not breastfeeding at this point).

THe only reason we have not put rice cereal in her bottle is b/c the ped told us not to. Due to the fact that most people do it either to help reflux or help them sleep through the night. Neither of which we were (keyword) having a problem with. I am going to call the peds office today and ask them what they think we should do.

We have decided at this point, to just continue to try feeding her the rice cereal, and maybe soon enough she will get the hang of it.

Here is another picture. The hat was made by volunteers at the hospital that I delievered at. There are also booties to go with it, but we have not tried those on yet.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

15 Steps Back

Baby girl has been sleeping through the night every night since Sept 14th. Now ever since she has gotten sick, I think she has only slept through the night once. She would most of the time wake up because she had pooped EVERYWHERE and did not like it. But who can blame her? Anyways, we have been working on getting her back into a routine where she goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 and gets up anywhere from 5 to 6.

So, now she has gotten a cold. Runny nose, Stuffed up nose, snot bubbles. I am waiting on "the big one". You know the sneeze, that causes the snot bubbles, that causes the coughing, that causes the explosive diarrhea. That to me just sounds like fun to clean up!

So baby girl has finally gotten back to eating normal. She normally eats 5 - 6 ozs in the morning before school and then 3 6 oz bottles at school, and then another bottle before bed. Well, so much for that last night. My little piggy ate 6 ozs before school. Her 3 bottles at school. And her regular 6 oz bottle before bed. So I was thinking woohoo, we are going to get an entire nights sleep. Why must my sweet, sweet daughter prove me wrong? I continue to think she thinks this is a game. She woke up just before midnight. I thought it was her nose. She would not go back to sleep. DH asked if he could fix her a bottle, I said, she can't possibly be hungry, she just ate. So after an hour, he asked again. I said sure, I will prove to you that she is not hungry. He only fixed her 2 ozs, and then went back to bed. She finished that, so I fixed her another 2 ozs. She finished that. At this point, I am dreading the poop that will be coming out after all this food. She was STILL hungry, so I fixed her another 2 ozs. She finished this and drifted off to dreamland (FINALLY!!). I did not think she was ever going to go back to sleep.

So today, she gets 7 oz bottles at daycare. We will see how she does with those. We are still not doing rice cereal. She still pushes it out with her tongue, so I just don't think she is ready yet. Plus, I am waiting for the diarrhea to go away, and make sure it isn't the rice cereal that is causing it. Has anyone else had this problem?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Sick,Sick, Sick

Last weekend, our household was hit with a stomach virus. We never even knew it was coming. We were playing with baby girl in the floor and stood her up, and projectile vomit came out. Since then we have been dealing with diarrhea. It is terrible. I have never done so much laundry. And no diaper can hold it. We have washed everything multiple times this week. The dr said it could last 10 - 14 days. That to me seems crazy.

We have tried the cereal. The first time she looked at us like we were crazy. The second time was no different. The third time she did open her mouth for the spoon, but she still is pushing it out with her tongue. So we are going to wait a little longer. She watches us eat like a hawk though. DH is convinced she doesn't like the rice cereal and we just need to give her bananas. My opinion is, if she will drink pedia.lyte, she will eat anything. That stuff is beyond disgusting.

Here are a couple of pictures.