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It's Tummy Time!

2/18/2013

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Welcome back to the best day of the week...or not. The D family had a fun, but too short, weekend as usual. Saturday we spent the day playing and cleaning. M.D. was the happiest baby on the block...no, for real, he was...and when he was napping Steven & I were doing 2700 loads of laundry, cleaning carpets, etc, etc, etc. We had lots of tummy-time on Saturday with M.D. We are working on him spending as much time as possible on his tummy (or at least NOT on his back) as we are trying to correct his flat spot on the back of his head.
When he was first born we were in the hospital and one of the nurses came into our room to talk about the distinct possibility that M.D. would get a flat head (smart people call it Plagiocephaly). Apparently, M.D. was born with some marks against him in terms of being at higher risk for getting a flat spot on his head. 1) He was born a few weeks early at 38 weeks gestation. 2) He's a boy...apparently that's a risk factor? 3) He has one of the biggest heads the world has ever seen.
M.D. was born with the biggest roundest head ever...but slowly it has formed a flat spot on the back. I think there's a lot of stereotypes out there that all babies who get flat spots get them because their parents are lazy and just let their kid lay on their back all day and ignore them. I'd like to say, for the record, that is not always the case. Sometimes it is. For M.D. it was not. BUT he inevitably did form that flat spot on the back of his head. Our doctor says he does not need a helmet to correct the issue because it's not very severe and everything is still symmetrical (apparently some babies get flat spots on the sides of their heads and then one ear is higher than the other??)
M.D. also has hated tummy time since he came out of the womb. We have the video evidence to prove it. I wouldn't even get him on his tummy yet and the screaming would start. He knew what was coming. Now he does A LOT better so we try to do it as much as possible. He's at the stage now where he wants to be able to crawl, but he can't, so after spending 15-20 mins on his tummy he will start to fuss because he's not getting anywhere. I could imagine that would be very frusturating.
So we spent a large chunk of his wake hours on Saturday on our tummies. Well, him on his tummy, me on my back....I can see him better that way. Here are some of our photos from the weekend:
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After realizing what we were doing, our diva dog Mila decided to join in on the fun.

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They're pretty much best buddies :) It's actually really cute.
Here he is about to roll over...yes, we've started accomplishing that task now. But only tummy-to-back...watching him try to flip over from back to tummy is like watching a fish out of water...trying to get back into the water...and struggling...really badly... :) I can't help but laugh, even though it's mean!

Time to get back to the grind. More later... :)
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Colic...what a bitch

1/30/2013

1 Comment

 
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So as stated in the blog description I am the lucky mother of a beautiful baby boy...who had colic. Has colic. Does colic ever really go away? I guess because I'm saying that it means it probably does, but hasn't yet. Yikes. Colic is the nastiest of ailments. Firstly, there is no cure. Great. Secondly, there's a list of "remedies" that can possibly, maybe, hopefully help your baby with their colic...but there's no guarantee. Super. Thirdly, there's no known cause. This just keeps getting better. Colic, before having M.D., was a dirty word in my mind. Maybe if I didn't say, didn't mention it, it wouldn't attack. We could sneak around it. Forget the fact that I was a colicky baby, along with both of my siblings...but somehow I was going to skip over that silly colic and have the happiest baby on the block.
I actually bought that book during my pregnancy...
The Happiest Baby on the Block...it seems ironic now.

M.D. is colicky. Damnit. He has been since week 2. He was 2 weeks early...so technically he was colicky from the day we was supposed to be born. And as for those "home remedies"...we tried them all. At first we thought he was lactose intolerant because he would scream after every feeding. I tried a no-dairy diet and for 2 days it worked. We celebrated! Then by the 3rd day it was back again. Screaming. Screaming. Screaming. So we switched to soy formula...maybe I was unknowingly eating dairy in tiny amounts that was getting to him. And it worked. We celebrated! And then about a week later the screaming started again. Damnit. As I sit here today we have tried breastfeeding + 3 different formulas. He has been to the chiropractor, has been swaddled, has been on Zantac and probiotics. We are finally seeing a difference.

I see a lot of baby blogs that give you the top 10 items to buy for baby. I'm going to do something different. Here are my top 5 items necessary for a colicky baby. These items (individually & grouped together) may save your sanity. They are in no particular order...because who knows which one works better than the other...all I know is thank GOD for all of them!

1)
Fischer-Price Snug-a-Monkey Rocker
This rocker is a life saver for sleeping in those first few weeks. It tilts the baby at 45 degree (okay...that might be made up) angle so they don't have acid reflux in their sleep. M.D. still loves his for hanging out in when I'm cooking, though he can almost scoot himself out.
2)
Dr. Brown's BPA Free Bottles
We tried EVERY kind of bottle out there. M.D. got gassy from almost all of them...these were & are awesome. We just upgraded to the 8oz size. One word of caution...they are a bitch to put together. It feels like 100 piece 3D puzzle when you've got a screaming child and you're trying to make the bottle as fast as possible. The trade-off: no crying AFTER eating from gas & bloat.
3)
Cheap Stick Vacuum
There's no particular brand that is better than the other when it comes to this item. In fact, the only rule is: the cheaper the better! The sound of a vacuum cleaner can be very soothing it a crabby colicky baby, however, I have heard horror stories of people blowing up their expensive Hoover because they ran it for 3 hours straight...2 times daily...7 days a week...for 6 months...(you think I'm kidding). So my advice is to buy the cheapeast piece-of-shit vacuum you can find so if you blow it up you don't care. I bought ours the week before college started so I got it for $10.
4)
Cloud B Sleep Sheep on the Go
Think of this as a travel vacuum cleaner...cuz you can't exactly plug your vacuum into your car. We brought this lamb EVERYWHERE! It hooks onto the carseat handle so they can listen to it in the car, and wherever you take them when you get out of the car. I specifically remember bringing M.D. to the chiropractor and the receptionist saying, "Where was that when I had kids?!" Apparently she recorded the sound of a vacuum on a cassette tape and brought it with her everywhere she went. Talk about hassle. Buy the lamb.
5)
YouTube Womb Sounds
The best part about this item. Its FREE! We BLARED this on our surround sound in our TV room when M.D. wouldn't calm down. There's heartbeat sounds...rushing fluid...basically everything a womb's got to offer sound-wise. It totally freaked out the dogs.

So there you go. A few suggestions for you, your friends, your coworkers, your worst enemies. Colic is a bitch. It asks you...
Do you STILL love this creature you created? Are you STILL happy you had a baby? I bet you don't want another one now... Yes, Yes you do. You DO still love that little screaming kicking creature. You ARE still happy you had one (though you can't wait to have a happy one)...and you definitely DO want another one.....in 100 years.

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