Another Nap

Tonight is probably going to be scary because I had another nap today. A nice, deep, long one. Last night, I didn’t fall asleep until around mid-night and that was when I thought I was just “resting”. Max is still asleep in my bed. Oh well, I guess I will self regulate tomorrow when I have to get up early for work.

I should be doing something productive like…let’s say….pay bills, since today is already the 8th and I haven’t yet gotten my mortgage payment in the mail.

More starting solids pain in our household today.

I have a very good friend who is a pediatrician. In fact, thinking about it, she has probably become my closest friend in the last year. She was present for Max’s birth and is one of his god mothers. We talk pretty much every day and see each other a few times a month. We met through the SMC-ttc list maybe a year and a half ago. I try not to take advantage of the fact she is a pediatrician. Plus, it has been hard for her at times when I was pregnant with Max and she was still struggling to ttc and had a miscarriage. On the other hand, since she is such a close friend, it is hard not to talk about Max and what I worried about.

We were talking last night while she was driving to Vegas to get married. Yep, she eloped. I am so happy for her. Talked to her this morning and she is no longer an SMC. She and Mark haven’t been dating for long by some standards, but I think they have talked and worked through enough stuff that they know what they are getting into and are fundamentally good for each other. They balance each other out well.

Anyway, I was tell her that I found the prunes at Target and started Max on them last night. I told her that he seemed to like them. She asked if he ate the whole jar. I said, eat the whole jar? I only gave him a table spoon mixed with his cereal. She said, he needs the whole jar for it to work the way it is supposed to. I said, a whole jar each time I feed him? She said, no a whole jar once a day. Apparently, I can do this either with the rice cereal or in replacement of the rice cereal. She asked me why I thought I should only do a table spoon. I said because the rice cereal box said to start with a table spoon and work up so I thought that applied to all foods when you start them out. She said, oh, I better be more specific when I talk to my patients. LOL. She has said this many of time after hearing about why I did something the way I did or thought something the way I did. I remember being on the phone with her when Max was just born and crying and we were talking about how I had such a hard time with that. I started balling and said, because if I let him cry I will damage his self esteem. She calmly asked me why I thought that and I told her I read it in both the What to Expect book and in the Caring for your child from birth to 5 book. She said went and got her books (she has both of them) and asked me to point out to her exactly where I read that. In doing so, she pointed out what the book really said, not how I interpreted it, and all of the other things on the topic that I hadn’t read. In re-reading it with her, I realized that I had missed a few key points like there will be times when your child will cry and you will not be able to calm them and that this is normal. I missed that part. She said that is for people who let their child cry for hours and gave examples. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was seriously traumatized. That was another time that she said she better remember to be clearer when talking to her patients, especially if they are as neurotic (my word not hers) as me. LOL.

Anyway, I have seriously digressed. So, when I fed Max this morning, I gave him a table spoon of cereal mixed with breast milk and about half the serving of prunes (saving the other half for tonight). Other than being messy (I am now soaking his white Christmas PJ’s, the bib, and the washcloth I used to wipe him up), it went fine and he enjoyed his meal. About 20 minutes after finishing, he kept getting progressively fussier and fussier. He was gassy and straining and crying one minute and laughing and happy the next and fussy and straining and crying the next until it reached it crescendo a few hours later. I ended up taking him to my bed and undressing him and giving him a body massage. Finally, I ended up trying to feed him again and we both fell asleep. He is still naked (except for a diaper) sleeping on my bed. This is a long nap for him.

Needless to day, I’m not sure I am giving him the rest of the prunes tonight. This may be a case where the solution is worse than the problem. He may be pooping only every 7 – 10 days, but he is happy and content. I could care less if he becomes more regular if he is in such pain. More conversations will be had around this. I’ll probably call my peds office back tomorrow and talk to them about it and mention it to my friend next time we talk.

Max woke up so I got to go. Just one last thought, not worrying about giving him the pea’ since the amount I gave him is relatively small compared to what I should have been giving him if you consider it was a table spoon offered and subtracted out what actually made it down. Hopefully, my happy baby is back.