I am going to do my best to avoid a long rant about vaccines here this time. What I will say, though, is that Emmett has been crying significantly more since the shots, and I really don't think that we are just noticing it more. There is more intensity and there were some pretty tough nights, but it seems that he is starting to settle back into his old routines and crying less. More intense crying is a typical side effect of most immunizations so there is nothing to worry about, but it is no fun to have a crying baby who won't settle for any of the ol' standby tricks.
Last night Andrea talked me into trying this thing that she heard about through some other mothers called "dream feeding" or some other name along those lines. Basically what it is is a trick to get your kid to sleep more by putting a bottle in their mouth while they are asleep. They start eating without really waking, get their belly topped up, and as a result sleep longer without waking for hunger. It was about midnight last night when she tried to talk me into this (she can't do it because a mother is not supposed to feed by the bottle and breastfeed at the same time as it might confuse that young, 25th percentile head), and after a little consideration I figured I would give it a try (I was working on a talk for today---anything to get out of work). I snuck into the room, bottle in hand, and what do you know: that kid will eat while sleeping, and eat quite a lot. While feeding him I had these grand plans of to do a little "dream feeding" to Andrea to see what she thought of it (not believing it would work), but as I was thinking about this ploy I was reminded of a basketball trip in high school when Jay Garnier fell asleep with his mouth open and someone kept feeding him food which he would promptly chew up and swallow---so dream feeding is not just for kids. Luckily, for Andrea, she sleeps with her mouth shut. Oh, net result: Emmett didn't sleep any more than normal. Dream feeding gets zero stars for results but four stars for strangeness.
It was hot, hot, hot here in SF today. Andrea, Emmett and I just got back from a trip at dark to the store where we were all dressed in short pants and t-shirts. The city is really alive with many people on their stoops after dark, so Emmett has to have his white noise machine extra loud tonight.
I will do my best to post with pictures next time and avoid any topics that cause me to rant.
3 comments:
i have a sneaky suspicion that what it really comes down to is to incorporate a little of both: grabbing ideas from other parents & reshaping them to fit our own babies & their own developments.
what an adventure!
where did you and andrea get your white noise machine, by the way???
Andrea's sister gave us the noise machine (it also plays ocean, rain, and other sounds but they all tend to have a pattern that your mind can latch onto, while the white noise is just noise and so for me is preferred). I haven't been able to find the one that we have online and the ones that have seen are much more expensive than they should be. If you search for "white noise mp3" there are a number of sources, and you could burn a cd which could be played on repeat (or on an ipod). The trick is to find one that doesn't fade in or out and that is preferably as long as possible so the end of the track is either unnoticable or occurs so infrequently (ideally 70 min on a cd) that it isn't a bother.
I bought the noise machine at Target during Christmas time. We also use the same one and it works great. It was only $19.99 and it portable.
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