Bottle Feeding - How hard is it?

How difficult can it be to give a baby a bottle of milk? Answer....very hard.

For the past 2 weeks, Richard and I have been giving Jasmine a bottle of breastmilk just before putting her to bed at night. Jasmine is 100% breastfed so far. We want her to be able to take the bottle, in case if one day I am not around then she won't starve.

It hasn't been easy. Jasmine fights the bottle until she is absolutely ravenous (she pushes the bottle away and cries). It took about 40 minutes the first couple of nights and then gradually, it went down to 11 minutes on the 5th night. All was going well and then suddenly, she won't take the bottle again. It took 1.5 hours the 6th night. Apparently, if you want to introduce the bottle to a baby, you need to start around the 4th week (as babies prefer soft, warm breasts). We started at week 7.

During this week, Jasmine developed several dry skin patches on her face (related to eczema). We are not sure if it is because of my diet (from breastmilk) or if she is allergic to something or if it is from stress (how can a baby have stress?). She's been scratching her face constantly, causing swollen red rashes around her face and eye area.

We are trying to improve her skin condition so that she can get back to being a happy baby again. We are doing the following things:

- I've cut out the following things out of my diet: diary, soy, peanuts, egg and wheat.
- I've also washed all of Jasmine's clothes with a detergent called Sunlight Ultra for sensitive skin, which doesn't have any fragrance, dyes or enzymes.
- We've also stopped giving Jasmine the bottle at night.

On her skin, we are using a prescribed hydrocortizone cream (1%) as well as moisturizers to control the itch. I've tried Eucerin cream, Aveeno Baby cream with oatmeal and Gentle Naturals baby eczema cream. So far, none of these creams are helping much. I am currently trying Glaxal base cream. We'll update in a few days.

Here's a really cute pictures of Jasmine that Winnie took last week:

Not Breathing

Ok, I'm posting this into historical Blog; so that I keep a log of what happened today.

Jasmine's eczema is pretty bad and the doctor prescribed some medicine for her, to be taken orally. It's just 1ml of fluid to be placed into her mouth to swallow. Every time I put liquid into her mouth, it would dribble out. She doesn't drink any of it at all. How frustrating.

So I put the dropper into her mouth (dribble out) several times in the hopes that she will swallow some. Then I leaned her back a bit and put a dropper of the medicine into her mouth.... and-she-started-choking. She coughed a bit, then stopped, and then she stopped breathing. Oh My God... what to do, what to do? I freaked out. There was no one at home except me and Richard's parents. Richard was out with friends.

I turned Jasmine around, upside down (head down, legs up) and patted her back furiously. Nothing. I turned her right side up, and patted her back. Nothing. She still wasn't breathing. I think about 30 seconds have passed and Jasmine was still not breathing. I picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

The operator was really good. She took down my info and dispatched the ambulance. She then told me to place Jasmine on the ground flat, try to find what is in her throat (which of course was fluid). She told me to tilt her head back to see if her airway is clear. Just as I did that, Jasmine started coughing again so I picked her up and patted her back hard. Alot of fluid came out and Jasmine started crying loudly.

THANK-GOD, I am so happy! I was worried sick in those few minutes. Even though Jasmine had only been around for 2 months of my life, I couldn't imagine her not being in my life. I would have been devastated if anything happened to her. I love Jasmine with my entire heart and I will protect her for as long as I can.

(Note - Within 3 minutes, there were 2 ambulances and a fire truck in front of my house. They have a special unit especially for infants). I was quite impressed with the fast reaction time of the 911 crew. It was well worth the $50 I had to pay.

I will always remember what had happened. I am still shocked. Just from 1ml of fluid, Jasmine could stop breathing.

Back to Normal

Jasmine had a high fever on Monday night - 38.1 degrees celcius. Good thing Richard bought a temperature taker where you insert into the ear and it gives the temperature after 3 seconds. Much better than the ones you put under the armpit and wait 2 minutes.

Her forehead was really warm to the touch and her cheeks were bright red. She was crying hard but not the normal type of cry. It sounded more like the "help me, I don't feel good" type of cry. I feel so bad. She stayed up until 5:30am in the morning and after taking some Tylenol, she finally fell asleep.

As of today, Jasmine is back to normal again. I'm actually happy to see her fussing and screaming at me.

2 Month Shots

Jasmine is 2 months old today and was smiling in the morning. We bought a cute little dress for her to dress in but wanted to wait until the evening to do it (and take pics). Here she is in the morning playing with Elmo.

We took her in for a doctor's check up and to have her shots done. There were 4 needles in total. While the doc jabbed 4 needles into Jasmine's thigh, Richard had to pin her legs down so she doesn't move....poor girl. Funnily enough, Jasmine cried when the needles were in but she didn't cry that much afterwards. She seemed to forget about it after 2 minutes and fell asleep.

However, once we got home, she cried for hours, on and off. I guess each time she moved her legs, it hurt so she cried. She even had trouble feeding because each time she moved, she cried. We are carrying her and rocking constantly to try to make things feel better. Wish I could take all those tears away.

Hopefully the pain will subside soon. We have children's cherry flavored Tylenol ready in case she needs it tonight (for fever).

PS - she weighs 10.5 lbs now.

Sleep??? Me or Jasmine?

So, it seems Jasmine slept through the night for the first time last night. She slept from 1:30am to 6:45am straight, without a feeding. Hoorah!!! I thought this was a good start for a new day... Can't wait to go back to bed.

Unfortunately, I hear screaming at 8:30am to feed, then again at 10:30 and again at 12:30pm. And that was only the morning. She is regularly feeding in 3-hour intervals. I can only assume she is catching up on her feedings from the night before or she is on another growth spurt.

Jasmine does not have a sleeping schedule yet even though she is 7 weeks and 4 days old. I am hoping to implement something by the 2nd month (Jan. 21) but have yet to find a consistent pattern in her daily routine. She is either sleeping fitfully or screaming at the top of her lungs for attention. The afternoon sounds like this:

- nap at 1:30pm, wake up at 2:15pm

- nap again at 2:45pm, wake at 3:15pm

- nap again at 3:30pm, wake at 4pm

- nap again at 4:30pm, wake at 5:30pm

Why can't she stay asleep? She's napping on her blankie one minute and then she's up the next. I wonder if all babies do this...

At the least she finally noticed her mobile today. We've had that mobile since she was born but she never looked at it. It kept her occupied for 10 minutes without screaming. I actually sat on the couch in the room, waiting for her to yell. But after 5 minutes and she didn't scream, I left the room to get a drink. Then another 5 minutes went by and still no scream. AMAZING!

After an afternoon of this, I desparately needed a break. Luckly Richard comes to the rescue and takes the screaming baby out of my arms (good, now I can pull down my shirt too). Richard is really good with Jasmine (either that, or Jasmine likes having daddy around). Within minutes, Jasmine is asleep on Richard's chest. Is she Daddy's girl?