(no subject)

[rivka]

The worst thing about getting a cold when you're the mother of an infant is that you know you'll suffer twice - once when you yourself are sick, and then again when the baby catches it.

We are all three of us sick. Michael had it first, then me; Alex is on her third miserable night. During the day she seems fine - she's coughing, sure, and her nose is running, but she laughs and plays and crawls all over the place pointing out new venues for childproofing.

The nights are something else.

She's been in bed for three hours, and I've had to go in to her five or six times. A couple of times she's been soothable with a pacifier and some gentle patting, but mostly I have to pick her up and rock her back to sleep while she whimpers and tries to catch her breath through clogged nostrils. I just did something unspeakable with a bottle of spray saline and a bulb syringe, which accomplished nothing but a long bout of hysterical, back-arched screaming. If she puts me in a substandard nursing home when I'm eighty, it will be because she remembers the bulb syringe.

Last night I slept with her. When we first moved her into my bed, at bedtime, she slept for three hours more-or-less straight. I didn't, because I kept alerting to her every twitch, trying to soothe her to stay sleep before she really woke up, but I can sort of sleepwalk through that kind of thing and still feel moderately rested. But the rest of the night was less successful. She was restless. She woke a lot and cried a lot, in ways that required my full alertness.

We've elevated the head of her bed to help her breathe, and we try to encourage her to sleep on her side for the same reason. There's a vaporizer moistening the room air and a heater to keep the vaporizer from giving her a chill. She's medicated with Tylenol for the raw throat which Michael and I are sure she has, given how our throats felt a couple of days ago, except for the intervals in which she comes off the Tylenol so I can see if she has a fever. She's too young for cough medicines or decongestants. We're doing everything we can.

It's a cold, and nothing serious. Her doctor told us to expect six or eight colds to hit her inexperienced immune system this winter.

If I were breastfeeding, she would already be getting my antibodies to this virus. If I were breastfeeding, she wouldn't have been laid as low by the stomach virus she had at Thanksgiving - she could have nursed through it, and we wouldn't have had to deal with the temporary formula intolerance. I wonder if not-breastfeeding guilt is ever going to stop stabbing me in the gut at random intervals.

Comments

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

You did your absolute best to breast feed her, and it didn't work out. If you had kept trying, would you have built up a resentment to her? If you had kept trying, might she be smaller, weaker and fussier than she is now? If you had kept trying, might she have spent much of her first year hungry because it wasn't working? You did everything you could, and when it was clear it wasn't working, you made sure you did the best thing for your daughter. No beating yourself up allowed.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Word.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I have it on good authority that Genghis Khan, Caligula, and Attila the Hun were all breastfed.

You're a good Mom!

also...

[(Anonymous)]

My two youngest were breastfeed till they were toddlers, still they both had the colds and the complications that ended in more than one hospital stay (keep in mind in post-Soviet health care hospital was, I guess, considered standard for many more ailments than in USA. It may be because most people did not have car, so if a patient needed any procedures/shots that would have meant need to travel to a medical center on public transport daily, it would have been hard traveling life for a sick person).

Then again, I DO feel guilt for not being healthy enough to produce completely healthy children, so the guilt a mother manages to feel finds new ways to manifest itself no matter how hard one tries.

Aet

[zeldajean.livejournal.com]

I wonder if not-breastfeeding guilt is ever going to stop stabbing me in the gut at random intervals.

In my eyes, you have NOTHING to feel guilty about. It is Not Your Fault that breastfeeding didn't go as planned. Lord knows you tried your best and then some.

I realize that what I think and my opinion really aren't of any consequence in this scenario, but I do hope that you'll keep in mind that at least one person is impressed with the lengths you went to so you could try to breastfeed, and does not see this as in any way your fault.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It will, five, maybe ten years from now. :)

Seriously, you did what you could (and more than many, probably most, would have done in your shoes). She will survive.

Mozart wasn't breastfed, Caligula was, there's more to things than that.

She's gonna get colds, breastmilk nor formula will not stop it. They might ameliorate it, but you'll never know, so try to stop fretting over it.

She'll recover, and forget (mostly) they ever happened, which is a blessing and a curse, because the next will will seem (mostly) brand new.

TK

[perceval.livejournal.com]

(((rivka)))

If you were still breastfeeding, what with all the problems you had, you'd be stressed to the hilt and ergo much more susceptible to bugs yourself.

have you tried olbas oil for kids in an inhaler dummy? I think it works sort of for DD, but then she keeps spitting out that dummy ;)

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

As has already been said, being breastfed is no guarantee of immunity. I know plenty of breastfed kids who get sick way more often than The Baby.

Also, are you sure you're correct about her being too young for cough medicine or decongestants? That is contrary to Dr. Sears., and our doc, too.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Most of what I've seen says to wait until they're a year old, and that's what my father the retired pediatrician says as well. I have an e-mail in to my sister the practicing pediatrician.

I've also seen several opinions that the younger the baby, the more likely it is that decongestants will make them hyperactive. Which is not what we need at night either.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

My sister the pediatrician says she doesn't recommend against decongestants for 6-12mos, but doesn't recommend them, and if I want to try it I should do it during the day and watch for hyperactivity, and I should only use half the recommended dose, and it all boils down to "not really recommended."

Alas.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

We ended up dosing him (following Dr. Sears' guidelines for quantities, which IIRC are based on weight) when the alternative was no sleep for anyone.

No significant hyperactivity, and no complaints.

[ailbhe]

If you were still breastfeeding, she would be smaller and weaker and you would be so exhausted you might be almost dead. Yes, she might be getting some antibodies, which is great *if* you catch the bug before she does (Linnea gets things before I do, generally, and passes them on to me in her generous way). But neither of you woul dhave the stamina to deal with "a little cold" properly.

We used olbas oil alternated with something called Karvol which is menthol-based for Linnea's room when she had colds, and Vicks Vaporub (she loves loves loves having it rubbed on her chest, though it does make the cough "seem" worse initially). We also occasionally used a mix with an antihistamine in it which dried up her sinuses and helped her sleep, which made a huge difference.

And I used it myself, because it really did help me sleep, and since I was pretty much exclusively breastfeeding I couldn't take most (any) normal decongestants. So I felt sicker a lot longer than Rob did, when I caught things.

(My guilt comes from feeding her solids in minute quantities when she sat up, picked 'em up,put them in her mouth, and chewed and swallowed them. Problem? She was too young - 17 weeks instead of 26 weeks. Oh, and sometimes I feel guilt for medicating her pain, because of all the women who claim that their babies didn't need tylenol etc for teething or sore throats. Hah. I do not believe in pain.)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

No, the guilt never goes away. If she fails grade 9 English, which she's been speaking all her life, due to having lied about homework and spent the whole year playing Doom instead, you'll worry that it's your fault for not being able to breastfeed or express long enough.

But you know, while I share this neurosis totally, which is how I can predict with such accuracy, it is in fact and objectively silly.

She'll get better. It's not your fault.

Oh, and if she can sleep without the pacifier at all, she may sleep better, because of the clogged nostrils and breathing through the mouth. The way I eventually (at eighteen months) got rid of the pacifier altogether was when Z had a cold and didn't want it, and I just never gave it back.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Aw, poor family. :(

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

"I wonder if not-breastfeeding guilt is ever going to stop stabbing me in the gut at random intervals."

Probably about the same time as I stop feeling wretchedly guilty for letting Henry cry for 20 minutes the other night without going to him.

We all do what we have to do as parents if it's the best thing for our kids, even if it hurts us to the very core.

(no flames please from anybody on this, we'd tried everything else possible.)

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

Evan has had more colds than I can count, and he's a breastfed baby. Don't feel guilty (easier said than done). I didn't notice any significant difference in recovery time between the times when we shared colds and the times that only he was sick--and I was paying close attention, waiting for the vaunted breastmilk antibodies to kick in.

He also gets dosed regularly with decongestant at night when he's stuffed up, and sleeps much better than when we don't dose him. Hyperactivity has not appeared to be a problem. For what that's worth.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Don't be hard on yourself re the nursing. Catie contracted a virus this week, and it made her incredibly uninterested in nursing - and while she eats food 3x/day and has 4 or so ounces of formula, she stil usually nurses a total of 2 hours a day, mostly overnight, and while she was sick, while she wanted cuddling, it took 90 minutes of my snuggling her to get her to nurse for ten. It's a nice thing, but it's not a 100%-cure-all when a baby is sick with something.

[erbie.livejournal.com]

If I were breastfeeding, she would already be getting my antibodies to this virus. If I were breastfeeding, she wouldn't have been laid as low by the stomach virus she had at Thanksgiving - she could have nursed through it, and we wouldn't have had to deal with the temporary formula intolerance. I wonder if not-breastfeeding guilt is ever going to stop stabbing me in the gut at random intervals.

My dd was exclusively breastfed for 6 months and then continued until over four years old. Her first year, she got every damn virus in existence. Ay 4 months old, she had stomach flu (as did her dada and I) and she was sicker than we were. She still gets sick just as often as other kids. If I hadn't seen all the evidence, based on my own experience with my dd, I wouldn't think that breastfeeding did anything for the immune system. She also had asthma and food allergies as a baby, which breastfed babies are not supposed to get as much.

Stop beating yourself up about it. Guilt doesn't do anything positive for you or your child. Kids get sick. Even breastfed kids get really sick.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

I wonder if not-breastfeeding guilt is ever going to stop stabbing me in the gut at random intervals.

I hope so. I know that many things that seemed so crucially vital to me when Liam was little I now can't believe I got so het up about.

Me, I'm still looking forward to the day that I don't feel envy and sadness every time one of my neighbors has a perfect birth at home (or heck, even just a vaginal birth in a hospital).

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

I think we all have guilt. Unfortunately, I would have rather grown a third arm during the process of pregnancy and childbirth, but instead, guilt it is. I get to feel guilty for listening to my doctor who advocated "cry it out" in front of my husband when Squeaky was around 9 months old, so of course, that's when she figured out how to pull herself up and she couldn't figure out how to get back down. She cried for an HOUR and I feel HORRIBLE for doing that. Eventually, we went with a "stay with her, stay in contact with her, talk to her, sing to her, comfort her to sleep while she's lying in her crib" alternative, and now she does go to bed fairly easily most nights.

Squeaky had a couple icky colds when she was small because -- another guilt trigger -- she went to a sitter's where her kids were CONSTANTLY sick. Even breastfeeding doesn't produce the antibodies unless *mom* gets the cold first, so squeaky and I were on a "delayed production" schedule on that front. And squeaky HATED the boogarsucker. HATE. ED.

Instead, we'd relax in the bathroom and I'd let her nurse while the hot shower steamed the room -- the boob isn't the integral part here, but allowing her to get her nose to clear itself while she's drinking really helps. The steam softens everything a lot gentler than saline spray. And the room would get so warm and snuggly, and anything down in her chest would get steamed open too. It was just a very low-pressure way to help her "open up" and get more comfy. When she was VERY small I'd prop her sideways a bit while she slept, hoping that the mucous would drain to one side, keeping the other side open so she would be breathing better.

Also, letting her sleep on her stomach -- usually on top of me -- seemed to help her "drain" better too. Plus being all snuggly together was a big comfort to both of us.

There are so many "should of"s in motherhood, and most of them are pretty upsetting. But more importantly, there are the "Wow. There it is"s that make everything else a lot less important.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

For comparison -- I breastfed my son until he was a year and a half old, and he STILL got colds and ear infections and colds and more ear infections and tubes in his ears the day before his first birthday because the ear infections were so bad. (And stomach bugs, frequently.)

You've got a happy, intelligent, healthy kid whose immune system is steadily learning how to kill off microbes on its own. You're doing fine with her.