One thing new moms dread is vaccines. Besides the debate on whether or not to vaccinate & when to vaccinate (my sister Steph already covered this one pretty good), there's the added dread of baby's reaction. The first time we saw Jax get a shot at his 1mo checkup (they take them away to do that in the hospital) we thought it was kinda funny. Sounds awful, but really he had a delayed reaction which cracked us up. He had been smiling & happy and then after the needle was out he scrunced up his face and screamed. Once we picked him up though he pretty much forgot about it. We gave him some Tylenol when we got home, just one dose, and never thought much about it again. Then after having 5 vaccines (1 oral, 4 shots) at the 2mo checkup, we were in for a rough day & night. He of course screamed with the shots and then he was so fussy the rest of that day, even with the Tylenol.
So this time we went in prepared. I gave him a full dose of Tylenol right before we left (ended up being about 1.5hrs before the vaccines) in hopes of heading off any reaction. This time he did the vaccines at the end of the visit after we'd covered everything else. So as the doc left the room, I put a screaming baby to my breast to nurse. It took about 5 seconds for him to forget about the shots! I didn't really plan that ahead of time, it more hit me on the spot. It happened to be roughly time for him to eat anyway & our doc is very encouraging that we take our time in the exam room. (No rushing you out so they can get another patient in). What a great idea it turned out to be!! All you new breastfeeding mamas out there - that's a tip from me!! Nurse after a vaccine! We left the exam room with a happy smiling baby with two big yellow bandaids on his legs. He even was calm enough to sleep through our lunch at Ragazzis. We kept up the Tylenol doses (doc said every 4hrs) the rest of the night and managed to have a only slightly fussy baby. Nothing like last time and really not noticably different from any other day.
So what about his reflux? We said we really didn't see much difference on the increased dose of Axid (see last post) so we're going to try a new med. Prilosec - the purple pill. I think it's funny (and surprising to me) that all these reflux meds are basically the same for babies as what you see on TV ads. Though it's the same med, for Jax it's a liquid instead of pill and we have to get it at a compounding pharmacy. (For my JoCo ladies - Medicap at 40/42 is a compounding pharmacy that files insurance! I wish I'd known that a couple months ago when I drove to Cary just for that & paid a fortune). I'll pick that up tomorrow & it only has to be taken once a day. He did say that it should be night & day difference. No wondering is he kinda better? He said we should be able to tell a definite difference if the medicine is working. So if it's still a problem in a week, we should call him back. *Fingers crossed*
With all his reflux, he sure is not having any issues whatsoever with weight! He's a whopping 15lbs 13oz which puts him at 70th percentile on weight! Length is 23.5 which is only 12th percentile and head circum. is 25th %. Ouch! So he's short, fat & has a tiny head. I'm sure glad those are cute stats for a baby. Doc showed us this on the charts and assured us it's all normal and no indication of his later size. Then added the gem that a baby's height comes from his parents and he'd likely be somewhere between our heights. (For those of you that don't know both of us, I'm 5ft nothing and Jack is about 6'2" - so it's a big range).
The only other interesting nugget out of his checkup was the discussion on solid food. He said anytime between now & 6mos is find for starting solids (pretty much what we'd read) and to start with cereal & move up from there. They gave us a handout with what to signs to look for indicating readiness, what foods & qty, etc. He also said that it may help with the reflux because it is not as easy to come back up.
So be looking for pics of his first food all over his face soon!
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