Three Month Pictures

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Back to Work

Today is St. Patricks Day. It's also the day that Mom goes backto work.
Katen started going to daycare for a few hours in the afternoons last week Wednesday. This gave mom some time to get things done around the house, run errands, and just have some alone time.

Today went better than expected though. There were no tears when I dropped Katen off and work kept me busy through the whole day so there wan't too much time to be upset. Daddy was super smart and bought Mommy a digital picture frame for Valentines Day (Daddy is AWESOME at finding just the right gifts!) so that helped to have 60 pictures nearby to look at. :)

My concern with daycare at this point is that Katen is used to me picking her up when she cries. The daycare ladies each have 4 children to watch so Katen many times has to cry and cry until they're free. This KILLS me. I've done a lot of reading and have adopted the reasoning that a child should be attended to when they cry. They cry for a reason and need to feel secure that you're going to come when they need you. By attending to their needs and fostering their feeling of safety it creates a more confident and secure child. I hope that by sending Katen to daycare, they don't ruin that sense of security that I've worked so hard to crate.

It's bedtime

It's finally time to start a bedtime routine. After three mos of working through our early evening cranky time (aka screaming for three hours each night) I've figured out that Katen is getting sleepy consistently around 7pm. With that consistency I think we can probably be successful in starting a routine to calm her and get her ready for a good sleep.

Katen has been waking about every two to three hours at night still but every now and then she'll give us a nice longer stretch so we're anxious to see if this routine will help her settle into better sleep patterns.

Our bedtime routine consists of starting a bath at 6:30. Then we lotion up and put on our jammies. After that it's time to put on the swaddle blanket while we sing some songs and after that she takes a bottle and falls asleep for the night.

After just a few nights, this routine has helped tremendously. Katen is able to anticipate the next step in the routine and falls asleep almost immediately. Even better, she's begun sleeping from 7pm to 4:30am! Woohoo!

RSV, Flu, Ear Infection all at the same time - oh my!

Poor sweet Katen. She is so sick. Daddy left town on business yesterday and shortly after, Katen started running a fever. I kept a close eye on it and tried to keep her comfortable. Unfortunately by morning it was still about 101.4 so I called for an appt with the pediatrician. Katen ended up having to endure some of the most awful testing. They pricked her heel for bloot testing, and the the worst was the RSV test. They stick a syringe full of saline up into her nose, flush it all through, and then quickly suck it all back into the syringe. The poor kid probably thought she was drowning. Her little nose was bleeding from it and she cried so hard that she was shaking and had these huge alligator tears. It really broke my heart and I rocked her and held her close during the entire hour it took to get our preliminary results back. The result - RSV and an ear infection. The Dr. says she probably picked it up when she was at the pediatrician's office for her 2 month check up. Great.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory illness in young children. RSV causes infection of the lungs and breathing passages. In adults, it may only produce symptoms of a common cold, such as a stuffy or runny nose, sore throat, mild headache, cough, fever, and a general feeling of being ill. But RSV infections can lead to other more serious illnesses in premature babies and kids with diseases that affect the lungs, heart, or immune system. This is the main virus we were trying our best to stay away from. We'd been so diligent about using Purell and washing our hands, but it wasn't enough.

Unfortunately since RSV is a virus there are no meds to take. We got an antibiotic for the ears and spent the rest of the day rocking in the chair sleeping off and on. Katen wimpered for most of the time she was awake. When Daddy got home from his trip he was surprised to see a sick baby. The following nights were awful. It was especially hard for Katen to breathe at night but we did our best to help her out. Many times each night we'd have to run hot water in the bathroom to create steam in order for her to catch a breath. So not fun.

The day after the RSV and ear infection diagnosis we got a follow up call to let us know that the Influenza test restults came back and she tested positive for Influenza B as well. Poor, poor Katen.