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Double Whammy

Two things:


1. Colic


2. Mastitis


Let the good times roll!



Now, to be fair, we’ve only had one
bad night of colic so I even dread using the word, lest I call it
into being on a regular basis. But the one night was bad, and sent
us into emergency mode.


Tuesday night Cora cried pretty much nonstop from 9 p.m. until
12:30 a.m. The enraged, screaming, red-faced, unstoppable screaming
that makes you begin to understand people who shake their babies.
After Brian did the lion’s share of holding her while she
screamed, I finally donned the Bjorn – one of the only things
that calmed Maddie during her colicky times – and started the
Screaming Baby Dance around the room. Half an hour later, I nursed
her in the Bjorn and she finally fell into an exhausted sleep,
after which she was a typical newborn for the rest of the night.


Petrified of a repeat performance, Brian and I turned towards the
two most common causes of colic – reflux and breastmilk
allergies – and attacked with a vengeance. We put all of
Maddie’s old reflux protocols into practice: elevating the
head of the bassinet, sleeping her on her left side (buffered by
those baby bumpers to prevent rolling onto her stomach), feeding
her only in a vertical hold, and keeping her upright 30 minutes
after each feeding. The last is the worst, by far; having to get up
5 times a night to nurse her, then tack on an extra half hour of
wakefulness to hold her upright really hurts. It means you climb
back into bed about half an hour before she’s ready to eat
again, while she’s snoozed comfortably in your arms the whole
time.


My guess is that it was bad gas or reflux, but just to be safe I
cut dairy out of my diet to see if that helped. Dairy’s the
most common breastmilk allergy in newborns so it’s a great
place to start, but boy is life hard without dairy. It’s in
everything! Bread, cookies, some pastas, all my Luna bars –
you name it, milk protein is there. I’m really hoping
it’s not dairy, but will have to wait to find out since milk
proteins take TWO WEEKS to leave the mother’s body.


So far we’ve only had that one night, and I’m hoping it
was the broccoli I ate the day before and not anything more
serious. We’ll find out.


On to fun thing number two – Mastitis.


Waking up yesterday with a fever, chills, and feeling achy all over
– like I had the flu – I knew something was up. As my
right breast became sore and then sprouted a lovely red patch, I
confirmed my suspicions in a nursing book – mastitis. A quick
call to the doctor and one prescription later, and I feel much
better already. Hopefully I caught it quickly enough that
it’s fairly easy to kick and won’t get worse.


As you can see, fun times here. Please, God, let it not be a dairy
allergy, because I really really need my chocolate chip cookies
again.

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