Week 25: July 1-7

Nursing
Still going strong. She gets 5 feedings a day and has for MONTHS, including one "dreamfeed" where we get her up and she stays mostly asleep the whole time.

Friday, however, Madeleine decided to drop the dreamfeed! She ate five times during the day, with her last meal at 6:36pm. Then Matt and I decided to let her sleep and see what happened. She woke up at 7am!! Go baby!

Special Topic: REFLUX... Or Not?
Week 25 started out with a bang, and not a good one. Madeleine has always been a spitter; she often spits up after meals, and neither the volume nor frequency have decreased significantly in the last 4 months. We've gone to the doctor about it and were prescribed zantac, but we didn't really think it was a problem. I've heard that some babies just spit, for no reason, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Well, after her first feeding this morning, Madeleine's spit up was tinged with dark, clumpy blood. My first thought was that it came from me, but I checked and didn't see anything obvious. Then we (by this time I'd called Matt in) thought maybe it was a tooth, but a quick check ruled that out. It concerned me, but I did my best not to panic. I called mom, and she said it was probably nothing. So we continued our morning.

While playing on the floor, however, she kept spitting up with blood, and one particular occurrence contained very liquidy bright red blood, and that sent up HUGE red flags. So I called and made a sick-day appointment with the doctor, then had to wait until 8:30 to talk to someone. I just wanted to see if they thought I should come in or if it was probably nothing. Well, they said definitely come in. I changed the appointment to a little later so that she could get her morning nap.

After her second feeding, her spit was again pink-tinted. Then we went to the appointment. The doctor was awesome. She evaluated Madeleine and everything looked PERFECT, except of course the blood. :) She said Madeleine probably had reflux, and over time it's caused little blood vessels in her esophagus to burst, hence the blood. SO SAD. So she prescribed a treatment and reassured us that Madeleine was and would be fine.

I mentioned the bright red blood, and we were told that if it happened again, two spits in a row, that we'd need to take her to the emergency room. TALK ABOUT A LITTLE BIT OF PANIC!!

But so long as we give her the medicine and watch her, she should be fine soon. Madeleine's 6-month appointment is next week, so they'll re-evaluate her then.

What's amazing is that Madeleine didn't seem to be in any distress through the whole thing. She was her usual, albeit still slightly tired, sweet self this morning. I really do hope that the reflux issue is related to her poor napping, because it would be AWESOME to get that fixed and back on track. I don't want to get my hopes up, but after giving her the medicine, she's been napping now for an hour and 15 minutes!!

Update: Long story short, it looks like I just had a crack on my feeding apparatus and that Madeleine took in a good bit of blood. I'll know more tomorrow when I talk to the doctor.

But the story didn't end with her great nap. After she woke up, I fed her as usual. When I changed her diaper, her poop was black. Well, I knew that wasn't normal, so I didn't panic and called the doctor. They called back and asked some questions, then said they'd call back again. When they did, I was instructed to go to Scottish Rite, the children's hospital on the north end of Atlanta. FREAK OUT.

Matt wasn't home, and I tried getting in touch with him for 20 minutes before abandoning that. Then I called Amanda, who lives pretty close, and asked if she would mind taking us to the hospital. She didn't, so she came over and we headed that way. 3 hours, an x-ray, and a urinary catheter later, she is totally fine. A nurse looked at ME and there was a tiny red spot that was NOT there this morning when I checked myself. URGH. Might have been able to avoid all of this running around (and the hospital bill-yikes!) if it had been there.

The important things from today are: she is okay! We have great friends. I didn't panic.

The doctor will be calling tomorrow to find out about the hospital visit, so I plan to ask if she still needs to be on the reflux medication. The two types of blood that she spit up this morning have me unsure of what to do.

SUPER THANKS to Amanda and Manning, who made Madeleine laugh quite a few times during our adventure!

Sleeping
I am once again at a loss and extremely frustrated. Madeleine STILL isn't sleeping well. Her naps are very inconsistent, and it impacts her entire disposition. The more I read about naps, the more frustrated I get. It seems like such an exact science, yet also something of an art. There's timing, over/under stimulation, environment... just to name a few.

Basically, I feel totally lost and unsure of myself at every turn. I'm getting some help from some moms online, who are looking over everything with me in an attempt to figure out what we should do. Totally awesome!

Solids/Food
TWO WEEKS until we start solids! To make things fun, we're going to get a high chair this week. We were given this cool hook-on chair by Ryan, but it's got a cloth cover and solids are messy, especially at first. We'll still use it, but not right away. So we are going to get THIS cool high chair from Ikea for a mere $20. It is RED and made of WIN! Can't wait!!


UPDATE: We went to Ikea, and they were oversold on the highchair. I called, and they have no expected delivery date. So I called the one in Tampa, and same deal. We ended up ordering it from their website, and despite the almost $23 shipping (MORE THAN THE HIGH CHAIR!), it is still way cheaper than most high chairs. And to our good fortune, Papa Pete and SuSu bought the high chair for Madeleine! Yay, thank you!

By the book...
According to "Your Baby's First Year, Week by Week," during this week, Madeleine:
1. Tries to move by propelling herself on stomach with legs and steering with arms (well, she's trying to move...)
2. Rotates wrist to turn and manipulate objects (check!)
3. Begins to pass objects from hand to hand (I think she can do this...)
4. May clap (nope...)
5. May raise herself into a crawling position and rock back and forth (no, but she's close. She's gotten on all fours for a brief instant, and she is starting to lift her bum off the floor with her knees. Super exciting!)

New Things
We got a video monitor this week! I NEVER thought I'd want one, much less need one. But we've become increasingly curious about what goes on at the 45-minute mark, and with her naps going down in average, we thought it might be useful. And I love it. I can stare at her sleeping little form ALL I WANT!!

After feeding her Wednesday night, Matt put her in her crib. She seemed asleep. We both rushed to the video monitor... to discover her wide awake, kicking her feet, and lifting her head. She was awake for about 15 minutes afterward. :(

On Saturday, with a few good naps under her belt, Madeleine started shaking her toy keys. She'd throw her arm up and down rapidly and even get her other arm involved. It was very cool to watch!

Toys and Play
She's still focused on a collection of little toys: a crinkly crescent moon, her beads, cool keys, and a small stuffed owl. The moon is her fave.

Over the weekend, we borrowed an exe-saucer from Teda to see if Madeleine would like it. The first two times she was in it, she trembled she was so excited. Of course, she was also very well rested. The last two times, not well rested, she's been like, "oh, okay. If I must." *shrugs* Just gotta get that sleep going!

Misc
She is super ridiculously curious. About everything. Nothing is safe anymore, and it's awesome. We were at a store recently, and Matt was carrying her. He said it was funny to be walking down an aisle and just see her arm shoot out toward something that caught her eye.

She wants to be mobile in a BAD WAY. I love it. She wants to sit all the time. She's tried going from a sit to a crawl but doesn't have the mechanics down yet. She is so cool!

We're approaching Wonder Week 26. Yikes. Apparently it messes with their disposition, sleep, and appetite. Fun, huh? Plus there's the growth spurt that happens around this age too.

Madeleine's 6 month check-up is tomorrow. WEEE! Weight and height and centiles, oh my! :D (Guess those will go up next week!)

Slideshow

Video of the week!