Barfing for The First Time in a Long Time

Sebby hasn't been throwing up in a long time. But this morning at 4:30am while I was feeding him, he barfed everything out! The only thing different is the nipple. I changed to use the silicon nipple. He took forever to suck. We probably use that nipple once or twice a day, but we had never seen him barfing because of that. Perhaps he had difficulty in sucking the milk out, and perhaps he sucked so hard that the nipple touched the back of his throat to cause him to throw up.

Luckily we have a sofa seat cover or else it would be a mess since we chose not to have a leather sofa.

Tomorrow, he's due for the 4 month immunization; another episode of pain and suffering.

Look what I can do now

Look at me, I'm holding my head up all by myself.







Yummy, my fingers taste sooo good.
Look at me, I'm multitasking; I can hold the rings with one hand and suck my fingers on the other.









What ya looking at?








It's ticklish! What else can I do but giggle?




Look at me, I can turn my head now.

Pictures in the past couple of weeks

Iphone with grandparents (coo caa)









Reading a book















I scratched my face again at my grandparents place on 12/23, after hospital stayed. See, no one cut my nails.









I'm almost 4 months and I'm wearing size 6 now.

3 1/2 months old

Negative Blood Culture result

The pathologist at the hospital has been growing culture on the petri dish for the past 5 days to see if there any unusual growing under the microscope. I'm glad we did a CBC, and urine test during the hospital stay to checkup for the baby and for the parent(s) piece of mind. As for the doctor, he just let us stay over night just to see how's the baby is doing. Since he's active and eating and pooping and peeing, and so he let us go home or else we would have stay in the hospital for number of days just to see the results, which isn't necessary or else we would have been staying in the hospital until now. When we stayed at the hospital, every time we or the nurses changed his diapers, they collected the dirty diapers just to keep track and how many ounces he had eaten, which was 5oz. The doctor was concerned that baby might have ureteric reflux or some other unusual kidney problems, which he didn't and he only had UTI instead. Perhaps he just needs more personal hygiene. Perhaps we just need to change his diapers more often. But he has dry skin issue and we can't bathe him as often as we wanted to. Once the dry skin issue is resolved, we'll bathe him more often pay more attention to his peepee.

Mustela Products

We are trying Mustela products on Sebby's skin and it actually work! I guess he really has sensitive and dry skin. We's just bought Stelatopia Moisturizing Cream for his dry/eczema prone skin and cradle cap shampoo for this cradle cap issue. As for diaper rash, Sebby doesn't have yet, at least not yet. We'll deal it when it happens.


eczema skin-Flare ups

Before moisturizer cream












After Moisturizer Cream

Circumcision decision revisit?

Since he's out of the hospital, circumcision has been the top topic. It might slightly reduce the risk of getting UTI, but is it worth the 6% complication risk?

The American Medical Association defines “non-therapeutic” circumcision as the non-religious, non-ritualistic, not medically necessary, elective circumcision of male newborns. It states that medical associations in the US, Australia, and Canada do not recommend the routine non-therapeutic circumcision of newborns.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (1999) felt that there was insufficient data to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.

Unless circumcision is medically necessary, I strongly oppose circumcision for the following reasons:
1. Circumcision doesn't mean no UTI. Circumcised boys get UTI, too.
2. You have to keep it clean anyway!
3. It's inhumane!

I actually shed some tears by watching the circumcision procedure on youtube. The pain the baby has to go through is tremendous! Just watch and listen! To all parents out there, if you can't stand watching this video, don't do this to your son!

Part 1:

Part2:

Out of The Hospital!

Sebastian was discharged late last night after the doc made his rounds. Although there wasn't a lot of bacteria found in the urine, and fever came down to normal after taking antibiotics. The doc believed that it could be an UTI.

Now, we are supposed to give him the antibiotics every 12 hours for the next 10 days. At the same time, he's having a very loose stool. Diarrhea, perhaps? I am not sure. It could be related to the antibiotics he's taking.

There are still tons of pictures we like to upload, but haven't found a time for it.

Hospitalized

The fever started on Wednesday didn't really go away. It came down for several hours, and it came right back. We tried not to give him Tylenol too much. On Sunday (yesterday), we had to give him twice. We gave him a bath yesterday, and the rectal temperature went down to 100.0F, but it slowly got back up with above 102.0F.

Going to ER is not an option since his temperature is not above 104F or 105F. They would just kick him out after lowering his temperature by taking Tylenol anyway. Luckily the doctor didn't honor Martin Luther King Jr. today or else we would have to waited another day.

Tien brought him to see the doc this morning. The doc admitted him to the O'Connor hospital for a more thorough check up. Sebastian had a blood test at the hospital. When I went to the hospital in the evening. Tien said that Sebastian's temperature has been hovering above 102.0F. The doc came in, and he didn't see anything unusual in the blood test report except for the common low red blood cell count, which is normal for newborns. He suspected it's urinary track infection (UTI). We won't know until tomorrow or the day after. Tien is staying over tonight. If it's not UTI, he might need to see some specialist.

At times like this, I usually give up my atheist identity. I am praying to God in Christianity, Buddha in Buddhism, Allah in Muslim, or whatever sacred figure in your religion to wish him the best of luck.

Fever!

I haven't been able to blog lately. I promise I will upload the recent pix when I or Tien get to it.

Anyways, Sebastian had a fever tonight. He was crying from 7:30pm to about 9:45pm nonstop!

At 8:30 pm, the rectal temperature was 101.4F
So, we took off his clothes to cool him down and tried to hydrate him by feeding.
At 9:30 pm, the rectal temperature was 101.2F

We decided to call the off hour service. After a series of questions, the registered nurse told me to give him a full drop (0.8 ml) of infant Tylenol every four hours and follow up with his doctor in the morning.

I just put him down in his crib before I started this blog. He's in his short sleeve undershirt and pants. No burrito wrap tonight. I'll check on him every hour. Let's see if his fever comes down at 2:30 am.

Hydrocortisone works

Sebastian's forehead is clearing up. The cheeks are getting better. As bad as it looks, he's probably having the smoothest skin on his face since the first week after birth.

Hydrocortisone works really well. I should have used it instead of Eucerin. Now, only if the areas around his ears, the upper chest, and his limps clear up...


"Look, I can almost put my fist into my mouth!"

Grandpa Took Over!

Without a babysitter, my parents took over the task starting yesterday (Tue). Things have been going well so far in the past 2 days. No barfing yet!

The previous babysitter fed Sebastian every 3 hours. He barfed everyday there probably because he was overfed. I am glad that my dad took over. I was worried that he would hesitate, but to my surprised, he said yes without me begging. :D Compare with the first few weeks when Sebastian arrived, my dad has changed from "he's too small and I can't hold him" to "I just fed him 4 oz."

The only bad thing is that I needed to drop him off before I go to work. From home to dad's and from dad's to work, it takes about 45 min to 1 hour. But it's worth it. Family members are always way better than any so-called experience babysitter.

Sucks that I haven't been able to take any picture with my dad taking care of him.

Left Handed?

He like to lick his left glove. Does that mean he's left handed?

Eucerin Was The Culprit!

Good News: I am now pretty sure Eucerin was the culprit.

Bad News: This is how I discovered it. This morning I applied Eucerin on his upper chest where it was dry. Now, that area has the yellow discharge! (Every baby has Eucerin and they are fine. What's wrong with Sebastian?)

Good News: There's something else to try. Dr. Wenner asked us to use Cetaphil to cleanse him and apply 1% Hydrocortisone. 0.5% Hydrocortisone that I bought earlier is Ok to try too. For the infected area, try to use Polysporin (Not Neosporin as the other on-call doctor told us to use. Actually Dr. Wenner was surprised that the on-call doctor told us to use Neosporin)







On a different note, he's 24.25" tall and 12 lb 5 oz today! Yeah, he's over 2 feet tall!

Uh Oh. First Cold

Sebastian had been barfing all day Friday. Every time he was fed, he barfed! He had baths 3 times yesterday. I had to keep them really short to prevent his dry skin to get worse.

On top of the barfing, he has a runny nose. Every time he coughs, I am afraid that he's gonna barf. Luckily, only once in the morning when I fed him 5 oz.

In the late morning, we started with 2 oz per feeding. In the afternoon, we increased that to 2.5 oz. I might just try 3 oz later tonight.

On a different note, his face did get better. It's not as red as yesterday and not much of the sticky discharge on his face. But it's still very dry. We decided not to use Eucerin on his face today, but continue using it on the rest of his body. Tomorrow, we'll try to apply very little on his face to see if the same thing happens. If nothing happens, that's great. If the same thing happen, I'll take him to the doctor on Monday.

Inflammation? Infection?

After putting Eucerin on Sebastian's face last night, there was a little more redness on his face this morning. His skin was so sensitive that anything touches his face caused irritation. In the evening, I wrapped him up with his Spiderman blanket, it rubbed his cheeks as he tossed and turned. Before you know it, his cheeks were red and wet with sticky liquid.

We called Dr. Wenner's offce, and of course, it transferred to some off hour answering service since it was out of the office hour. Some on-call doctor took more than an hour to call back. I told them Sebastian's condition, and he suggested the followings:

1. Do not use hydrocortizone (which we didn't).
2. Use Neosporin on the affected (wet) area.
3. Sebastian could have some sort of infection
4. See the doctor on Monday, and the doctor might give him some antibiotics.
5. It's ok to use Eucerin on the rest of the body.

Well, I went to Walmart to pick up Neosporin right away. It's something I always wanted to get but too cheap to get it anyway (well.. not like I get cut a lot). Luckily we didn't start off by using the hydrocortizone cream last night. Who knows what could have happened. I don't think we'll use Eucerin on the rest of his body until the doctor gives us an OK for it.

BTW, the baby sistter Co Ngoc said bye bye. Tien and I believe that Sebastian's possibly infected dry skin condition freaked her out. I don't like her rigid feeding schedule of every 3 hours anyway.

Don't Risk It!

I knew I shouldn't fed him before I drove him to the babysitter.

But he was crying at 7:30am. I couldn't bare to hear him cry, so I fed him. He took it well, and he burped! But but but...

As soon as I put him down in the car seat at 8am, and here it came! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARF!

Ugh... I knew I shouldn't have risked it.

Lesson learned.





Right before taking him to the car seat...






No, I didn't take any after picture!

Doc appointment today

It went really well today. All of the questions were answered! No, it wasn't Dr. Wenner. Although he was well recommended, he's so vague, and often leaves questions unanswered.

An usual conversation with Dr. Wenner often goes like this:

Doc: If his eye is red, give it a drop or two of breast milk. If the condition worsens, call the office.

Me thinking: [Wait a minute, according to the bible, you are supposed to show me how to massage the area between the eye and the nose to unblock it!]

Me: I read it on the internet that we can massage the area to make it better.

Doc: Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it. Some moms go crazy on massaging.

Me thinking: [Dude, do I look like somebody who would go crazy on pressing hard on and poking the kid? At least you could tell us our options!]

Today, Dr. Wenner is on vacation, and his partner Dr. Maghnani took over. She said the dry skin on his face part of the cradle cap. The lumps on the back of the head is normal. The heavy breathing is caused by the nose blocked. The teary eye was caused by tear duck obstruction. She even drew a picture of where the tear gland is, where the tear duct is, and how to massage the tear duct. At the end, she summarized what we needed to do:

1. Dry Skin:
Hydrocosrtisone 0.5% cream : Twice a day for 4 to 5 days
Then do Eucerin twice a day
Bath only once a week.

2. Nose Block or Heavy breathing:
Put 1 drop of normal saline in each nostel every 2 to 3 hours.
You can make it at home (1 cup of water + 1/2 tsp of salt)

3. Tear Duct Obstruction:
Clean eye from outside to inside
Nasal massage 8 to 10 strokes per day.

Dr. Wenner would have said see you already. I think I like Dr. Maghnani, but she's not close to home. :(

BTW, he's 12.5 lbs!