Thursday, April 3, 2008

Rough morning (a poo story)

Well, as you are probably aware, I am doing shift work for a while. This week I am on eves which means I miss Miss C's dinner, bath time and bed time. I get home around midnight. Last night Miss C woke up at 3am or so. Ok, no problem. This hasn't happened in a while, she might be hungry. She has taken to being more independent lately so she chooses either to take a bottle or not to but won't touch it if you try to get her to. Yep, loads of fun. This hasn't been a huge issue lately but...
Well, I got her fed and back to sleep but then she woke up practically screaming at 330. I ran upstairs, barely awake and dying for sleep, and changed her. I figured that she had a wet butt and all that. When I got there, she was on her tummy, hands and knees really, crying her eyes out. Bad dream? Maybe. Got the diaper changed and found a neat little poo package in there. Ok, that was the issue, no problem. By this time, DH came up to help and sent me back to bed while he got Miss C back to sleep.
We thought all was well. She woke up at her normal 6am wake up time and life was grand until she started to grunt and groan (her normal poo faces and sounds). I grunted with her and then she started to cry and scream. Oh crap! Did I make her cry?!! DH mentioned a little while later that she had done something similar lately and that she really hadn't pooped much... Hmm...
I started to think about all of the discussions Alphagal and Poobou have included me in on with their girls and this potentially potent issue. The crying abated and I thought, ok, time to take some action. Around 9 I decided to help out and used (ugh!) a lubed q-tip. I then put Miss C in her crib and we played peek a boo. DH mentioned that she seems to poo better in there maybe because the mattress is soft so I thought I would give it a shot.
Yep, loads of fun. It took about 10 minutes but then Miss C got red in the face, started bearing down, grunting and crying. It was terrible. I remembered something Poobou wrote and decided to let gravity help. I picked up Miss C and held her to my chest, her head on my shoulder. We then sat in her glider and I let her use my legs to brace her little feet on. She cried and screamed and all I could do was rub her back and tell her we were getting it all out. By the time 3o minutes had elapsed, I knew we were successful. Sometime during all of this, I managed to get her little pants off and unsnap her onesie. Lucky me.
I braced myself for more tears as I laid her down on her changing pad. Low and behold a nearly 6 inch gift awaited me (grown up size and all, poor baby!) and Miss C was exhausted.
So, how was your morning?

6 comments:

Cat said...

Ouch! Well, I bet she felt a LOT better after that. Time to add fig or prune muffins to the snack routine?

LizardBreath said...

Maybe. I wonder if her having grapes might have caused the problem. She still hasn't returned to normal yet so I am still worried...

Anonymous said...

Oh, the poor baby!! And poor you too. I've been there, it's horrible when they're in pain and you can't really do anything to comfort them. (I've also done the lubed q-tip before. And ugh, I think it was more traumatic for me than her.)

Grapes wouldn't have made her constipated, it would've been the other way around. I know I mentioned it before, but you might want to give her a few ounces of juice every couple of days or so, just to keep things moving along smoothly. Prune juice seemed to cause C-baby a lot of pain - tons of painful gas before the poop ever made an appearance. (Like, her tummy was distended, "dear God, do I call 911 in case she has a bowel obstruction" kind of gas. Scary.) But pear juice is like the magic constipation cure-all for her. All kids are different, of course. Could be something else entirely that fixes the problem for her. But it might be worth a shot if you're still worried.

LizardBreath said...

I think I might have to try pear juice after all. I gave it some thought and the post Alpha had about the diarhea cure made me wonder if Miss C wasn't getting a little too much rice in her diet. We started her on the stage 3 foods but she is still getting rice. So the plan for now is to cut out the rice cereal and add pear juice on occasion. I just hope Miss C gets completely back to normal soon. I hate to see her suffer!

Cat said...

E-baby did best on baby oatmeal when everything was working properly, and rice was best to help stop diarrhea (love the BRAT diet). You might switch to oatmeal. She still needs some kind of cereal for the iron it provides-- even though formula has iron, it also has calcium, which blocks iron absorption. Baby cereal has a digestable iron. There are lots of others besides of rice and oatmeal, as well.

Hey, you could mix pear juice and baby cereal! Yum.

LizardBreath said...

Miss C has been eating her oatmeal instead of the rice since i realized that I had switched from 2 oatmeals and 1 rice to 1 oatmeal and 2 rices a day. I think that might have helped cause the problem. DH thinks the thicker foods might have helped too. We are trying just about anything. She is back to her "normal" self but we want to make sure she stays that way! Thanks for the suggestions!