Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Week 4 Weight

Well the past week has been a challenge and a half. Kale has been sick for a week now and while things are definitely getting better I think I am about ready to crash. Babies are supposed to sleep for longer and longer stretches as they get older but with this cold we have regressed to a completely random sleeping schedule. Twenty minutes here and twenty minutes there. It is hard to sleep when you can't breathe. We spend time every night in the shower steaming out the boogers as well as filling his nose with saline to soften boogers so we can suck them out. He gets stuffy sleeping next to us but sleeps better on our chests so the boogers can drain out. But we definitely don't sleep as well with him on our chests. Plus it is hard to feed when you can't breathe so breastfeeding has become a major challenge. 3o seconds on, screaming because he can't breathe 2 minutes on, screaming because he can't breathe. We haven't had many solid feeds this week and I was curious what he weight gain would be. I knew he had gained some and I knew he was getting milk (dribble out at times, and a few throw-ups confirmed that) but I was sure it was less than previously. I went to the Health Clinic this morning and weighed him at 12 pounds 13.8 ounces. That is a 7.3 oz gain. Half a pound compared to a whole pound which I guess isn't bad considering how sick he was. I am glad he is healing now; the nasal passages only get stuffy at night. We keep talking about getting a humidifier or a vapourizer but peoples opinions are so varied on which is superiour that we can't decide which type to get so we end up just steaming him during the night. If anyone has their own definitive answer on humidifiers versus vapourizers let us know.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I've heard both work just as well, but they make some neat vaporizers now that you don't need to fill with water so you don't have a scalding hazard. Look on www.onestepahead.com - they have a lot of helpful items that you can't find anywhere else. Don't worry, relax, you are doing just fine... whenever I would start dissolving into a worry-filled funk, I would think about all those tiny struggling babies in the NICU and look at my own baby's healthy chubby face and it made me feel so blessed even if he was miserable from having a cold. I'm sending you a cyber hug. :)