Back to normal, back to daycare

Today is the start of the first full week of daycare for Tristan. At least I hope it will be. We stopped giving him antibiotics for his pink eye on Saturday. That pretty much means we are back to normal and life goes on for all of us. Right? Sometimes, we can't help but think there is something else disturbing him because he is quite a bit of trouble these days. He seems easily agitated and is becoming picky at the dinner table again. Are his molars coming out? I don't feel anything at the back of his gums at the moment. He has a small tooth coming out in the front but it can't be that. Maybe this is all normal because he is getting used to daycare where he has all the freedom in the world and then he comes home and we have all these boundaries. He is venturing into places at home where he is not suppose to and he knows it too. Sometimes when we yell at him and say no, he slowly drops himself to the ground and rolls over like he is going to sleep. What is up with that? Maybe he saw someone at daycare do it and is now imitating that person. So bizarre!

The past week with Tristan at home made me appreciate having daycare even more. Sure he gets sick more and he is allowed to get away with throwing food at daycare etc. but overall, daycare is a blessing for us, especially for me. Tristan is such a monkey and I am getting tired of running after him and saying no. The problem is our place is just not baby proof enough. There are so many things that are dangerous like the stairs, fireplace, sharp objects in the kitchen drawers, and dirty places we don't like him to touch or step on like the hallway, window sill etc. There are just too many restrictions and it sometimes feels like a high-paced full time job just keeping him away from all of these things. We get frustrated and so does he.

Besides running after my little monkey last week, we did get to enjoy some quality time together. We read together, sang, danced, played with his toys, and went for walks. We also got the chance to practice more sign language and learn a few new ones as well. We got to enjoy lots of potty time too. Tristan is really getting used to seeing it and wanting to sit on it, even if it's just for a minute. The goal right now is not to actually train him but to get him familiar with being on the potty and thinking it's fun to sit on one. When I pee, I have him sit on it right across from me. He usually doesn't stay sitting though. He would rather stand by me or throw things in the bathtub. Go figure! The other good thing is that he is now often telling us his diaper is dirty after he poos. A few times he even told us before he went and maybe when he was peeing but we're not totally sure about the pee part. It's a good sign and we are definitely headed towards the right direction :)

Baby has a fever and is not himself today

Today is definitely an off day for the baby. Even when he experienced his first cold, he was still playing and getting himself into trouble. He woke up with a fever this morning and went to bed tonight with a fever as well. I started to give him Tylenol in the late morning. For most of the day, he has been very mellow and sleepy. He barely ate anything for lunch but lucky he did eat at dinner.

He normally cat naps twice a day for about 15-20 minutes each time but today, he slept on and off starting from 1PM. He slept for maybe 30 minutes and then I tried to give him a snack. When he refused, I just let him play in his highchair but to my surprise, he was falling asleep! I didn't keep track but he must have slept at least 30 minutes in the highchair. After that, I let him out to play but he would touch a few things and then just lay on the ground. He didn't sleep at first but then he dozed off again! I would have thought he would be even more cranky and fussy if he didn't feel well. Seeing him all mellow and not wanting to do anything worries me even more. Throughout the day, he had a temperature of around 38.5 C. I took his temperature under his armpit. It's definitely a fever so if this continues for more than 48 hours, I'll go to the walk-in clinic.

Whenever the baby is not well, I always try to figure out what happened. Jean-Louis and I have recently acquired itchy throats and are coughing so it could be us. Actually, Jean-Louis has been sort of coughing for about a week now. When we went to daycare last Friday, I noticed one of the staff members were sick and a couple of kids were coughing. We were not in a lot of contact with any of them but it's possible we caught something just being in the room. My nephew was coughing a lot and we had dinner with him and his family on Sunday. Or maybe I under dressed the baby at home? He was fine yesterday and we have been in the house for 48 hours. I find it peculiar that we are all feeling a bit sick because we all had our flu shots. Tristan had his shots about two weeks ago. None of what we have or what he has should be the common cold. Of course, there are still risks of getting sick even with the seasonal flu shot. Maybe we would all be a lot worst if we didn't get vaccinations.

Could it be teething? No, it can't be. He is teething but he was fine all the past times and we didn't even give him Tylenol at all. Ok, I'm going to stop guessing. Hopefully, things will be more or less back to normal tomorrow. Too bad I'm not breastfeeding anymore. He certainly could use my antibodies now.

Weaning the baby from breastmilk

For the past 3 days, I eliminated my afternoon feeding and gave Tristan a bit more formula milk and solid food. The thought of weaning still makes me sad but lately having to endure another cold without proper medication, a breast yeast infection, and now teeth clamping on my nipples, I actually think weaning would be great about now. I am down to just two feedings per day.

Honestly, I did not anticipate all the teeth clamping and biting. When Tristan's bottom teeth came out, he didn't bite me while I fed him and there was no problem at all. Now with his razor sharp big teeth coming out at the top, he can't help but clamp down while sucking. Apparently, he did it in the past without me knowing. I noticed some scars not too long ago. However, now his teeth is really starting to stick out and it hurts like hell when he clamps down! And at the same spot over and over - ouch! I'm losing some serious skin and possibly flush, I don't know. I actually tried to feed him at a different angle today but it wasn't effective. Grrr!

I remember a friend telling me that if the baby bites during breastfeeding, remove him, tell him, and try again. This is how you teach him not to bite on Mommy while feeding. My problem is that I didn't do that to start with so if I start now, he would be clueless. He has been feeding like this for a long time and he probably thinks he is doing everything just right. Actually, there were a few times I had to remove him since it hurt so much. I just try to re-latch him on in a slightly different angle. Now, he doesn't do it all the time because sometimes it doesn't hurt at all. The question is how do I explain that to him? When I remove him too often, he gets annoyed and he doesn't even want to drink. Yeah, these days it has been fairly hard to feed him as is.

Things I meant to report

I have a random list of things I meant to say but it didn't make sense to create blog posts for each of them. I'm just going to list them below. In other words, this is the lazy me trying to skip blog posts :)

• Tristan started clapping his hands this past week.
• Tristan started teething at the top of his mouth 1 or 2 weeks ago. He's going to look like a bunny soon.
• We confirmed a few days ago that Tristan is allergic to eggplant. We suspected it before and the same thing happened this time when we fed him some. His chin turned red almost instantly after he ate it. Hopefully, he will grow out of it. Neither of us have any food allergies so we think it is just bizarre that he would.
  
• A few days ago, I caught a cold. It's the third time since mid August!
• A few days ago, I started to treat myself for another breast yeast infection. Ugh.
  
• A few days ago, I discovered bloody marks on my nipple so Tristan has definitely been biting me!
  
• I was contacted about a job recently that I didn't apply for. That is always a good thing :)
• Less than a week ago, I discovered that there is a Jacadi in Vancouver! I know!!!
• In the past week or so, I wait listed Tristan in 2 more nearby daycares and started to look into nanny sharing and babysitting. No leads so far but honestly, I haven't put a lot of time into it yet :(
  
• Just yesterday, Tristan started to drag the exersaucer across the room of the office. He's also playing with wires and plugs a lot more now. And he loves to open drawers and cupboards!
  
• Recently, Tristan hates being strapped in the highchair for feeding. This is a first.
• The past two days, I have started to feed Tristan a bit more formula milk. So far he is drinking everything.
• Last but not least, Tristan is now sleeping from 9:30PM to 7 or 7:30AM. This has been going on for about 2 weeks now (knock on wood). As a result, his naps are a bit shorter during the day. It's great news for me since I get to sleep in a bit more but at the same time, I can't do much during the day since he is up most of the time. Oh well - you can't win them all :)
  

Progress on standing and sleeping

Tristan is more or less back to his old sleeping routine. It was a frustrating week since he would constantly stand or sit in his crib. For some time, he was visibly scared to let go after standing up and holding onto the bars. That was last week. This week we gave him plenty of practice getting up and down on his own on various objects in the house. He bumped himself a few times here and there and is still healing from a bruise on his cheek. It is hard to let him hurt himself but we are trying our best to be less protective of him in order for him to progress in his motor skills.

Because he is able to confidently get back down and lie down, he can put himself to sleep again. We don't have to worry as much either since he doesn't fall as much or slam his face on the bars of the crib. Now when he is awake though, he is always standing up holding the bars and crying :)

We aren't in the clear yet since it still takes him a bit longer to sleep now and some times we still find ourselves aborting the nap altogether. We had to do that this morning actually. We tried putting him down again for his nap an hour later and by this time he was super tired and fell asleep within 2 minutes. Yeah, getting a baby to sleep, even a trained sleeper, is difficult. Luckily, things are looking brighter and I actually never had to give Tristan Tylenol. I kept resisting and now I don't think we need it. His second tooth is still coming out and he uses this teeth a bit to bite food. I noticed that yesterday when I gave him some of my watermelon.

New developmental changes leads to sleeping problems

Since Tristan has learned to crawl and stand up last week, it has been a struggle to get him to lie down and go to sleep. He cries more and does not sleep as long anymore. As a result, he is a cranky baby most of the day. For the first time in at least 2 months, he woke up at 4:30AM last night and would not sleep again. We had to throw everything at him, including nursing, just so he would sleep another 30 minutes to a hour. All the sleep problems are compounded by the fact that he is teething too of course. Maybe I will give in and just give him some Tylenol. I'm starting to lose my patience :(

We're going to have to start to sleep train him again and let him cry even more, even if he stands while doing it. I'm so not looking forward to it. We already let him cry but not until he passes out. We usually abort after around 30 minutes of crying. In the past, it would normally just take him 2-3 minutes to fall asleep on his own. I'm stressing out because he is very clingy when he is tired. When will this phase pass?

Tristan is teething!

Jean-Louis noticed a small white tooth coming out at the bottom of his gums this weekend. Today, it is clearly visible. He's a big crank today too so I can't stop thinking about the pain he might be feeling as a result of teething.

We felt his gums awhile ago and didn't feel anything and we haven't bothered since. We're not sure exactly when his first teeth started to poke out. Now, that I think about it the last 2 weeks, Tristan has been showing a few signs of teething. Well, he has been drooling and gnawing on stuff for months but he's been doing it more lately. One and a half weeks ago, Jean-Louis got sick and I was scared that he would give his sickness to Tristan and I. When Tristan had a coarse voice, was extra fussy, had a hot temperature and a bit of diarrhea, I thought he was sick. We were measuring his temperature but it was never to the point of a fever. I guess you can say he had a slight fever but now he is better. At the time, I was starting to feel a bit sick myself and had the chills. It turned out I was actually coming down with another breast infection. So we weren't getting sick, but the timing of everything seemed like Jean-Louis passed on his illness to us.

Tristan now has a chin rash. It appeared a day or so ago. He is also sticking his tongue out a lot. What he is doing is actually feeling the tooth with his tongue because he is curious. I find it so interesting that he is such a typical baby. After all, why wouldn't he be? For some reason, I keep thinking he is different sort of like how I think I am different.

I'm not sure whether to give Tristan something to help relieve his pain from teething. The problem is I don't know how much pain he is in or if he is just fussy because he wants attention or is going through separation anxiety. It could be so many things really. Anyway, I would like to resist giving him Tylenol or anything until I know he really needs it. I want him to deal with the pain on his own because this could go on for awhile and I don't want him to be dependent on drugs. Usually, the pain is just hard to deal with for the very first tooth and then for the first molar but every child is different too.

To help Tristan right now, we have lots of teething toys and rings for him. I refrigerate some of them too before giving it to him. I also let him bite on a clean washcloth that I wet under cold water. Now that I know he is teething, I do spend a bit more time comforting him during the day. I'll continue to hold him a bit more until he can get past this hurdle. We are lucky to have sleep trained him before all this happened. Phew!