Showing posts with label pacifier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pacifier. Show all posts

Monday, May 16, 2011

They Don't Do Circumcisions at the Hospital Anymore!

Whether you've seen it on TV or remember stories of your own circumcision, you probably think that baby circumcisions are performed at the hospital (brises excepted) before you leave.  Well not anymore.  Insurance companies decided it was cheaper to have them performed in the doctor's office.



Speaking of circumcisions, from the experience with my son, I wished they were still performed at the hospital.  At the time of his circumcision, my wife's milk had come in and the baby was starting to eat/poop/pee fairly regularly.  He was gaining weight and sleeping well.  All of that went out the window after the circumcision.

At that point you have no idea if your baby is hungry, wet, soiled, cold or just feeling the pain from his circumcision.  It will all run together because (it was explained to me by a lactation consultant) the breast milk has pain relieving something something in it.  The baby will suckle at the breast more than usual in an attempt to self medicate.  It would have been way better had this taken place sooner (at the hospital) than later (at the doctor's office).

This was the first time I made it to the  (S) - Sucker in PUBGEMS.  My son Clark wouldn't stop crying, even after being changed, fed and swaddled, even medicated (infant Tylenol).  I was not enamored with the idea of giving him a pacifier so soon.  The books were saying to wait until after the first month to introduce the pacifier.  Screw them.  At wits end, I removed the pacifier, given to us at the hospital, from its packaging and gave it to him.  He took to it like Pooh Bear to honey and slept through the rest of the night, as did I.


        - Clark's Dad

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Quieting a Fussy Baby (Order of Operations)

Do you remember PEMDAS (or Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally) from high school or possibly grade school for you overachievers.  Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction (PEMDAS) is the Order of Operations or the order which to perform the various arithmetic in mathematical expressions [E.g., (9-4)+45/9^6].  Basically, the order to follow in finishing or solving an equations.


I've come up with a very similar concept for addressing crying or fussy babies - PUBGEMS - "Peel Up the Baby Giraffe Embroidered on My Shirt."

  1. (P)oop                      
  2. (U)rine                          
  3. (B)oobie/bottle                 
  4. (G)Gas                                       
  5. (E)nvelop            
  6. (M)otion                              
  7. (S)Sucker                 
1) Poop:  I always smell my baby near the diaper area.  After only 3 days of changing diapers, I can smell a soiled breast-fed baby diaper from 100 ft away.  This step is first because it's the easiest and least intrusive.

2) Urine:  Check for urine or a wet diaper.   My son develops what looks like a baby cod piece when he wets his diaper.  It's kind of funny, but it's pretty good indicator that he needs to be changed. The diapers swells and gets squishy in the front.  This step is second, because it is easy, but slightly more intrusive than the smell test.