Spence,Lisa & Carter: Colic....

I looked forward to my maternity leave when I was pregnant. I thought it would be so relaxing to stay home with my baby and just hang out. I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep but I figured I would sleep when he slept. I thought I would have time to cook spencer dinner before he got home everyday and do some projects around the house that I hadn't had time to get to. Man was I WRONG!! When Carter was born he was such a good baby at the hospital so pleasant and happy during the day and he would sleep a lot. At night I would drop him off at the nursery and sleep 8 hours and then go pick him up, then we brought him home. That is when I found out that his days and nights were switched. He would sleep all day party all night for the first 4 to 5 weeks. For some reason I couldn't sleep during the day so I was up all day and up all night. Carter was eating every hour and a half so there really wasn't much time for me to do anything. Plus my body was still healing from having a baby! So there was no dinner ready when Spencer got home and no project completed.

Then my family came and I had so much help and it was great. A few days before my family left Carter started to cry a lot and was really fussy. He was really gasy as well. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I took him to the doctor and they told me he was colic and had acid reflex and possibly a milk allergy. Great!! Screaming all day plus spit up everywhere and I wasn't suppose to eat any dairy. I thought I was doing great until I remember butter was dairy...whoops...oh and bread has dairy and chips have dairy and just about everything else. GRRR. So all I could eat was meat and french fries but only certain french fries. It was so hard to breastfeed too when your baby is crying whether you are feeding him or not and then he just spits up all the food you just gave him.

When Carter was about 12 weeks we went to CA for a family vacation. I warned my family that Carter was Colic and he would cry all the time. Everyone said it was fine...until we got there and they had to live with it! Then it was he is hungry I'm not feeding him enough, I need to change his diaper, he needs to sleep more, etc. I finally gave in to everyone and started giving Carter formula (soy). It was great I got to actually participate in activities and go places w/o having to worry about breastfeeding and 24 hours later the crying got better. Carter started to cry less and less. Hmmm....maybe he was hungry. So needless to say he is now on formula and is a happy baby (still gassy though).

So many other things happened while I was home with Carter that I wanted to mention:

-jaundice

-rolled off the bed (yes he rolled at 1 week and fell off the bed at about 4 weeks)

-carter's blessing

-herniated belly button

-i discovered what a heat rash was (i've never had it but carter got it)

I am now back to work. Of course once I figured Carter out and he was happy I had to go back to work :( .