Modern medicine fails

As per my previous posts, Ali has been battling a horrible diaper rash pretty much since birth. We have gone to the doctor twice and were applying an anti-fungal cream as well a steroid ointment. The rash would clear up for a day and then come back worse than before. She was screaming anytime she had to poop and her bum was so red and raw that I hated having to wipe her clean as she would always cry.

Fed up and frustrated, I turned to the internet for other ideas. At this point I had tried changing diaper, wipes, all different kinds of diaper rash cream and left her naked for days on end... Nothing worked. The internet was filled with people battling the same thing but no one seemed to have the magic cure.

I had also noticed she had become quite acidic. Her stools had an odd odor to them. I decided to call the naturopath in town to see what they would suggest. Apparently the "acid" problem was in fact caused by anti-fungal creams. The very thing the doctor told me to use was causing a Dr worse issue.

The owner of the natural store in town gave me a sample of a cream called mayan magic and a tub of acidophilis yogurt. I was to rub the yogurt on her butt every diaper change throughout the day and then apply the mayan magic at night. She told me I'd see a change pretty much immediately.

I was skeptical but not in a position to argue so I tried it. The next morning, literally, her butt was about 75% better. I stuck with it and she had a normal looking bum by day 2. I didn't want to get to excited because we have had this false hope before, but now its been an entire week and she hasn't had one single trace of a rash. The acid in her poop is gone. She no longer screams when going to the bathroom or when I wipe her clean.

I am now a believer that maybe modern medicine isn't always the answer. I'll be sticking with this mayan magic cream for as long as she is in diapers and recommending it to anyone with a diaper rash problem!

Growing Girl!

Ali had her 2 month check-in with the doctor today. She weighed in at 11 lbs 1 oz and measured out to 23 inches long. That makes her in the 50th percentile for both, perfectly average.

It was also the day she got her first needles. She was less than impressed. With the first one, she let out a little cry, but the second one caused a much louder wail. I was able to pick her up immediately after and she stopped crying as quickly as she began. By the time I was buckling her into her car seat she was smiling at the funny faces I was making and by the time we hit the car she was fast asleep. What a trooper!

Mommy's second month

I have to admit that the first month had me kind of worried. I thought if she continued on eating every 2 hours at night that I was going to crumble out of sleep deprivation, but can happily report that now that she has a fairly predictable schedule, the transition into motherhood has become much easier. Halfway through this past month Ali began sleeping for 4-5 hour stretches at night, which meant my 3 hours of sleep total for the night went up to about 6 hours. What a difference it makes! I finally was about to feel like a person again instead of a walking zombie. They say a new mother loses 800 hours of sleep over the course of a year and I believe it. Gone are the days of sleeping for 12 hours, but its surprising how you just get used to functioning on less sleep.

This month was also much better for me because the pain from the delivery had subsided and Ali and I worked hard at perfecting our breast feeding technique, so now its second nature. There's no more worrying that she isn't latching correctly, or that she isn't eating enough. She has clear cues for when she's hungry and clear cues for when she's full. Learning her cues has really helped prevent any spitting up from over filling her tummy and therefore saved me a lot of laundry!

The pregnancy hormones are starting to settle down, so the endless emotional ups and downs have begun to settle as well. The draw back to the drop in hormones is the hair loss and the acne. I had such amazing skin and hair while I was pregnant and I had my fingers crossed that it would stay that way, but about 2 weeks ago I noticed a few strands of hair clinging to my shirts and a few red bumps popping up along my jaw line. It should level out in a few weeks when the hormones reach a consistent level again.

The other major change I wasn't expecting was the bottomless pit otherwise known as my stomach. I barely wanted to eat while I was pregnant, but now that I'm breast feeding I am constantly hungry. I've chatted with a few other breast feeding moms and they said the same thing, that they eat far more now then when they were pregnant. I guess its natures way of making sure you have energy to keep producing enough milk.

I feel like everything in my life is starting to mesh well again. Because we have developed a good routine I feel I can manage my time much better now. I have plenty of time to spend with Ali and attend to her needs, as well as plenty of time to keep up on the household chores like laundry, dishes and making dinner every night. Given that she is asleep every night by 8pm, it also allows Rob and I to connect and enjoy each others company without worrying about the baby. Even Jake is reaping the benefits. He knows that as soon as Ali goes to bed its his turn for a good 45 min wrestle or tug of war or game of fetch.

All in all, the second month has been a blast. Ali has developed more personality and is interested in a range of toys and songs and best of all, walking into her room at 6am I know ill be greeted with an ear to ear smile and that makes getting up early totally worth it!

2 months old already!

Where did the time go? Its been 8 weeks since my little bundle of joy made her way into our lives and I can't believe how much she has changed already. She is a completely different baby than the helpless sleepy one I brought home from the hospital. She has personality now. She smiles, coos and gurgles, watches and takes swipes at hanging toys and loves to study the faces of people holding her. Every day it seems she develops some new skill or personality trait.

The first real smiles were a huge deal. As I previously posted it almost brought me to tears when I walked in the room and she recognized me and smiled at my presence. It made all those sleepless nights becomes a distant memory. Now, a few weeks from that very first smile, she smiles non-stop. Rob and I sing silly little songs to her and she smiles so much it basically lights up the room. Her current favourite is "Toe Knee Chest Nut" which is an action song and it never fails to make her smiles and even give a little giggle at the end.

Her vision has improved even further, along with her hearing. The other day we were visiting her grandparents and while grandpa was holding her I walked from one side of the room to the other while talking and she tracked me the entire way. She has definitely become some what of a mama's girl, which is to be expected since she is with me for the majority of the day.

Sleeping wise I feel we are pretty lucky. From early on, we created a bedtime routine with starts with a bath, then a story with daddy, and a last feed, then she gets placed in her crib to fall asleep at 7:30pm. I'm not of the "cry it out" method, so if she were to cry I would pick her up, calm her down, then place her back in her bed, but honestly that has never been an issue. At 7:30pm, when she is placed in her crib with her soother, she looks around for a few mins, or stares at her mobile and then falls asleep. No muss, no fuss. Occasionally she might spit out her soother before she's truly asleep and sqwirm around until I put it back in, but then falls right back asleep. Once she is out, the soother falls out and she stays asleep for a good 5-6 hours before she wakes to nurse. Then she eats, goes right back to sleep for another 4-5 hours. Its been nice to finally get some sleep myself. Those first few weeks I felt like I never caught a wink of sleep.

Due to how well she is sleeping at night, she is awake and alert for much longer periods of time during the day now. This has been great because we've been able to get out and enjoy the world. She has really taken a liking to going swimming and we try to get to nursery swim at the local pool once or twice a week. We've also joined a baby massage class on Tuesdays for the month of April and so far she loves the rub downs. They teach silly little songs to go along with the different body parts and she just smiles away whenever I sing them.

She has also grown much more than I expected. When I got her weighed at 6 weeks she had already gained 3 lbs and grown 2 inches. She has a very long torso, which has caused her to outgrow most of her newborn and 3 month onesies already. She's still in newborn and 0-3 pants because she has average length legs and a skinny waist, but is into 6 month shirts and sleepers to accommodate her torso length. She gets weighed in again this coming Wednesday and I can't wait to see how much more she has grown. She is definitely a healthy and happy girl.

Unfortunately we are still battling the yeast rash. She's been back to the doctor and we are continuing with the prescription creams but it still hasn't completely gone away. Now I am changing things in my diet to see if that helps her clear up. Its been over 7 weeks now and I am beyond frustrated with it. The doctor will be re-examining it at her appointment on Wednesday and hopefully he has some other solution.

Milestone wise, most recently she has decided she wants to try and sit up. She has had an extremely strong neck right from birth and has been holding her head up at my shoulder for weeks now. The other day when I had her leaning on the breast feeding pillow she just decided she was going to try and sit right up. She held it for a few seconds before laying back down and that caused Rob and I to look at each other and ask "what just happened". We thought we were months away from her sitting up, but she might just surprise us. She also has incredibly strong legs and constantly wants to stand up while we hold onto her waist or when we hold her against our body she uses whatever ledge she can find to push herself into a standing position. I really wouldn't be surprised if she skips crawling all together and goes straight to walking before we know it!

5 weeks old

6 weeks old

7 weeks old

8 weeks old