There are a lot of differing opinions regarding giving your baby a vitamin D supplement. Only if you live in Alaska--or Canada (love the sweeping geographical verdict)--some say. Just take a vitamin D supplement yourself and it'll pass through your milk to the baby, my friend told me. All a baby needs is a few minutes a day in direct sunlight, claim the old-schoolers. The Baby 411 Blog has a nice post that sums up the vitamin D situation.
Baby R's own pediatrician recommended a vitamin supplement for babies--which I did most dutifully go out and buy. And which, I acknowledge, has been sitting a few squirts short of full at the back of the medicine cabinet for months. Why? Because, at the time, the only supplement seemingly available was a foul-smelling liquid (apparently, it's the vitamin B that's the stinker) multivitamin called Poly-Vi-Sol. You had to give a whole dropper's worth every day, and it was so hard to administer to my little baby because she absolutely hated it: her whole face would scrunch up and turn bright red and she'd repeatedly stick her tongue out, as if to get rid of a bad taste in her mouth--not to mention the fact that she pretty much spit out the majority of what I painstakingly was trying to squirt in.
[Editor's note: Can I interrupt this post to say that my baby is crying her guts out right now and it's extremely hard to think, let alone blog? I've tried everything: fed her, changed her diaper, read her a story, held and cuddled her. Nothing. Hated it all (except the feeding). For any new moms out there, this kind of thing happens and the intense stress it invokes will churn your stomach and shave five years off your lifespan.]
But then I found out that last year, the AAP had upped their recommended vitamin D dose for children from 200 IU to 400 IU. Worried, I did a little online research and thanks to the La Leche League forum, learned about something called Carlson Baby Ddrops. You just need to give baby one drop--applied on the nipple, for example, for breastfeeding moms. Sounds easy and painless, and I'm going to try to find it tomorrow, if the stress of my still-wailing baby doesn't first cause my brain to explode.
Update: I found the drops at a local supermarket and wrote a short review on it.
Showing posts with label Baby 101. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baby 101. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
What Schedule?
A few weeks back, a bunch of us new parents planned to meet up to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with our babies in tow. How, you ask? Much to my amazement, a few theaters kindly hold movie-viewings several days a month in which screaming, pooping, breast exposure, and people getting in and out of their seats a lot in the middle of the movie are all very acceptable.
It was an evening show, however, and quite a number of people emailed their regrets that they'd be unable to attend, stating a conflict with "bed time" as their reason. I remember being puzzled, since surely it didn't matter where the baby slept, as long as it did. And in my case, my baby is always happiest to slumber in my arms--which is what we did during what turned out to be a very long movie.
More recently, I repeatedly saw emails from members of my Las Madres group in which moms begged off one event or other because the meeting time clashed with nap time. Again, I was mystified. For Baby R, nap time seemed random and arbitrary. All I knew is that if we went out, she *would* fall asleep at some point. Did it matter when, where, or how?
This is when I started Googling "baby" and "naps"--and discovered that I'm a bad mother. Again. I don't know, am I not doing enough homework on Baby Raising 101? Maybe I'm the only person in the world who didn't know this, but even newborn babies--like dogs (being a dog owner and now a mom, I swear I could write a book on the similarities between the two)--appreciate a set daily routine, so they know what to expect and are reassured.
My god, my poor baby has been awash in a sea of chaos and disorder since the day I brought her home!
From what I read, the purpose of set nap times is to forestall those bouts of fussing and crying that occur when baby is over-tired, or even too worked up to fall asleep. Supposedly, babies that nap well in the daytime sleep better at night, as well. Lightbulb!
So, as bad as I am about this sort of thing, I've dug up a notepad and am trying to note down the times when Baby Girl starts giving me the sleepy cues: rubbing at her eyes and head, looking distracted, etc. The point is to see what times of the day she is consistently getting tired and then trying to get her ready for a nap about 15 minutes earlier. And there you have it: nap times.
Unfortunately, the question of *how* I make my baby amenable to the idea of lying down, let alone going to sleep on a surface that isn't my chest or her Fisher Price Nature's Touch Cradle Swing, is a different story. The various online sources suggest darkening the room, singing lullabies, reading books, and so on. Baby Girl has let me know that she is not so easily snookered. So, for now, nap prep consists of either rocking her to sleep in my arms while singing spottily remembered slow songs ("Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, nor even apple pie.") or placing her in the swing and singing over her fussing until she knocks off.
It was an evening show, however, and quite a number of people emailed their regrets that they'd be unable to attend, stating a conflict with "bed time" as their reason. I remember being puzzled, since surely it didn't matter where the baby slept, as long as it did. And in my case, my baby is always happiest to slumber in my arms--which is what we did during what turned out to be a very long movie.
More recently, I repeatedly saw emails from members of my Las Madres group in which moms begged off one event or other because the meeting time clashed with nap time. Again, I was mystified. For Baby R, nap time seemed random and arbitrary. All I knew is that if we went out, she *would* fall asleep at some point. Did it matter when, where, or how?
This is when I started Googling "baby" and "naps"--and discovered that I'm a bad mother. Again. I don't know, am I not doing enough homework on Baby Raising 101? Maybe I'm the only person in the world who didn't know this, but even newborn babies--like dogs (being a dog owner and now a mom, I swear I could write a book on the similarities between the two)--appreciate a set daily routine, so they know what to expect and are reassured.
My god, my poor baby has been awash in a sea of chaos and disorder since the day I brought her home!
From what I read, the purpose of set nap times is to forestall those bouts of fussing and crying that occur when baby is over-tired, or even too worked up to fall asleep. Supposedly, babies that nap well in the daytime sleep better at night, as well. Lightbulb!
So, as bad as I am about this sort of thing, I've dug up a notepad and am trying to note down the times when Baby Girl starts giving me the sleepy cues: rubbing at her eyes and head, looking distracted, etc. The point is to see what times of the day she is consistently getting tired and then trying to get her ready for a nap about 15 minutes earlier. And there you have it: nap times.
Unfortunately, the question of *how* I make my baby amenable to the idea of lying down, let alone going to sleep on a surface that isn't my chest or her Fisher Price Nature's Touch Cradle Swing, is a different story. The various online sources suggest darkening the room, singing lullabies, reading books, and so on. Baby Girl has let me know that she is not so easily snookered. So, for now, nap prep consists of either rocking her to sleep in my arms while singing spottily remembered slow songs ("Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, nor even apple pie.") or placing her in the swing and singing over her fussing until she knocks off.
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