I don’t think there is anything scarier than the unknown, especially when it comes to a sick baby. We had our first scare last Wednesday with Kaylee. David heard her coughing and thought it didn’t sound right so he went to check on her after she had been asleep in her crib. Good thing he did, poor baby had vomited all over herself, her crib and it even reached the floor. We brought her into our bed and every two hours pretty much until 6am she was waking up (or not) and vomiting. It is the worst feeling in the world not being able to help your child. You feel so helpless. I know there are probably worse things the world but for me this has been one of the top things. To hear your baby cry in hunger and not be able to feed her because she will just vomit it all up, it breaks your heart.
We called 8-1-1 to speak with a nurse while we waited for our paediatrician’s office to open. She mentioned that it could possibly be nausea. She mentioned shorter but more frequent feeds. She also told me that projectile vomit (coming out at 90 degrees) was a clear indication to go to the emergency (yikes, no one likes to hear those words on a normal day, even less with COVID). That is by far the last place I want to bring my 4 month old baby. In an emergency room where God knows what she can catch. Luckily I was able to get an appointment with her paediatrician in the morning. When I got there, Kaylee was already hungry (I had fed her at 8:30 and again at 8:40 and 9:15 for 5 minute increments, but at 9:45 it came all back out). She was crying with big tears. She was breaking my heart. All I wanted to do was feed her but I knew she wouldn’t keep it down.
When the doctor finally came to see us (it took a while, which didn’t help my poor Kaylee), she mentioned that it could be a virus which should subside seeing as she had no other symptoms, no fever, her mood is still normal (apart from her being hangry) and she was still urinating. She suggested I give her a spoonful of pedialyte followed by a spoonful of milk every 5 minutes and see if she could keep that down. If she didn’t, she said to give it every 15 minutes. She was mentioning that drinking directly from the breast or a bottle would come in too quickly and she might get sick again.
Once we left the office, we went to Walmart to grab some pedialyte. Both David and I were exhausted from our sleepless night (forgot to mention that yesterday, I had to take Hershey to get his claw cut back after he cracked it in half, he needed to be sedated and everything —this week has been quite emotionally challenging for this hormone filled mommy) and not having been able to really eat much before her appointment, we were both starting to get hangry. I got a lovely migraine as well, so my lunch consisted of Advils and trying to sneak in a quick cat nap while Kaylee stayed asleep. That lasted all of 30 minutes, then she woke up and we started working on the pedialyte-milk spoons.
She took it for about 1h15 minutes before she zonked out. It’s a tiring thing for a little baby to be sick like that. I am so thankful that David works from home and was able to take care of her, while I got things done (like pump, wash our sheets that had throw up in). She slept for 2+ hours.
When she woke up, naturally she was hungry. David thought I should give her some boob for like 2 minutes so she gets a little more milk. I did and she seemed okay. Poor little baby just wanted to eat more. I had to stop her so make sure she didn’t take in too much and throw it all up again. When we saw that she kept it down, we tried feeding her a little more.
David was holding her and felt like her little body was giving off too much heat. We went to change her diaper and undress her at the same time. We tried taking her temperature (orally and under the armpit) and got a reading of 37,7 for both. Unsure if this was accurate or something that we should be worried about, we called 8-1-1 again. This time, though, I was stuck on hold for what seemed like forever. In the mean time, David called on our lovely friend Jackie (yup same friend that helped me when I started going into labour 🙂 she suggested we take Kaylee’s temperature rectally as that will be the most accurate. Daddy to the rescue on that one. Kaylee just lay there and didn’t make a peep. Her temperature read 37.8. Jackie reassured me that this wasn’t that high and that given her recent (that same week) experience with her sick little Leo, the hospital wouldn’t do anything for a baby that only has low (not really existent) fever. She mentioned the fever would have to be over 39 degrees for over 3 days before they actually do something. In other words, no need to panic just yet. We kept Kaylee in her diaper and hoped that it would just bring her temperature down naturally. Jackie also told us that if Kaylee was a little agitated (or hangry) this would definitely make her temperature go up.
A couple of hours went by, and off to bed we went. Kaylee wasn’t giving off as much heat, but we kept her in her diaper just in case. We covered her with our bedsheet (yup she slept in our bed again, no way were we leaving a sick baby all alone). At around 3am, she woke up and I could tell she was starting to fuss. Since she hadn’t been sick since 10:45 the morning before, I figured I would let her go to the boob bar for a little and see how she goes. Almost 24 hours without any vomiting she was bound to be getting better. I thought we were in the clear but at about 4:10, she vomitted again.
We got her back to bed and figured when she woke back up, we would start with the pedialyte-milk spoon routine. About 8 am, we started again. She was taking the pedialyte and milk no problem. She was grabbing at our hands to make sure we left the dropper in her mouth. Poor Kaylee she was really hungry. While David was doing that, I was loading up on coffee and updating a dear friend of mine, Darleine with our current situation. Darleine is a nurse I worked with during my LMC days (the best thing that came out of that job, are the wonderful friends I made). She used to work with children in New York and is a great resource for anything kid related. As we were taking, David noticed Kaylee move to her side (like lift a butt cheek up in her chair) and then let one rip. She had been passing gas but no stools. The sound and smell made him think to go check on her diaper situation (hello regular blow-out season in our house). Before walking upstairs, he passed by my chair and asked if I would give her bum a sniff. It was probably the worst smell I have smelled in a really long time. It just smelled horrible. I went up with him to see what could possibly cause that smell.
PSA: this might be TMI for some:
IT.WAS.DISGUSTING! She had finally pooped and it was full, it was chunky, it smelled like death. It then hit us like a ton of bricks, she must have been constipated and whatever she was eating, had no where else to go, but back up the way it came in. Before she started vomiting, we had given her a bowl of baby cereal, it was the most she had eaten since we started giving it to her. When I read the nutritional facts on the box, it said for 5 tablespoons, it had 100% iron. No wonder she was sick, she was constipated. I couldn’t believe it. This was the reason for her vomiting. Both David and I felt an instant relief, you could literally see the weight lifted off our shoulders, finally realizing what was causing her to be sick. I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. After a long 36 hours, our baby was finally on the mend. I was still cautious with the feedings, not giving her too much and making sure to stop her and keep her upright for a while before doing anything else. That night, she gave us her best night yet, almost 12 hours !!! She definitely needed her sleep after all that. I am happy to say that after all that, we are back to our regular scheduled programming: happy, smiling baby Kaylee.
