The Bean is six whole months old today, and I find myself feeling as though I have blinked and missed it! He is growing up so very fast. With CindyLou, I remember always looking forward to the next big milestone...I couldn't wait for her to smile, sit, crawl, walk, etc. With Bean, I find myself feeling the opposite, he is hitting milestones and *I'm* not ready for it yet. I suppose it is because I have hindsight from watching CindyLou, knowing how fast she is growing up (and she tells us every day), coupled with the fact that Bean is, in all likelihood, our last baby. Whatever it is, I'm not ready.
Bean is such a happy baby, though. He loves to play, he is starting to clap his hands, and he really loves singing (lucky for him!) He weighs a little over 15 lbs., which, I know, is still pretty small compared to most kiddos. He is starting to eat "real" food, too. So far we have tried (and liked) rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and applesauce. Teething has been in full force for a few weeks, now, there is much drool and chewing involved, but no visible teeth yet. Bean has nearly mastered the tripod sit, but still hasn't shown much interest in rolling a lot (he's done it once or twice) or trying to crawl. He loves the exersaucer and still hates sleeping in his own bed (the record thus far is 4-5 hours). We are still nursing/pumping, and I don't see him giving that up any time soon...quite the boob man. He does something that I have never seen a baby do in my life; he scratches the living daylights out of his teeny head, sometimes drawing blood. We've tried baby oil, bathing more and less frequently, hypo-allergenic soap, lotioning him (head included) within an inch of his life, and of course, keeping a hat on his head and his nails as short as possible. He still goes after his scalp with both hands and digs as if it kills him. Anyone else have this problem? Our pediatrician has not been overly helpful in this arena.
Today is the first day I have had off of call since 12/30/07 (last year! Ha!) It goes without saying that our house has transitioned from utter disarray (the "normal" state of being) to uncontrolled chaos. It makes my brain hurt, and Mr. Whoo and I have been up and working since early this morning. Laundry, folded but not put away, had been residing upon our bedroom floor for far too long; so, I took it upon myself to finally place the clothes in their proper homes. Whilst putting the Bean's laundry away, I realized how many outfits in his drawers were clothes that he has outgrown. I pulled sweet baby onesie after sleeper after teeny booties and hats out to place in storage bins and just had to sigh. I know that if we do our jobs as parents correctly, our children will grow, leave us, and one day begin the cycle anew, having children of their own, but no one told me how it makes your heart ache, just a little.
We are planning to take the kids out to a movie this afternoon, so I've not a lot of time to post individual responses to all of your wonderfully helpful comments to my previous post, but I will, I promise. You are all the best, and I really appreciate every person's input. I had a bad feeling about going in to a situation like this to begin with (spouse being the office manager) but felt, at the time, that the good aspects outweighed the bad. My contract is coming up in about a year and a half, so I am taking some steps now, as suggested. More on that in the comment section, maybe later tonight. Again, I cannot thank you all enough, your feedback keeps me sane! I hope that you are having a wonderful winter weekend!
11 comments:
Have you tried some hydrocortisone? If you use the 0.05% cream no more than twice a day for no more than a week, that might help. I know we talk about never using hydrocortisone on a baby's head or face, but using a low strength/low potency one for a very limited course does freakin' wonders.
They grow so fast. I am having a hard time believing I have an almost 9 year old myself.
Take care of yourself.
We have some friends whose baby used to pull his hair. He actually had pain in his ears from impacted wax on his ear drums, he went deaf from this as it wasn't found until he was 4 or 5 and was being evaluated for an IEP. He was initially thought to have mental retardation or some other problem as he didn't communicate with words. The cause of the scratching may be something like that. I am NOT a doctor with any experience. Maybe he had allergies???? I don't know.
Dawn
Wow, can I ever relate about not being ready for the second (also probably the last) child to grow up. My son is going to be one next month and it breaks my heart to think about that and the past year. I mean that in a good way but it is also sad. I don't have much advice about the scratching but I agree that each child has there odd things that they do. My son's is hair pulling (his own). Some times he pulls it so hard that he makes himself cry. Good luck with the laundry and the house cleaning. I still haven't figured out how to concur that yet. I will leave you with one of my favorite parenting quotes, "Cleaning your house while your children are growing is like shoveling snow while it is still snowing" Phyllis Diller.
Sarah
Hydrocortisone will help, as will washing his scalp with tar shampoo - like Neutrogena's T-Gel. Loosen the skin flakes up before shampooing his scalp with baby oil beforehand, or olive oil, or whatever as long as its safe for consumption and once to twice a week use the T-gel, it will help. I stopped using it after my youngest was too good at squirming as I didn't want it in his eyes, but that will help.
It will get better, doesn't seem like it now, but it will. Our youngest did that to his scalp and his ankles, so he was wearing footie pajamas in summer time, and socks with shoes the rest of the time. Now at 18 months he is almost done scratching his skin up, it just flares up up (the eczema) when I drink milk as he's still nursing. I know, there is no evidence that breast milk can/will transmit allergens but he has flare ups when I consume milk. Anyway, it will get better.
Mamadoc (FP)say: Low power (OTC) hydrocortisone. And use a soft brush to loosen the flakes before you shampoo--we never had to use anything but Johnson's Baby brand. My girls are in their 20s now, and we really planned to have another. Eventually it became clear we wouldn't be able to have any more, and I gave away all the baby stuff and passed on the maternity clothes. Imagine my shock when we cleaned out the attic last week and discovered 4 dozen cloth diapers and 4 crib sheets! Guess I forgot about them when giving away the other stuff. The diapers found a good home at the Crisis Pregnancy Center. Try to enjoy all the stages as your children grow up. It seems like it will be forever, then you wake up and they're grown.
Babies do grow up too fast. My "baby" turns 18 next month.
Can't help with the scratching. My older one went through a period of hair pulling, and actually had bald spots. We ended up using a yarn-haired doll as a substitute for pulling until the hair grew back.
My 4 month old is doing the digging at head and neck thing (and sometimes drawing blood). She only does it when nursing or very sleepy. She will also dig at her chest when being bathed or changed. She does have issues with eczema that are slowly improving now that we've stopped using products with lavender (she's allergic). I'm wondering if the behavior started because of the eczema/allergy and is now just something she does. We have to keep her in mitts a majority of time. Good luck.
You might want to switch to SLS free soap shampoo, & detergent and skip the fabric softener. SLS is usually the chemical that causes problems. Might also be synthetic fragrances. California Baby Super Sensitive is great. So is Sensi Clean laundry detergent.
I totally understand what you are saying when you aren't ready for the milestones. I wanted to bf as long as possible because the idea of strapping LittleMan into a highchair and dealing with solids was just too overwhelming. Hang in there, hon.
I agree with the hydrocortizone too. I also have a couple of other suggestions. Slather, and I mean really slather his head with Aquaphor. Yes, you end up with grease spots galore everywhere but it's a small price to pay. At night, put socks on his hands, one or two pair. If he can get the socks off, try pinning them to his clothes; fold over the sleeper arms so the safety pins don't touch his skin. It takes a little bit of practice for this but I promise that isolating his hands rather than his head will help a lot.
One of my twin boys had the worst cradle cap I've ever seen (and all-over eczema and asthma and reflux) and the only way to heal up was to sock his hands. Once he healed and the cradle cap went away, he stopped going after his head. I still needed to use hydrocortizone from the dermatologist to get at the eczema patches on his face.
If he doesn't have cradle cap, you may want to get his head examined. Medically, of course. LOL
(Forgot to say that the tubs of Aquaphor cost less for me per ounce than buying the smaller tubes. I think this was at Wal-Mart)
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