June 8th, 2011 | Posted by acidicice

Bah. I hate winter. I’m not fond of the cold and get cold rather easily, which isn’t great. I have, however, a new reason to loathe the season (ha ha). Sick babies! GAH!

Babyice is not doing well. He slept in our bed on Sunday and Monday nights. He just wouldn’t sleep in his room, despite it being snug and warm. He is a very restless sleeper, so this meant less sleep for us. Last night his temperature spiked to over 39 degrees. I HATE fevers. I am terrified of febrile convulsions. My aunt had them when she was very young and she is a special needs person. My grandmother thinks that the convulsions may have contributed to her condition. Her son also had them and he also has learning/social difficulty (in a different way than my aunt does). No doubt his mother’s predisposition contributed, but you can understand why I am fearful of this happening. I chatted to the nurse at work about it and she confirmed that it can cause problems later on in life if they are misdiagnosed. I’ve done a little bit of internet reading on it and it seems that a small percentage of children experience these, but that there might be a genetic link.

Anyway…we gave him a Ponstan suppository and this broke his fever, but it was not to be an easy night for us. Rudi brought him to bed with us for a little while and eventually decided to try and put him back in his cot when he wouldn’t sleep there either. He started throwing an epic tantrum. He screamed and screamed continuously for at least half an hour. I got up to help every now and then. Rudi is quite an impatient person when it comes to anything and this is no different. So when I see/hear he is getting to the end of his tether, I offer to step in and take over while he calms down. There is no shame in that though, I also become impatient and angered at times when it gets too much. It’s so important for me to have him there as a back up and for me to be there for him. I do not know how single parents do this on their own. I guess they don’t have a choice and they just cope somehow, but they have my utmost respect. What was happening could also have been a night terror. He didn’t seem very awake throughout the episode, other than the constant screaming. Eventually Rudi and I managed to get a bottle into his mouth and after he continued to scream for a minute or so before he realized there was something to soothe him. We tried the dummy quite a few times before that, with no luck. He would push away our hands and increase the intensity of his screams. We knew he wasn’t in pain, since we’d already given him a suppository and couldn’t give him any other meds for the same reason.

The poor baby’s chest sounds terrible. He sounds like a car that won’t start when he coughs and if he has a long coughing fit he starts crying as if it hurts, or if he is like me, crying because he his sick and tired of coughing. Yesterday early afternoon I wasn’t sure if we should take him to the doctor, but as I noticed his fever starting to climb again while we were at my mother in law’s house I phoned to make him an appointment for today after work. After we got home and realized how high his temperature actually was I wished that we could go sooner, but wanted to see if the suppository helped before panicking and going to the ER. After we put him down to sleep we left him for about 30 minutes and checked his temperature again, which had dropped to 37.1. A number I am a lot more comfortable than 39.3. I’m surprised I didn’t hit panic stations when I saw that number since the febrile convulsions are a risk from 40 degrees onwards. Somehow I managed to stay calm and bath him. He didn’t even cringe at the suppository, which was a relief for me. As he is getting older and has a better understanding of these things I worry about hurting him, even though I know it’s for his own good.

I am very much looking forward to taking him to the doctor so that we can get him sorted out ASAP. I hate him feeling sick and every time he coughed this morning I felt so guilty and apologized to him for not taking him sooner. Maternal guilt. Lovely. The doctor’s office has called twice this morning to change and shuffle his appointment, but it’s set and he’ll be seen this afternoon by the GP I prefer.

Babyice is as cute as a button, but has started looking a bit scruffy of late. His hair has grow too long and is growing over his ears. During summer it is very easy to solve this issue, we just shave it off, but now that it is winter we don’t want to leave him with very short or no hair. We’ve booked his very first hair appointment for him on Saturday at this place They specialize in children’s haircuts and hopefully it will be a fun experience for him. They charge R65.00 for a boy’s haircut and R50.00 if you just want their hair shaven. I’m sure he’ll be much better by Saturday already. Here is a picture of him with his hair too long:

I’ve also decided to give Huggies Gold another chance, as a night time nappy. It’s their last one! We used them last night for the first time, without incident. It was so strange putting a different brand of nappy on Babyice…the Huggies Gold feel like they’re made out of paper, where the Pampers feel much softer and more “cottony” if I can put it that way. Let’s hope we find some relief with the Huggies Gold this time around. I see that they have now put batch numbers on each nappy, so may they realized they have a problem and have addressed it. Let’s see.

Here’s to healthy babies and haircuts!