separation anxiety

Up till now, the longest stretch of time I've been away from Rohan was around 8 hours -- and that only happened once. Working from home these last few weeks has been a great way to spend time with him and watch him grow.

But all good things must change...no? Having accepted a new job waaay out West, i find myself out here looking for a new place for us all to live. Beyond the usual rent vs. buy delima...I find myself thinking...will this place be a nice area to take Rohan for a walk? Would he be more stimulated by large grassy areas, or places with lots of people, etc...

Nevertheless, as one day has elapsed since leaving the baby behind, i'm doing okay :-). I actually slept a decent amount last night and can't remember the last time i got 5-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep! Everyone has asked to see pictures of the baby, but thus far, i have none. When you spend all your time with him and are no more than a couple flights of stairs away - why bother wallet size pictures? Nevertheless, i'll be ordering up a set right quickly.

I find it very different to be a parent walking through the airport now....In the past, i rarely peered into strollers or at parents toting kids...I now look directly at the kids and try to guess their ages....and then get worried that maybe we're trying to move and fly with Rohan a bit too quickly. Undoubtably, travelling with Rohan will prove to be an adventure....For the most part the kids on my flight were pretty quiet -- no question that the descent got their ears to hurt and started their crying. I have to admit that crying babies phase me far less than they did before - in fact i actually feel a lot more pity for the parents and the baby rather than irritation --- guess that's a sure sign of some level of maturity...

Upon my return...I am ever so slightly worried that Rohan won't remember who i am though....Three nights is an eternity to someone who is only 55 days old.....

bottle experiments

With Rohan's repeated refusals to take the bottle, we started experimenting with both bottles and nipples on the advice of nurses and consultants. We made a couple of mistakes early on and things are getting a little better.

For one...Before Rohan was born, we stocked up on Avent bottles (as recommended from our classes). What we neglected to notice is that they all came with the same size 1 nipple. Didn't think much of it at the time, but most babies outgrow that in a month or so. Not realizing this, it was no wonder that Rohan got so frustrated since he was not getting fed as quickly as he wanted. The sizing seems to vary by brand, but with Avent, size 1 = 1 month, size 2 = 2 mos, etc. Then of course there are differences in babies and their own preferences....

We've since experimented with a couple other brands (playtex, dr. brown's) but still prefer the Avent -- if for no other reason than the investment we've made in the bottles so far. He's doing a bit better with the level 3 nipple, but nowhere near as happy as he used to be with the bottle....

baby acne

What started a few weeks ago as a somewhat mild case of baby acne, quickly progressed to something that looks worse and more worrisome. When the doctor saw it, she saw only a "neck rash" and said it was going to get a lot worse before it got better...

The acne spread to his scalp, face, upper chest and even upper arms. Daily calls to the nurses were reassuring and they recommended an oatmeal bath (Aveno) to both speed the recovery and cool the baby's skin. Some 30 - 40% of babies come down with the acne, yet few people in our immediate family had seen or heard of it before.

Nevertheless it did get better....at its worst his skin was rough and reddish...now it is drying out and returning to its baby softness ;-). Most photographers avoid taking pictures during this brief period and as a consequence, the acne is rarely documented. Even we neglected to take any pictures during his acne phase.....

by the way....we were able to make it out to see Star Wars 3 -- anyone else notice that Padme gave birth to two of the biggest "babies" i have ever seen? I'm thinking they were 3-4 months old and around 15 lbs each....

mobiles

The last week has been mondo busy...hard to find time to work, spend time with Rohan, and still come up with something creative to write about. Not to mention that gym thing....

When we first set up Rohan's cradle, we picked up a mobile from Babies R'Us. It was a cute thing with little animals and what not and cost around $40. A hell of a lot of money from my perspective for four tiny stuffed animals tied to pieces of string. Nonetheless, everyone knows that babies spend some time staring at the ceiling from their crib so why not put something stimulating in front of them.

A couple days after getting it, we stopped in a local baby store that sold more creative looking ones. Slow ass people that we are, we finally went and got one and put it in today. It is a mobile from Tiny Love -- what made it most appealing to me is both the fact that it runs on batteries but that it playes classical music instead of the usual "twinkle twinkle." Lots of colors, lots of movement, and as a bonus, it comes with a remote! The upside is that it only cost $10 more than the one we got earlier....yes an inordinate sum for something that will only be used for a few months, but what are you gonna do....Of course parents will spend $$$ when it comes to their kid's brian development....

Anyways, there is no question that Rohan finds it interesting....at least he does right now. We'll see what he thinks of it in a couple of hours or a couple of days....

Strike three

Last night made three straight nights of bottle refusals by Rohan....Though it is hard to actually know if he's refusing something when he can't really talk. I take the 20 minutes of straight crying accompanied by an intense refusal to ingest anything coming from the bottle to be my sign.


Oh well, we'll try a daytime feed in an attempt to make sure Rohan remembers that bottles are an acceptable way to get fed.

soooo tired

Our attempt at having Rohan drink from the bottle during the night is quickly becoming painful. Rohan gets very upset if his food isn't ready when he is...As a result, the 3-5 minutes it takes to warm up a bottle are far too long. He gets so annoyed at waiting that he then just doesn't want to eat...

To alleviate that fact, I tried getting up a half hour earlier than his normal midnight feed time to start warming up the food....Unfortunately, i slept right through my alarm (actually, i woke up, turned it off, and went promptly back to bed). Nevertheless, L had me go pull the milk from the fridge to address his 3 AM feeding.

For whatever reason, Rohan wasn't too interested in the bottle...I tried, L's mom tried....One probable source of the problem may have due to L's presence in the room. In the past, she's been out of the room (to prevent confusion on Rohan's part). But with the nighttime feeds, we didn't want to drag Rohan all over the house to feed, and inadvertantly wake him up.

So downstairs i went with an awake, alert, clean, and non-hungry Rohan. Matrix 3 and Basic Instinct (holy crap that was made in 1992???) were on as I wanted Rohan to remember that he is usually hungry by 4 AM. Finally around 4:15 or so, he took to the bottle and drank a very small amount. Of course how much he usually drinks at three in the morning isn't known...

interference

The wireless internet network in our house runs on the 2.4 GHz frequency. In order to avoid interfereing with it, we opted to get some retro 900 MHz cordless phones for the house some time ago.

Lo and behold, baby arrives and the baby monitor also uses the 900 MHz frequency. For the most part it's not a big deal, but if you need to use the phone while watching the baby on the monitor...it ain't gonna work very well....

Actually, I have to admit, that while the TV / Baby monitor was a gift, i thought it to be a great idea...Why go running back to the baby's room when all he's doing is rolling around. Nevertheless, the TV receiver part of it has been a pain in the butt. Sometimes the picture is good, most times it is not. It's like dealing with a TV back when I was a kid -- moving the stupid rabbit ear antennas around over and over to get the precise position to pull in a clear picture. It will work for a couple of days, and then for some strange reason, you'll need to repeat the process.

Based on an article in the WSJ -- the monitors are being updated with new code / features / etc. later this year...maybe then the process of fiddling (with the antenna) won't last as long as the duration of the baby's nap.

yeah, well, that's interesting....

I guess it is what it is....

Breast is still best, even if it is Dad's

the obscure research that one can come across on the 'net, albeit topical....to some degree...

Me? i'll just stick with the plastic pacifier available in any baby store....

hospital free stuff

"free" things we got from the hospital upon checking out:

- baby hair brush and comb
- baby booger sucker (nose bulb)
- 15 - 20 diapers (1 - 2 day supply)
- 2 diaper bags -- from Enfamil -- one is decent, the other a peice of crap that fell apart in 2 days
- a handful of Enfamil formula
- a bunch of Medela milk storage bottles
- a little tub to use for sponge baths
- a flannel blanket that we took (i'd recommend taking more)

I say "free" not because we took them without permission, but because they had to be built into our hospital cost in some way. And a good chunk of it was paid for by Enfamil and Medela anyways.

talking baby!

Rohan started talking! Well, not really talking, more like just vowel sounds, but extremely cool nonetheless.

as* wipes

There are multiple baby wipes on the market and we didn't think too much about the product when we bought the first batch of Huggies wipes before Rohan was born. They actually worked quite well and got baby very clean.

When we were both in the store again, we noticed Huggies Newborn wipes. Hmmm...sounds like a good idea and we tried them out. Turns out they are much softer and have a lot less of the cleaning solution on them. This is both good and bad -- good for newborn baby's skin, bad for parents trying to clean baby's bum.

Nevertheless, in our (mostly mine) overzealousness to keep baby clean, we were probably wiping too hard and too much. Rohan started to develop some skin irritation in his nether regions. Quick call to the doctor's office and they suggested cooling it on the wipes and using cotton balls (with sterilized water) instead.

2 - 3 weeks later, Rohan is irritation free (at least his butt is) and we'll probably keep using the cotton. A bit clumsier than the wipes in their nice little box, but much much better for his skin.

hangin in the crib

holy crap...who knew there could be a 10 week leadtime on some brand name specialty crib? If you're gonna buy a Ragazzi, Pali, Berg, etc crib at some specialty store, get ready to do some purchasing weeks in advance. Maybe we should just buy him a Wal-Mart crib :-)

And then there is the question of standard crib or "convertible" crib. Convertible such that you can turn it into a toddler bed, then a regular bed. The standard crib is great if you know you're going to have another kid...Otherwise its a pretty big upfront cost for something that might not be fully utilized.

wham!

Babies are at best...unpredictable.

Friday started innocuously enough. Rohan did a great job sleeping during the night and woke up every three hours and went back to bed relatively quickly. In the morning though, we noticed the development of rash like symptoms on his back. Seemingly not bad at first, but became worse as the day wore on. Quick trip to the doctor and everything is just fine. Babies have raging hormones, similar to that of a teenager, such that they could have acne (I should have recognized it :-) breakouts all over their bodies. In general it dissipates over a few months.

Nonetheless, at the doctor, we mentioned the new problem of Rohan spitting up a bit after feeding. Due to the underdevelopment of his GI system, this too, can be a common problem. The best way to deal with it is to keep his head elevated for at least 45 minutes following a feeding…..45 minutes??! He feeds on average every 90 minutes and takes 10 min to feed….uh oh. At least he generally sleeps during these upright sessions…..Too bad he haaaates his baby bjorn carrier.

Yeah, so the night was not a lot of fun as L and I took turns keeping Rohan vertical after each of his feeds. This night had to coincide with a generally hungry night where Rohan wanted to feed every 90 min or so, leading to sleeping intervals of 30 - 45 min for the parents. Ouch.

But its all good and bad things will pass…the next night was significantly better as we started using the bottle a bit a night so L can get a 4 – 6 hour stretch of sleep and I get much or more.

Holy Water!

Holy Water usage Batman!

'Phew....guess babies drink a lot of water.....OR it could bear some relation to our failed attempt at using cloth diapers

to pacify...or not

In the first week of Rohan's life he would sometimes look to feed every hour. While we know he was adjusting to life outside the womb, it became a physical challenge for mom to keep him fed. So we talked to his pediatrician who recommended a pacifier. As part of his adjustment to life on the outside, the "suckling" was more of a coping mechanism than anything else. So rather than let him use mom as a pacifier, we gave him a plastic one.

But which one to give him. Actually we received a great one from the hospital -- but left it there as not to tempt us in the future. Both L and I beleived a pacifier to be little more than a crutch that could take weeks or months to wean Rohan off of. Scared that we might end up with Maggie (a la the Simpson's), we elected to leave the free pacifier behind. But when given the green light by the pediatrician, we went and sought out the one they gave us. Why this pacifier ? It's made of more secure material and less likely to encourage feeding problems in the future. The Soothie, is available at Babies R Us.

Anyways...we sort of overdid it that first weekend and Rohan started acting all weird while feeding. So back in the closet the Pacifier went. Till lately....

As Seshu mentioned in his comment, what worked one day might not work the next. As such, when i've been trying to soothe Rohan to sleep of late, most of my tricks ceased working and i reluctantly reached back into the closet for the pacifier. And it has worked great....without the feeding problems of the past.

Thus far the trick has been to take it out of his mouth within 10 min or so...just a min or two after he's crashed out. With luck this phase won't last too long....

Rohan turns 1

one month that is!