Diet update

I've lost track of exactly how long we've been doing the diet now. Miki has been very grateful for all the foods I cooked and froze before Saana was born, I don't think he would have coped on the diet. Each time he eats my food he comments how bland it is. But that's life.
We have tested several different foods
She no reaction to
• Wheat
• Yeast
• Eggs
Her nappy rash flares up if I have lots of yeast, but generally OK.

But last thursday I tested Salicylates and we knew about it by that night.
Over the day I ate
• 150gm of canned peaches
• 1 granny smith apple
• Pumpkin soup (cumin & onion)
• 150 ml of freshly squeezed apple juice
• Half a mango

Approximately 10 hours after first food was consumed she started to react. Our evening and night ran like this
• Noisy reflux sounds but very little vomit
• Started making her “I’m in pain” cry
• Would start to fall asleep then wake up with a jerk and start crying again
• The strong reflux occurred for her evening foods on the 10th and her overnight/morning feeds the next day.
• Her day feeds on the Friday still had reflux, but wasn’t as intense.
• Friday afternoon and Saturday she appeared to have colicky tummy pain
• On Friday her stools had blood in them
• By Saturday evening she was pretty much better.

So now I've accepted that for now I'm not eating anything with even moderate salicylates> After we have finished all the other food challenges I will test her tolerance levels.

Diet update

Today I had an appointment with a nutritions, after the MACH nurse recommended I see her to check that my diet is OK while on the elimination diet.
Well the nutritions suggested I go the whole hog and do the complete elimination diet recommended by the Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. I was pretty overwhelmed by it all when I left. The diet combined with what I have already eliminated doesn't leave me with that much to eat. As I was driving home I was sure I wasn't going to do it, but I've changed my mind now.
If I'm going to do this it is worth doing well. So now I'm learning all about Salicylates (I can't even say it yet), Amines and other natural food chemicals. I've found at lot of information and resources at Sue Dengates website. So we'll see how it goes.

Sling, Pappose or carrier

Hi. My name is Sally and I'm a sling-o-holic!

I now have 3 slings and I love them all. Let me tell you about them.

When I was pregnant my mum brought me a baba-sling.
I used this when Saana was very little and she could lie in it. She would often fall asleep while in it and it was so easy to get on and off while she was tiny. I must admit that as she became bigger it became uncomfortable to wear and she didn't seem to like it much either. I now keep it in the car for when I want to duck into a shop or something and I want at least one free hand.

Then my dad brought me an ergo. I think this one will be a favourite for a long time. It is great for walking and outside things. The only time it is not perfect is for around the home which brings me to my third sling.

I brought myself a hug-a-bub. This one is for around the home, while wearing Saana is the HAB I can cook, clean, deal with washing etc. I think this is Saana's favourite because she can face outwards and see everything that is going on. It took me awhile to get the hang of putting it on, but it gets easier pretty quickly.

Now I've written all this, I'm going to go and put Saana into the HAB because she is sik of playing on the foor or sitting in my lap.

sally

Diet

I have decided to do an elimination diet to try and see if what I'm eating is triggering Saana's reflux. Before her UTI and kidney infection were diagnosed I stopped eating anything with caffeine, including chocolate :( and tomatoes.
We've now cut out
* dairy
* wheat/gluten
* soy
* rye
* eggs
* Plus all the original things.
I'm planning to do this for at least 2 weeks and then I'll start testing foods.

feeling a bit better

Well 24 hours on and we are all feeling much better.
DD slept for 7 hours last night, I woke up with milk running every where but feeling much rested.
I tried the 2 hours between feeds and I do think it has helped a bit. I posted on the ABA forum and one girl made the suggestion that maybe I was over-stimulating her when I thought I was settling her. I had a thought about this and I think it might be right. Instead of doing lots of things I just held her tight on my chest while sitting in the rocker, she slowly stopped crying and went to sleep, that happened twice today.

My big realization today was how the 45mins sleep cycle works. Because I was tracking time for the 2 hourly feed breaks, I noticed that on her first sleep today she woke after a 45 min sleep.
On her 2nd sleep she stirred after 45 mins, but settled back to sleep, I suspect before I would have gone to her and she would have woken up. this happen twice and she ended up sleeping for 3 45 min cycles before waking for a feed.
I'm waiting with baited breath to see how it all goes tomorrow.

Breastfeeding

I'm breastfeeding at the moment and wondering what I'm going to do when I go back to work. On the whole I"m enjoying breastfeeding even though it has meant changing my diet.

The questions I'm asking myself are
* Will I try and express
* I'm trying to find out as much information about expressing as possible.
* Not sure if I should if i should buy an elletric pump or just stick to my manual pump.
* How will I feel if expressing doesn't work

I'm feeling lost

We had our 6-8 week check today, it was actually 9 weeks. I have had trouble getting Saana to sleep during the day if she has one short sleep usually between 10 mins and an hour in the day I"m happy. We have tried so many different things to try and get her to sleep and I really wanted some new ideas. The things we have tried are
* ergo
* holding her on our outdoor swing
* fit ball
* feeding to sleep, this works in the evening eventually
* bouncer
* baby swing

When I asked the nurse about this she suggested the following
* Not feeding again until 2 hours from the start of the last feed
* Putting DD into her cot while she is still awake (Both DH and I heartily disagree with this, it might work for some, but it just doesn't work for us. )

I don't really understand what the benefits might be of waiting 2 hours between feeds and it seems like such an arbitrary number.
I'm going to try it until Friday when I can go back, for one reason only. I think Saana might have reflux and the nurse indicated that babies become upset about 20 mins after a feed if they have reflux and if I actually record the time she stops feeding and wait I should be able to check if this is happening.

Mostly she is happy being held, but doesn't sleep and then get crankier & crankier over the day as she gets over tried, if she drifts off, she seems to wake as something hurts, sorry to off load here, but I'm feeling very hopeless & overwhelmed tonight.
I went for help and came away feeling worse.
Sally

OH and I think most of this advice stems from her wanting to stop me feeding her to sleep. I really don't think this is the problem I just want her to go to sleep in general.
This post feels really garbled, but I'm going to stop now before I start crying again.