Baby 101

Babies are so wonderful. They are so innocent and their smiles melt your heart.

It is generally pretty easy to care for them. Make sure they're fed, dry and have had enough sleep and they are usually happy as can be.

BUT, what about when they cry?
I think the hardest thing as a parent is hearing your child cry. Oh sure, I know it's okay,and even healthy for them to cry. But that doesn't make it any easier to endure.

So the big mystery then, is WHY they are crying. First you rule out the basic three causes for crying: hungry, wet or tired. After that, it's anybody's guess.

I'm a fixer. I like to know what is wrong, and fix it. There's an old joke that babies should come with a manual, and certainly there is enough advice and reading material out there on raising babies to make your head spin. But each baby is different, and thus, you are still left to your own common sense to figure things out.

Could it be???

teething
stomachache
overstimulated
colic
diarrhea
head cold
gas
fever
something mother ate being passed through the milk
something baby ate
Sometimes it's obvious. You can take a temperature for fever, or she'll cough and have a runny nose with a cold. Other times I think we just guess to make ourselves feel better. Like we might actually have an idea what's going on. For example, Stan comes home and ask how Miriam was today and I say she was a bit grumpy. So to make it sound like I know what I'm doing as a parent, I say "I think she's teething." (Just so you know, you can always use teething as a cause, even if the tooth doesn't show up for months).

Miriam had a rash show up the other day.
Was it???

an allergic reaction to her new lotion, rice cereal, any number of other things?
chicken pox

Our first inclination was chicken pox, since she had been exposed to them by her cousins at Christmas. But they were only on her arms and legs, and not the torso as it is said they most commonly appear.
So we examined her daily.

Day two, spots still there.
Day three, redness gone, but spots crusted or bumpy feeling.

So they didn't last the 5-7 days and bubble over like normal chicken pox. Stan and I decided that it must have been something else, possibly an allergic reaction. Then we tell my sister and sister-in-law about it and show them pictures. One says, "no, it definitely wasn't chicken pox." The other says, "I don't know...my friend's baby had chicken pox that only lasted 2 days, so it could be that since she gets your antibodies."

AHHH!!!
Are there really any answers???

I've decided that it's okay to guess if it makes you feel more confident as a parent. It's also okay if she cries, as long as you've done what you can.

I also now understand why doctors so often treat symptoms instead of do a million tests to find a real diagnosis. For example, to find out if it is something the mother is eating, being passed through the milk, that is making baby fussy, you have to give up the culprit food for 2-3 weeks and then reintroduce it later to see if she's fussy again. That, of course, is if nothing else in baby's life is going wrong to make her fussy.

All in all, raising a baby is good for me. It teaches me that I don't always have to have all the answers or know all the causes. Sometimes, I just do what I can and then exercise a little faith that everything will turn out okay.

And you know, it always does. Babies are so durable and recover so quickly. They don't hold a grudge or get offended. They just love you. What more can you ask for?