In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love. -- Mother Teresa

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Elsa at One Month

Elsa is one-month old today, and to celebrate we paid a visit to our favorite family doctor. Elsa now weighs 9 pounds, 13.5 ounces, and is 22.75 inches in length. Her head circumference is 15 inches. She is moving up the charts just as she should be, and is still in the higher percentiles as far as weight and height. The doctor thought she looked great and thought I was crazy when I told her that Elsa tends to cry unless she is eating, sleeping, or in her couple of periods of happy quiet/active awake time -- that is, until she started throwing a fit toward the end of the appointment. To her credit, though, it was time for her to eat. We did discuss the crying, though, and the doctor thought that at one-month, she really should not be crying as much as she is -- that we can no longer really blame it on general newborn fussiness at one month of age. So...??? We have a colicky baby. Something is bothering poor little Elsa's tummy, so I am going to cut dairy and soy out of my diet for a week and see if that makes a difference. If there is no change, I am going to add gluten to the no-nos. This is going to be tough for me, as I already attempted to do it for a few days on my own, thinking dairy might be to blame for some gas she was having trouble dealing with. But staying away from cheese was too tough for me. I am going to really try this time, though, now that the doctor has given her orders. I will have to tame my ice cream cravings as well. If none of this seems to work, we will be back at the doctor's office before our next scheduled two-month appointment to weigh out our other options.

We are crossing our fingers that she will start feeling better -- and start crying less -- soon. Of course the crying is quite frustrating, especially in the wee hours when it would lovely to get some shut eye, but really I just feel bad that something I am eating could be causing her pain.

3 comments:

Rebecca (Ramblings by Reba) said...

Ah... the colicky baby. I'm sorry. :( Hopefully, the adjustment to your diet will help. No guilt, Christi. It's not your fault she might not like something in your diet, just like it's not HER fault she might not like something in your diet.

Does she like baths? If so, you might try that for her fussy times. (No, I'm not suggesting you take 8 baths a day or anything like that... heh.) The Indigo Girls is always a good suggestion. :) NOTHING is a bad suggestion, if it's legal and works. :)

And if nothing else works and you MUST get away, put her in her crib where you know she's safe and let her do her thing for a few minutes. The times I had to do this as a babysitter it DID break my heart, but sometimes I just needed a break. More often then not, I was able to care for my little charge again in less than two minutes. The cries get me every time... sniffle.

(Hopefully, all the people I don't know who might read this won't think I'm awful for suggesting the crib thing. You know what I mean though.)

Otherwise, it sounds like she's doing great. She certainly looks good. :)

Rebecca (Ramblings by Reba) said...

P.S. I was a colicky baby. My parents totally feel your pain. I apologize to them again.

heather said...

Congratulations guys!! She's absolutely beautiful!