Baby Advice for new parents
Posted on Feb 6, 2010 by
Paul WhiteI originally wanted to keep my
family life private. But I found myself learning new things every day and the urge to blog about it so the rest of the world can benefit was too irresistible. If you are reading this you likely are a new parent or are about to become a new parent. Hopefully my experiences with my first baby will help others.
Formula helps Jaundice
Naturally breast milk is the best, but when the baby comes out your breasts may not be any where close to full capacity. As a result you feel like you are constantly breast feeding your baby. This is because each time your baby is only getting a tiny amount of breast milk. Since the breast milk is going straight from your breast to the baby you have no idea how much they are getting. Our baby was born with Jaundice, and until we got him on formula his jaundice didn't clear up. This is because to get the Jaundice out of his system, he needed to get enough food to help poop and pee. The jaundice would come out in the diaper. If you find yourself in a situation where the baby is borderline Jaundice put them on formula immediately. If we had done that rather than being breast feeding nazis we wouldn't have had to put him under the UV lights, resulting in an additional $500 copay from our stay at the hospital.
Don't listen to the Breast Feeding Nazis!
These are senor almost retired nurses who get to call themselves breast feeding consultants. Their entire goal is to get you to breast feed your baby. They will do anything they can to keep you away from formula. While the Nurses in the nursery are more concerned with giving your baby the calories they need, and are more than happy to stick a bottle in your baby's mouth. If you are not able to breast feed it doesn't make you a failure. Don't get me wrong nothing is better for your baby than breast milk. But in the beginning many mothers won't be able to generate anywhere close to the volume of milk that baby's need. Their organs are still adapting, and the only thing that will help them is breast milk or formula. I know people will tell you that if you only breast feed your baby they will be more intelligent or smarter than other kids. Don't believe this trash for a second. Your kids intelligence determined by genetics, and up how you raise them. You job as a parent is to ensure your baby gets plenty of food and rest.
Baby Crying is not Colic its hunger or indigestion
To me Colic is a general term given to babys that cry a lot. Some baby's do it and some don't. However in my world of
programming every error and bug has a logical reason for it. I take childcare the same way. If my baby's crying there is a logical reason for it. My sister had this problem and it turns out it was because the baby was hungry. She wasn't able to produce enough breast milk to satisfy him. My wife and I found ourselves in the same situation. The baby would breast feed, and sleep for maybe 30 minutes before he was awake and crying again. Finally after we fed him a bottle of Enfamil Premium for the first time, she drank it then slept for 3 hours straight ( the way baby's should be ). Another problem we ran into was our baby would get indigestion. You could watch him strain to get some gas through, or to poop. This causes the baby a lot of pain, and thus he cries. In my experience the indigestion is often caused by one of the two things. Either the baby swallowed a lot of air bubbles with the formula, which are now in their digestive track. Or their body is having a hard time digesting the formula. Be sure to burp your baby after feeding them. If you notice your baby is constipated and in pain try switching formulas. This brings me to my next topic of discussion
Which formula is best Enfamil, Similac, or Good Start?
In the hospital they gave us Enfamil Premium. This worked ok at first, but after a while all it did was cause a lot of indigestion. So we switched to the Enfamil Gentlease which is supposed to help with fussiness and gas. Seemed to work at first, but then back to the same problems before. Then one night at 2am I found myself in the grocery store, and I bought a can of premixed Similac Advance. We tried that and he took it down just fine. No indigestion, and no fussiness. We were going to stick to Similac but we wanted to make sure there wasn't a better option. You know like the formula that creates smiles and allows him to sleep through the night. Finally we tried Nestle Good Start. He took it down ok, but then over the next 24 hours he had very bad gas and was once again having indigestion. So at this point we are going back to Similac. Unfortunately for us Similac appears to also be the most expensive formula. I guess you really can't put a price on your baby's food, of course Similac certainly did.
Baby Spits up too much
This seems to describe our experience. Feed the baby, burp the baby then baby spits up half its food on your shoulder. This can be extremely stressful for breast feeding moms, who pumped all day to get 2 ounces just to have the baby puke it up. Once again I stress its important to find the right formula. We seem to be doing good on Similac Advance.
Baby Cries because of Lactose intolerance
I was talking with one of my clients, and he
shared with me that his baby had lots of problems, then finally they were able to diagnose the baby intolerance to Lactose. They switched the baby to a Lactose free formula and the baby never fussed again. We tried this but it was no better than the regular stuff.
Baby gets stinky neck cheese
Baby's don't really have a neck, they lots of fat rolls where a neck will be one day. The problem is when baby's spit up the milk / formula dribbles down their chin it ends up between these fat rolls, where it literally turns into cheese. You pull your baby close to smell them, and notice this found rotting cheese smell from their neck. This is just part of being a baby. The best thing to do is give them a bath and clean between the rolls.
Healthcare needs Transparency
If there is one place where there needs some transparency its healthcare. When I take my car in for repairs I get an estimate of the cost of repairs before its costs me anything. Healthcare should be the same way. Instead you get these mystery bills from the hospital because your insurance only covered part of the item in which was supposed to be covered in full. For example if the pediatrician had told me that formula would clear up the jaundice, I would have done it immediately. Instead he let the jaundice get so severe that he had to bring in the UV lights for a day, of which they them billed us after the fact. Even though our Insurance covered most things, seeing the itemized bill was terrible. They literally nickle and dime you for everything. It was like going to a high end bar and paying $13 for a long island ice tea. Someone is making too much money off healthcare. There needs to be a bill that forces healthcare
providers to clearly state their rates before providing any services. Leaving the hospital and thinking we got the copay behind us only to have these bills show up 30 days later is not acceptable. What is worse is I asked them what happens if a person don't have health insurance. They said its just billed to medicaid. So basically I am paying for my stay plus the stay of every uninsured person. Something needs to be done. Healthcare needs transparency. If single payer means wiping out heath insurance companies saving all of us money I am all for it.
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