Nisarga

Category: infant

  • Neopeptine drops for infants with gas

    Okay, like I said that the baby’s loose bowel motions got sorted by Bonnisan, the other helpful miracle we had with the infant gas and colic was Neopeptine drops for infants. We had been asked not to give gripe water to Nisarga. Opinions vary on this from gripe water containing something that is risky for infants to accusations of doctors wanting to promote branded medicines instead of traditional remedies. Whatever the truth is (and we never investigated) we were not giving him gripe water to prevent infant gas. However, considering that a friend who gave her child gripe water regularly had similar problems to ours, so I’m not certain the gripe water helps.

    There are two things you need to know about infant gas. The first is that it is very painful and a leading cause of sleep deprivation for new parents. The other is that while medicines help, the biggest thing you can do is burp the baby and often. This simply cannot be repeated often enough.

    Neopeptine drops have digestive enzymes, and really helped cut the amount of abdominal pain from gas discomfort the baby goes through. Unfortunately, it took us a while to discover how to use it.

    Neopeptine drops for infants are available over the counter at most medical shops. So, if you are using Neopeptine drops for infant gas, here are some tips, which we wish someone had given us:

    • You have likely been advised to give Neopeptine drops only for extreme colic and exhaust other methods of soothing abdominal pain first. This makes you tend to wait for quite some time before the baby’s distress forces you to use it. You end up with a baby too worked up to patiently take drops and then too worn out and fussy to simply settle quietly. Don’t wait. Use it at the first sign of gas.
    • If your baby is suffering from intestinal gas, don’t give Neopeptine drops only when he is suffering abdominal pain. Give them for a day or two after getting relief from stomach pain as well, as long as you aren’t giving him more than three times, though we have given him four or even five doses once on the first day, when he was in a lot of trouble.
    • Give the drops before feeding. Pause. Then feed. Burp. Feed. Burp. Feed…. did I mention burp?
    • Neopeptine helps baby move the gas easier, but you can help it along. Give drops, burp, feed, burp, wait for some time, burp again.
    • Moving the baby’s legs will also help him pass gas, which will not hurt your situation.

    Have you used Neopeptine? How did you use it? How was your experience?

  • Right brain development in infants

    There is a wealth of information on right brain development in infants and how it can’t be started early enough and resources and all that. Like any other obsessed mother out there, I’m researching ways to entertain him in a manner that stimulates his development, and so far am doing pretty much exactly what came instinctively anyway.

    Talking a lot to him, teasing him to win those smiles, carrying him around and showing stuff, making funny faces and exaggerated actions, etc.

    The funny part is that the actions get him looking all solemn and puzzled at me when I’d have thought he’d laugh. He looks like he wants to ask “Hey, you okay? You seemed fine a minute ago”

    What I’m planning to do:

    1. Flash cards. He still sleeps most of the time, and seems supremely uninterested in the flashcards most of the time. So I guess this is going to be an acquired taste. At the moment, he’ll look at the cards very briefly and mostly look at my face as though trying to figure out what in the world I’m trying to do.
    2. Touch: He gets his massage and bath every day, and we often cuddle at bedtime. Other than that, he loves touch in general. Stroke his head, body, face-but-NOT-nose, and he’s virtually purring. I give him lots of other stuff to touch too – the plastic of his toys – hard, soft, bags…, rubber mat, soft cotton swaddling cloth, other cloth materials, sponge, wood, …. whatever we can lay our hands on
    3. Smell: So far, we like a couple of perfumes and sneeze at frying smells from the kitchen. Vicks , milk and baby powder are at the top.
    4. Movement: I carry him around in my arms, in a sling…. lift him high, dance with him in my arms, … He pretty much enjoys it all indiscriminately
    5. Mimicry: I do all kinds of stuff for him to copy. So far we have managed to stick our tongues out (both imitating me and when told), clap (sort of) and blink. He will suck instead of kiss, and we understand the sign for milk (I like to imagine), but can’t copy. I guess he’s too hungry and small to focus while hungry yet. Thing is, he enjoys all this stuff and is mostly waving arms and feet full power with that undecided half-smile on his face.
    6. Music: He likes most music (other than a couple of really loud songs, and Anup Jalota) Favourites being nursery rhymes in Marathi, and Usha Uthups Karadi Rhymes followed closely by Shakti and Ghulam Ali.

    And here I am, saying that I don’t get to do much because he sleeps so much. I guess its more about being aware of how much we are doing.

  • Nightmare night

    Last night Nisarg cried, and cried, and cried. Poor chap. He vomitted a couple of times, had loose stools, gas…. and was utterly miserable.

    He wanted to be held all the time and still sobbed on and off.

    Nothing worked. feeding, burping, music….

    Just as I was about to rush him to the ER of the nearest hospital, he started nodding off, utterly exhausted. Poor little boy. Care….fully, I put him down, and after a few sobs, he was out. Such a tiny body, so tired from the discomfort and crying.

    I was a goner too. I was tired myself, but all wired up. Sleep didn’t matter if I could just bring him some comfort…. Luckily, at 4am, this nightmare story ended from sheer exhaustion on his part. After staying awake for another half hour or so to just be sure that he was ok, I slept like a log.

    He woke up in the morning with a ear destroying scream, and I was like, “Not again….”. I began telling Raka how we were taking him to the hospital immediately after feeding, and he started getting ready.

    Just to be contrary I think, Nisarg drank and drank and drank like he was starving, belched like a drunk sailor, and was peacefully sleeping before his burping was done. He didn’t even stir as I put him down.

    Raka and I looked at each other in disbelief. Apparently, the guy was just hungry after his difficult night.

    I’ve been looking at him warily all day, but so far, so good.

  • Teething before 2 months

    Is Nisarg teething?

    Everyone I shared this doubt with thinks I’m nuts. For one, he was born early. For another, he’s not even two months old yet. Its supposed to begin after four months and supposed to be even later for babies who come early.

    Since yesterday, he’s been fussy on and off for no apparent reason. I put him down to nap, then he wakes up almost immediately after, except for the night, which so far continues to be blessedly smooth.

    He’s suddenly started drooling, biting his fingers and sometimes (rarely) sucking his knuckles. I can see two white bits under the gum where his two lower front teeth could come. I can also feel those teeth with my finger, though they are inside.

    To me, it really seems like he’s teething.

    Dayum, this motherhood thing is one thing after another. Seems just yesterday I was complaining about not being able to sleep because of backaches from a huge front. Now, I can sleep very well, but am still exhausted. First the birth, then coming home, breastfeeding every two hours, diarrhoea, gas pains, figuring out pee communication, worrying about his weight gain all through and just as I was celebrating two days of a regular healthy infant, its now this teething thing, or something that seems remarkably like it.

    Anyone else had a child that teethed this early? Developmentally, he should be counted a month old or something. He’s still very tiny and not on the weight charts for his age at all. I’m just hoping that this doesn’t create a setback in his weight gain….

  • Teaching baby to clap

    Okay, let me say that I tried, and he seems to get it, but I have no clue how it happened.

    I noticed that he will try and imitate things I do, so I made faces. He will stick his tongue out when I stick mine out. He will stare at my face when I smile with no intention of copying. He will smile when I raise my eyebrows with no movement other than blinking around his eyes…

    Another stage in this saga was me trying to teach him to clap. I clapped my hands when he was paying attention, and he gave me one of those intent stares that make it clear he has no plans of doing any such thing. Small claps make him all puzzled, and ones where I move my hands obviously entertain him, but no go on doing it himself.

    Until this morning. Raka had to leave really early, so we woke up around 5am. Imagine my surprise to see Nisarg next to me wide awake, and clapping!!!

    Well, they were not real claps. Sometimes the hands came to the center at slightly different times, other times he hit his stomach, still other times, he brought his hands together and clasped them tight. However, there was no doubt that he was trying to clap.

    I promptly sat in front of him and clapped without a sound to help him see the movement, and his legs got into the fray, kicking into the air with excitement. He tried once more.

    And… that’s it.

    We went back to staring at me while I clapped.

    Looks like my guy was trying to clap as a part of playing with his hands and didn’t appreciate the distraction of mom teaching something.

    Hmmm… so if you’re trying to teach your baby to clap, here is what I suggest you do:

    Please share in a comment how you managed to do it. 😀

  • Elimination communication at 7 weeks old

    Yesterday, I realized that Nisarg cried for a couple of minutes before peeing, and was able to rush him to the wash basin in time to take a diaper free leak quite a few times. I was thrilled, right until before the MIL told me to call up the doctor. Why is it that the baby is crying when he isn’t even wet yet? He must be in pain.

    There went my joy at having successfully conquered the gas pains a couple of days ago. In a panic, I called up the doctor, who was busy, busy again, and again, till I could have reached throught the phone to yank the receptionist’s hair and to tell her that this was an emergency!

    Finally, I was able to speak with her, and…. anti-climax. Like so many of my worried calls, this one barely rated a yawn. No, nothing to worry about. Babies do it. He will grow out of it….

    Why in the world was everyone acting like this was a bad thing to be concerned about or grown out of?

    It looked to me that my baby was telling me clearly that he didn’t like being wet, and was crying in anticipation of the upcoming wet, or to tell me, or from fighting the losing battle to prevent the wet…. In any case, it told me that he needed to take a leak and to provide him with appropriate support. Which is good, right? Isn’t that the direction to grow in in any case?

    He’s small. So what? He just doesn’t like being wet.

    Just to test, I put a disposable diaper on him, like for the night, and he didn’t cry for hours. Possibly, because it doesn’t let him get uncomfortably wet like the cloth ones. So obviously it wasn’t pain from passing urine.

    The other mystery got solved in a flash of insight. Why was he telling us so clearly all of a sudden? I realized that he was telling me all through, but what with the gas making him cry all the time, and my own incompetence with understanding him, I didn’t realize till the Bonnisan drops cured the gas and thus the overtiredness. Once the clutter was removed, the normal crying for communication remained, making it seem like it started suddenly.

    This was further “confirmed” when I woke up from a nap to change his diaper. I knew that I had to change his diaper even before the crying registered fully and I awoke. Indeed, he was about to take a leak. So somewhere, unconsciously, I had learned to recognize his “pee” crying.

    Wow!!!! It suddenly makes me feel like I understand him so much better.

    Update: So much for my excitement. This is actually a method to train babies to potty 😀 A reader here, Laurie has shared the following links:

    • http://www.TimL.com/ipt
    • http://www.pottywhisperer.com

    I’ve read them very briefly, but they seem informative. Looks like Nisarg and I discovered a very good way of learning to toilet train all by ourselves. See, I knew this guy was smart. Thank you Laurie.

    Update two: Oops. Looks like “Elimination Communication” is a method too. A friend called it so, and I thought she was just talking about what I was telling her happened with us….

  • Bonnisan works miracles with gassy infant!!!

    Of course I did a whole load of searching on Bonnisan, and then tasted it myself before even showing baby the bottle….

    I’d read all kinds of nice things about it, which kind of reassured me, and the taste is nice – similar to gripe water, so initially I didn’t know what the doctor’s big deal about the whole thing was.

    I found out for myself within our first day on the medicine. Two doses in, and the gas pains were audibly lower. Baby was sleeping better, more cheerful and eating more.

    We are now into our second day and WOW!!! Nisarg is back to the sweet tempered baby he was before this gas nightmare began. He hasn’t pooped all day today after every day since birth being an experience of a constantly pooping bottom. He still has gas, but its much less and he can pass it without going through agony for every fart or spraying poop along with it. His body just seems so limp and relaxed after feedings.

    I’d reached the end of my rope with this gas thing, and desperately needed a miracle. Looks like I got one.

    If I add my experience with this medicine, with the research I read, I don’t know why doctors don’t simply prescribe this off the bat, or at least at the first sign of trouble. Its a digestive tonic that does so many things. Just Google it. No point having to suffer through my half baked jargon.

  • Tips to increase intake and weight gain of breastfed baby

    My son, as you all know is underweight and breastfed. Like any concerned mother, I want to see him put on weight consistently. This led me to really look for ways to up his intake and make the best of what he will eat. These insights were priceless and difficult to find on the net – took a lot of careful observation and experimenting.

    1. The milk you feed him. Excess of foremilk and not enough hindmilk will cause gassiness. We know that – lactose overload or foremilk hindmilk imbalance. But why does getting enough hindmilk resolve this? Because hindmilk contains fats in addition to all that the regular stuff in the foremilk and the more the breast is empty, the more fats the milk will contain, making it travel slower through the intestines and get more time to be digested. So, if you have a good milk supply, pump off foremilk and then put the baby to breast. This way, what little quantity the baby drinks will have more calories in it, in addition to saving energy spent in gas pain, fussiness, etc.
    2. Feed at first cues of hunger. Okay, so we can’t always recognize them… Really, when in doubt, offer. When your baby starts following you with his eyes, offer. When baby has been awake for a while since previous feed, offer. If its hot weather and he could be thirsty…. Whatever. Offer. I was really surprised to see how much more than “every two hours” my baby would want to eat. If you catch the hunger before it reaches desperation and fussiness levels, your baby will be that much calmer and eat more.
    3. Don’t stop feeding when your baby takes a break. Often my son will stop drinking because he wants to burp or poop or pee. Getting that done will see him drinking again, if I offer, but he’s not hungry enough to fuss. (He will look at me constantly or stare at my breast though). After burping always offer to continue feeding if baby wants. If you miss this, he’ll just end up asking that much sooner, or god forbid, if you are a time table mom or don’t figure out he’s hungry, he’ll go partially hungry.
    4. Sometimes the baby plays with the nipple, rubs head against breast, arches back alternating with mouthing the nipple, cries, etc. He is NOT refusing milk. He is hungry, but is uncomfortable and can’t focus on it. Most of the time, burping will do the trick, or try calming him, waiting for a poop, helping him release gas. Whether it works to resolve the discomfort or not, sometimes you manage to help enough that he can now drink comfortably.
    5. Don’t soothe a hungry baby when you could feed him. Won’t work for long anyway, and aren’t you trying to increase his growth? Hunger is an opportunity. Even if it means he is eating all the time. If he is constantly asking to feed, obviously he is constantly feeling hungry. Don’t analyse it – “how could he be hungry again so fast?” etc – obviously he is. How doesn’t matter. Could be because he didn’t feed enough last time, or burped after that and now has more space or a growth spurt, or whim/weather…? Sometimes Nisarg will eat almost all the time, and when he settles again, his meals will have increased in size – a growth spurt in appetite?

    These tips together probably doubled my son’s intake within a couple of weeks and kept the good doctor beaming in approval though his weight is still off the charts low.

  • 6week doctor's appointment

    We had our third doctor’s appointment today. Ever since I started surfing the net and discovered that my baby was “near-term” and “underweight” I’ve been obsessing about getting him on the charts. So much for accepting the baby how it is.

    On some level, I think its good for Nisarg that I’m obsessing over his weight, because it makes me extra attentive to his needs. So maybe the mothering instinct is not completely absent when faced with charts….

    Anyway, this time, his weight was 4.35kg, which is a gain of 831 grams since the last visit a month ago. Good. He is still off the charts low though. I was thrilled to know that regular charts don’t represent normal breastfed babies and are too high, but unfortunately, he is still low on the WHO charts for breastfed babies. His height is in the third percentile though.

    Anyway, the other thing I was obsessing about was vaccinations. We could get them done for free in the government facilities (which I’ve heard are very good), but the darling would get 4 injections instead of the combined vaccine and Hepatitis-B which is only two with the pediatritian. Plus, they are supposed to be painful and cause swelling and fever. I’m terrified of injections myself, and no way would I let my love suffer from a single prick that could be avoided. Plus, the government vaccines won’t do HiB, which protects from pneumonia, influenza and whatnots. Thus, I talked myself out of the cheapest option.

    Then the doctor had two options a cheaper one (not really) that was still painful, and a more expensive one which would be “hardly noticed”. Not an easy choice considering how the better one cost twice the other. At Rs.1300/- and 2500/- neither were exactly cheap. Hmm… so I see this baby thing is not going to be a moneysaver.

    Anyway, we went, celebrated our weight gain, and got our vaccines with no pain other than that to my wallet.

    Considering how Nisarg has been suffering from a loose bowel since birth, I was determined to not leave without some answers. The reading on lactose intolerance had helped, but he was still gassy and still passed motions continuously through the day, though not in as much pain as before.

    This time, I talked about the neo-peptin and the gripe water. When I brought up the gripe water, the doctor said to not give it (again) and with a sigh scribbled out a prescription for something called Bonnisan.

    Thus armed, we have come home. Hopefully, the direction to travel is greater comfort, joy, love and all that.

  • Supporting an infant's neck

    You look at that fragile little thing and your heart flutters with fear for its safety. You are so scared of jerking that flimsy neck supporting that big head, that you take a full minute before the baby transfers from the bed to your arms.

    Well…. Life has a way of enforcing efficiency, as has confidence and observation. Trust me, I learned, and then had conversations with the doctor, other experienced people….

    The first sign you get that you may be being too careful with the infant’s nect is when you want to snatch your baby back from the doctor when s/he handles him. Fact is, most infants are able to take movement of the neck comfortably. What you want is to avoid jerks, head dropping from gravity, and such horrible things.

    Most of the time, if you are picking up your baby with a hand under its head, you are already doing things right. If you are supporting it in the crook of your arm, that works too, as do many other ways.

    Most people will advise you to be super careful, under the belief that better safe than sorry. However, it doesn’t help if you fear damaging your child for life each time you pick him or her up. Babies will move their heads at will and often correct uncomfortable head positions themselves. Sometimes they will nod their heads to angles beyond what they are able to control, and the head will suddenly flop.

    My technique is to keep my arm/hand or other body part or soft surface loosely and attentively ready to “catch” the head if it tries to go more than the baby’s usual range of movement. However, I don’t see the sense in immobilizing my son so much that he strengthens his neck through fighting restraints rather than attempting normal movement. This has gotten me grief from my mother-in-law who always holds him like he’s strapped to a splint. However, it hasn’t even earned me a whimper of discomfort from my son.

    I don’t think nature ever intended us to keep our offspring unnaturally rigid till some predecided date when they miraculously started not needing support. Nisarg learns to hold his neck every day and keeps getting better at it. He can now raise his head easily when sleeping on his tummy, turns to look in every direction, and will often rub his forehead on my chest or bang his head on my breast himself. He doesn’t seem to have suffered from the wear and tear.

    If you are still trying to figure out how and how much to support your infant’s neck:

    • provide support under neck and head for all horizontal positions, but it is not necessary to restrict any voluntary movement.
    • Provide support underneath for diagonal positions and be attentive for baby’s movements moving head to positions he can’t control or recover from and and situations where gravity could tax the neck muscles and cause the head to drop. This includes pulling into sitting positions for example
    • When holding baby upright, there is no real need to keep holding head, though positioning him so that he can rest on your chest or shoulder and keeping one hand on is a good idea. Don’t “hold”, just keep it there for comfort and readiness.