For the last few days Kevin has had a little bit of a cold, the typical runny nose and coughing. Then at the lunch feeding yesterday things got a little bit worse(not terrible just a little bit). When I changed their diapers Kevin's head felt a little warm, and his cheeks looked a little rosy.
Alex ate up the peas like he was starving to death, but Kevin didn't seam to interested in eating. Although not too unusual, Alex always eats like a mad man, peas are one of the few things that Kevin tends to like more than Alex.
Then after eating their food I passed Kevin off to Jamie to give him his bottle. When she felt his head it was even warmer than it was when I changed him. So right away we took his helmet off, which the doctor said to do anytime they run a higher than normal temperature.
Although not real happy about it, Kevin ate most of the bottle. This is pretty average for the boys right now. They rarely eat their bottles good right after eating solids. What was a little odd is that Alex finished his bottle before Kevin.
While Jamie was still finishing up feeding Kevin his bottle I was able to put Alex in his bouncy toy and take Kevin's temperature. His temp was 100.3. So we gave him some Infant Tylenol. The feeding was a little earlier than normal, but both boys were starting to get pretty sleepy so we laid them down early for their afternoon naps.
Alex took his normal nap in the crib, and Kevin laid in our bed with Jamie for a nap. They ended up taking a really good 2.5-3 hour nap. When they got up though you could tell that Kevin did not feel very good. All he wanted to do was lay on us, or if he was on the floor he just wanted to sit and have a toy in front of him. He definitely was not his normal playful self.
We had planned to go out to dinner with my parent for Jamie's birthday last night. When they got to our house Kevin was a little bit more smiley and happy to see Grandma and Papa, but still not his playful self. Grandma was the one that pointed out to us just how raspy his breathing was(well me at least, Jamie might have noticed it earlier but I didn't).
We decided to give it a try and see how he would do going to Buffalo Wild Wings. BWW has some really cool high chairs. The seats just flip over and they become holders for car seats. Now normally the boys would not have had any interest in being in the carseats the whole time we ate. And just like usual Alex started getting cranky about 5 seconds before the waitress brought us our food. So I flipped the seat back up and he was happy the rest of the meal sitting up at the table with us, well maybe not happy but really really interested in trying to devise an evil plot to get our food. Kevin on the other hand just laid in his carseat, and watched all the TVs, for pretty much the whole meal. As we were finishing up eating Kevin started to get a little cranky so Jamie took him out and held him. He just wanted to lay down on Jamie shoulder and when Grandma took him he wasn't very happy and just wanted to be back on Jamie's shoulder.
When we got home he was still pretty raspy. When you put your hand on his back you could feel his chest vibrate as he breathed. And he still felt pretty warm at this point. We were considering taking him down to the emergency room to have him checked out. So we decided to call Prevea's on call nurse first.
The Prevea nurse was super helpful. She walked me through all kinds of questions about how Kevin was doing. After answering all the questions she suggested that we bring Kevin in the bathroom and run the shower for 20 minutes to get some warm mist in him, and that she would call us back in a half hour to see how that went.
When we went to go in the bathroom Jamie noticed that he had a pretty wet diaper, so we decided to change him first. Then while he was all undressed we thought we might as well go ahead and take his temperature again, since he now was feeling really hot to us. His temp was now 103.5, which got us just that much more nervous about it all. But hearing all the stuff about how bad Infant medicine can be we decided to just go sit in the bathroom and see if that helped. Kevin really liked it because it gave him a chance to just lay down on Jamie's shoulder and relax. I sat with him the last few minutes in the bathroom so that Jamie could get out, I figured she must have been really hot by then.
When we got out of the bathroom it did seam like his breathing was at least a little bit less raspy and there was a little bit less vibration in his chest. The nurse called us back shortly after that. She said we really needed to give him the Tylenol for the fever, but that she didn't feel it was something that we would need to go to the emergency room for. She explained how a fever is actually good because it means that the body is fighting off the virus/infection. According to the nurse the big reason we didn't need to go the ER was that he was alert, not having trouble breathing, and generally eating all of his bottles. She did then set up an appointment for early this morning so that we could bring him in to see our normal doctor.
So we went about the nightly routine as best we could. Of course this all had to happen when I had to work last night (we do a production release of our code once every 2-3 months and last night was release night). So Jamie feed Alex while Kevin sat on my lap while I worked. Then we let Alex play a bit while Jamie started feeding Kevin. Luckily the release went really smooth, so I was able to go put Alex to bed when he started getting cranky so that Jamie didn't have to disturb Kevin.
At first Kevin only ate about half of his bottle. When my release was done I sat and rocked him on the chair while Jamie got started on her homework. It took about half an hour for him to calm down and pretty much fall alseep on me. So I laid him down on the couch by Jamie while I took out the garbage, and he didn't much like that. So I got back in as quick as I could so that we could rock on the chair again. After rocking him for a while he still did not calm down. Luckily Jamie does not have a terrible memory like I do, so she suggested trying to feed him. And that was exactly what he wanted. He drank the rest of his bottle, and went to bed in his crib with the normal minute or two of whining then falling right asleep.
Wow was that a long night then. Alex actually went to bed really early. So both boys woke up quite a few times and shuffled around and cried a little. But since they are our awesome little sleepers they got themselves back to sleep pretty quick each time. Of course ever time I heard them wake up it woke me up thinking it was Kevin not feeling good again. And everytime I'd wake up and not hear him crying I would worry about that too. In the end I think Kevin slept much better than I did.
We are taking him to the doctor at 10, so hopefully its something we can just give him a little medicine for becasue I really hate not being able to help him feel better.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Advanced Feeding Techniques
Wow this has been sitting here as a draft for three months. I'd like to first apologize to all of our loyal readers, yes that would be Grandma JoJo and Nana Squirrels. So I'm morphing this post into a trip through the first three months of the boys eating solid foods...
3 Months Old:
No food yet. Kevin sucks down bottles like he has never eaten before. Alex takes his sweet time to eat his bottles. But most of the time they eat full bottles good.
4 Months Old:
We started out by doing Rice Cereal at the night feeding. As anticipated the first couple of feedings were rough while the boys tried to figure out what the heck to do with the food. Both boys cry a lot while trying to feed them, but Kevin a lot more so than Alex. Crying actually makes feeding easier because they are not fighting the spoon while they cry.
4 Months 2 Weeks:
Alex has been eating good for a week or two now. After the first few days with Alex figured out that food was good. By this point he is just inhaling the food. Kevin on the other hand just cries when we try to feed him. He refuses to eat any solid food. We are feeding the boys in the bouncy chairs on the floor in the living room.
4 Months 3 Weeks:
Giving up on Solids for a little while. This was a tough decision. Kevin just cries too much, and is really really against eating food. Thought about keeping Alex going on solids, but we wanted to keep them at the same place.
5 Months 1 Week:
Started on food again. Kevin still isn't too thrilled about eating solids. He still cries a little bit, but not nearly as bad as before. Alex was excited to get some food again. Alex really likes to suck on his fingers while we feed him, which makes it really tough.
5 Months 3 Weeks:
Well apparently Grandma JoJo had the magic touch. Grandma JoJo was here to feed the boys two nights in a row, and ever since then Kevin no longer cries when he eats. We still can't feed Alex fast enough, he just inhales food.
6 Months:
Alex continues to eat good, but he still insists that he needs to stick his fingers in his mouth and makes a mess while eating. Kevin no longer cries at all when we feed him, he sits there and eats good. Not as fast as Alex, but very little mess relatively speaking. Alex will eat anything that you put in front of him. Kevin on the other hand much prefers veggies over fruit. He'll eat most fruit, but he isn't as happy about it as when he eats veggies. The other thing that we have discovered is that the boys much prefer to eat at the table. So now we are feeding them in the bouncy chairs onto the table instead of on the living room floor.
7 Months:
A bit of changing in eating styles. Alex now sits relativly still while you feed him. He still sometimes goes after the spoon or sticks his fingers in his mouth, but not too bad. Kevin now likes to bang at the bowl while we feed him, as well as sticking his fingers in his mouth and grabbing the spoons. Makes feeding him a little difficult. We did now get out the high chair and they seam like sitting up in there while eating. Both of the high chairs we got from people were in need of some serious cleaning, so we only have one cleaned up and ready right now, and hopefully getting the other one ready today. When sitting up in the high chair they seam more calm about eating versus when they are in the bouncy chair.
Last Night:
We went to Red Robin for dinner. To give the boys something to do while we were there we brought some of those little melting baby snacks that looks kinda like star shapped cherrios. Supprisingly the boys did not really like them much. Alex was never able to get any into his mouth, and when Kevin did ( I think Jamie actually got it in his mouth ) he made a pretty unhappy face. The boys started to get a little cranky while we were eating cause they wanted to eat. So we brought along some Chicken dinner baby food. This was the first time we have tried anything other than fruits and veggies. Alex really did not like it at all. He made a disgusted face and simply spit out most of the few spoonfuls I tried to get into him. Kevin did not really like it either, but at least he ate a little bit of it without spitting out too much.
Wow that was a lot of catching up. Hopefully soon I will have enough time to get the other 3 partially written entries done and posted.
3 Months Old:
No food yet. Kevin sucks down bottles like he has never eaten before. Alex takes his sweet time to eat his bottles. But most of the time they eat full bottles good.
4 Months Old:
We started out by doing Rice Cereal at the night feeding. As anticipated the first couple of feedings were rough while the boys tried to figure out what the heck to do with the food. Both boys cry a lot while trying to feed them, but Kevin a lot more so than Alex. Crying actually makes feeding easier because they are not fighting the spoon while they cry.
4 Months 2 Weeks:
Alex has been eating good for a week or two now. After the first few days with Alex figured out that food was good. By this point he is just inhaling the food. Kevin on the other hand just cries when we try to feed him. He refuses to eat any solid food. We are feeding the boys in the bouncy chairs on the floor in the living room.
4 Months 3 Weeks:
Giving up on Solids for a little while. This was a tough decision. Kevin just cries too much, and is really really against eating food. Thought about keeping Alex going on solids, but we wanted to keep them at the same place.
5 Months 1 Week:
Started on food again. Kevin still isn't too thrilled about eating solids. He still cries a little bit, but not nearly as bad as before. Alex was excited to get some food again. Alex really likes to suck on his fingers while we feed him, which makes it really tough.
5 Months 3 Weeks:
Well apparently Grandma JoJo had the magic touch. Grandma JoJo was here to feed the boys two nights in a row, and ever since then Kevin no longer cries when he eats. We still can't feed Alex fast enough, he just inhales food.
6 Months:
Alex continues to eat good, but he still insists that he needs to stick his fingers in his mouth and makes a mess while eating. Kevin no longer cries at all when we feed him, he sits there and eats good. Not as fast as Alex, but very little mess relatively speaking. Alex will eat anything that you put in front of him. Kevin on the other hand much prefers veggies over fruit. He'll eat most fruit, but he isn't as happy about it as when he eats veggies. The other thing that we have discovered is that the boys much prefer to eat at the table. So now we are feeding them in the bouncy chairs onto the table instead of on the living room floor.
7 Months:
A bit of changing in eating styles. Alex now sits relativly still while you feed him. He still sometimes goes after the spoon or sticks his fingers in his mouth, but not too bad. Kevin now likes to bang at the bowl while we feed him, as well as sticking his fingers in his mouth and grabbing the spoons. Makes feeding him a little difficult. We did now get out the high chair and they seam like sitting up in there while eating. Both of the high chairs we got from people were in need of some serious cleaning, so we only have one cleaned up and ready right now, and hopefully getting the other one ready today. When sitting up in the high chair they seam more calm about eating versus when they are in the bouncy chair.
Last Night:
We went to Red Robin for dinner. To give the boys something to do while we were there we brought some of those little melting baby snacks that looks kinda like star shapped cherrios. Supprisingly the boys did not really like them much. Alex was never able to get any into his mouth, and when Kevin did ( I think Jamie actually got it in his mouth ) he made a pretty unhappy face. The boys started to get a little cranky while we were eating cause they wanted to eat. So we brought along some Chicken dinner baby food. This was the first time we have tried anything other than fruits and veggies. Alex really did not like it at all. He made a disgusted face and simply spit out most of the few spoonfuls I tried to get into him. Kevin did not really like it either, but at least he ate a little bit of it without spitting out too much.
Wow that was a lot of catching up. Hopefully soon I will have enough time to get the other 3 partially written entries done and posted.
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