After Kye’s shots on Wednesday he seemed to be fine. He was a little fussy, but not bad. Well Thursday Robyn brought LL over for the play date and while Kye was super cute for a little while, he got VERY fussy. He cried and cried and just wasn’t himself, he even had diarrhea diapers after every feeding! I broke down and gave him some Tylenol.
The next day he still wasn’t being himself but I went ahead with the Rice Cereal b/c I figured it was just a reaction to the shots which I heard is common at the 4 month visit. He was pretty cranky during the day Friday and I broke down and took his temperature and for the first time in his young life he had a mild fever! It was 99.8 which is high for him as he’s like his mommy and daddy and has a low body temperature (in the 97 range typically). I gave him Tylenol and just assumed it was the shots as I know it can last a couple days.
(Levi was a good boy through it all!)
That afternoon I took the temp again and it was high but not as high as before so I guess everything was getting better! He did fine the rest of Friday and all day Saturday but then came Sunday!
Every baby has their typical ups and downs and Kye’s worst nap of the day is either the 2nd or 3rd one NEVER the first. He’s ALWAYS gone down super easy for the first nap and slept pretty well for it..well not on Sunday! We had church and Zach’s parents for lunch and of course Kye picks a busy day to act up haha. He literally would not sleep for the first nap. He didn’t sleep AT ALL and missed the WHOLE thing! That set us up for disaster and Zach actually had to go sit in the car with him for the second half of church services because he was crying so much. Thankfully he slept well at Charlotte’s (which is rare) and the rest of the day went okay. He was fussier than normal and did not go to sleep very well that night. He woke up at one point just screaming (usually he makes little grunting noises that can lead up to a cry) and Zach thought maybe he’d had a bad dream!
We thought Sunday was bad until Monday came!!! It was AWFUL. He woke up so many times during the night just crying and crying. I ended up getting up at 6:09 (yes, I remember the exact minute haha) and stayed up. I fed him at 6:20 because Babywise says to always treat any problem first as a hunger problem. I’ve read that around 4 months some babies go through a growth spurt and that if you meet their needs they will get through it quicker than if you don’t. So I fed him early and he acted OK for a little bit.
Then his first nap came and he went down great like usual but then woke up a wouldn’t go back to sleep. He cried and screamed. His whole day went like that. He was only happy RIGHT after he ate and then was pretty fussy they rest of the time. It was SO hard to deal with and it showed me that everyone is right…I’m thankful I have such a good baby b/c if I had to deal with that everyday then I probably wouldn’t want more!!!
(So sad…)
I decided to treat it as a hunger problem for the day and see if it helped. For my first time since starting BW I completely went off schedule. I fed him on-demand. Instead of feeding him at 7, 11, 3, and 7 I fed him at 6:20, 10:40, 1:30, 3, 5, and 715. I don’t think it was a feeding issue, however, because it didn’t really help and after the 5:00 one I just went ahead and gave him Tylenol at 5:30 because he was super fussy even right after eating.
I gave him the Tylenol because if it’s not a food issue my next guess was that it could be a teething issue. I have heard that babies have some REALLY bad teething days and that could have been what was going on! I don’t know how long Tylenol takes to kick in but he didn’t start acting better until about 6:20ish and then he was pretty much his normal self! Sure he was a little messed up because he’s so so so adjusted to that schedule and he was totally off of it, but for the most part I could see my little boy shining through!
(doesn’t this sad face break your heart?)
Zach noticed that his stomach was making a lot of noises and that he was pretty gassy. He also had a lot of projectile vomit. So he thought maybe the rice cereal was causing an issue? I didn’t really know what to think. I mean he’d had some liquidy diapers before introducing the cereal (which I attributed to the shots as well) and he seemed to be okay to me the first day we gave it to him so I wasn’t sure. I did some online research and did find that while rice cereal is one of the most gentle things on the baby’s system that it can cause constipation. Well Kye wasn’t constipated for sure! Through all the crying he had an AWESOME “normal” diaper that made me feel a lot better about it!
It was such a frustrating day not only because Kye was filled with constant tears, but because I couldn’t figure out what was causing them. It wasn’t hunger for sure! So was it teething or was it the introduction of food? I decided to stop the rice cereal for a couple of days to see what happens when I re-introduce it. Zach doesn’t really want me to ever feed it to him again just in case that was what caused the problem, but if I don’t give it to him again how will I ever know if it was the cause?
(whoa ugly face haha)
Some Positives:
It was an awful day. I did well handling myself, but it was tough. At one point I left him in the crib and allowed him just to cry for 3 minutes while I went outside and sat in the grass. Being in the sunshine felt so good and I needed that 3 minutes to gather myself. I didn’t even get a chance to shower so I was hot, sticky, and covered in puke. Even though I did pretty well I did break down and join in with the tears. When I started crying the sweetest thing happened. Kye stopped crying, looked at me, and smiled!!! Yeah, two seconds later he went back to bawling, but it was so precious and helped remind me that one bad day is worth all the great, amazing moments he brings me!
Another positive of the day…even though Kye was horrible it seemed like he magically grew into an older kid before our eyes in one day! Zach and I both noticed it!!! During that day while crying he reached and reached for us and would grab on our faces in ways he hasn’t done before. He wanted to be touching us, to have our comfort. It was so sweet and loving and it just made him seem so much OLDER. Like he knows what he wants and he reaches until he gets it!
Thankfully I have a great, supportive husband who let me get in the bed early while he did Kye’s bath and put him to bed. I am also so glad for Facebook as I could put my problems out there and have a million suggestions from people of ideas that may help! I woke up Tuesday morning SO thankful to God that he granted me a night of rest which allowed me to start my day fresh and in a positive mood. Kye’s been back to his self since and didn’t have any major problems with getting back on schedule! I plan to start back the rice cereal tomorrow (having given him 2 days off of it) and we’ll see what the reaction is! My gut? I think it was just a ROUGH teething day…which means we’ll probably have several more in the future seeing that no teeth have even come in yet!
(Had to end it with a happy boy picture!)
