Elementary, My Dear Watson

The Mystery of the Screaming Baby has been solved. The culprit? Lemonade.

I had been craving lemonade for a while. See, if you recall I had some pretty bad heartburn while I was pregnant and as such, I pretty much cut out anything citrus. Friday afternoon, I noticed some frozen lemonade concentrate in the freezer and it sounded so good, I decided to make a pitcher. And over the course of the weekend, I drank the entire pitcher. It was wonderful. Until it made it into my breast milk. Apparently citrus is a common culprit of tummy upset in breastfed babies. Causes gas and spitting up. We learned in our breast feeding class that if you ate or drank something while you were pregnant there is a good chance that it won’t bother the baby in your breastmilk, that the baby in most cases would be used to whatever food it was. Not an absolute truth, but true in a lot of cases. But since I NEVER drank lemonade when I was pregnant, poor Bridgie had never had it until this weekend.

So I guess she spit up a bit, it came out her nose (which for her is the norm. It always comes out her nose when she spits up. Gross, but we anticipate her being a big hit in college if she can hang on to this talent of squirting stuff out her nose) which I think scared her because I guess she couldn’t breathe for a bit. And that woke her up completely, at which point she noticed that her tummy hurt from gas. This is my theory anyway. I don’t have footage from CSI:Nursery to confirm, but I’m making an educated guess. This all dawned on me last night when she urped again and it came out her nose and upset her, again, after I drank a couple glasses of lemonade. So I kept her upright for a bit longer than normal before putting her down, and made an extra effort to get multiple burps out of her, and gave her the mylicon drops. I am still not convinced that those things do a flingin’ flangin’ thing for gas but the doctor said they can’t hurt so what the hell?

And we had a much better night! She did wake up to nurse at 1:30 this morning, something she hadn’t done in a couple nights, but it wasn’t too bad. Then she woke up at 4 or so, but when I picked her up, she just laid her wee head on my shoulder and went back to sleep. I think she was cold. Her room tends to get a little chilly when the door is shut, but I shut the door to keep the cats out. Shelly, I am going to get some sleep sacks like you mentioned! I brought her into our room and put her in her bassinet, which I am still not ready to take out of our room, and she slept until 7 or so. Not bad at all. So the lesson here is that I don’t get a lot of lemonade again until I’m done breastfeeding. Au revoir lemonade. I’ll be coming for you in about ten months.

In other news, I had a dentist appointment today and Bridgie was a nightmare there. She cried the whole time. I had to get X-rays so she had to be out of the room, which was the beginning of the end for her. Everyone in that office had to hold her while I was getting my teeth cleaned and nothing made her happy. I finally put her on me while the girl was digging away in my mouth, but even I couldn’t calm her down. It’s so embarrassing to be the mother of the screaming baby. Oh, and I nursed her twice while I was there. The last time, my dentist walked in while I was nursing. So hi, Dr. Chuck. This is my boob. Not a body part you expect to expose to your dentist.

Tomorrow Bridgie has her two month appointment and she’s getting a shot. I’m already dreading it. I need to relax so that she doesn’t start to pick up on my anxiety and get herself even more worked up. I have some errands I want to run tomorrow afternoon, but I have a feeling mommy is going to need a valium after that visit so I don’t expect to get anything done. Pray for me, ok?

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