This past week, Elle came down with her first cold. It is a bummer that our little one already
has a cold in the middle of the Bahama summer but I guess with all our guests
(including 10 extra kids), it is pretty easy to get a cold. But all in all, Elle’s cold hasn’t been too
bad. She has been congested but
otherwise seemed happy and content.
Perhaps the contentment is because we have been pretty vigilant about
relieving her congestion. To remove the
congestion, we have used two important tools: (1) the NoseFrida snot sucker;
and (2) homemade saline solution. The
NoseFrida snot sucker is this great contraption where you stick a blue tube
onto one of baby’s nostrils, hold the other nostril closed, and suck a clear
tub to use your own suction to clear baby’s nose. Luckily there is a filter so you won’t
actually suck the boogers up into your mouth.
Unless, as a sleep deprived parent, you forget to replace the filter. (I
haven’t done this yet – but I have accidently put my mouth on the wrong
end. Yuck!).
The homemade saline solution also helps relieve the
congestion because it moistens any dry crusty boogers. I was really lucky to have my experienced
mom/doctor sister here to tell me about the saline solution and how simple it
is to make and use. To make it, you just
combine ¼ teaspoon of salt to half a cup of water (or you can buy “simply
saline” if you prefer). And then to
apply it, you use the hospital-dispensed blue snot sucker (that doesn’t work
that well for snot sucking) to squirt a tiny bit of saline solution around the
nostrils. It doesn’t take that much and
you don’t squirt the saline directly into the nostrils, just a little bit
around the nose suffices to get up into baby’s sinuses to loosen up the boogers
so you can use the NoseFrida to suck them out.
I hope that Elle kicks her cold soon. Although it has not held her back from
continuing to head to the beach, enjoy playing with her cousins as well as hold
her head up very well. In fact, she held her head up so well that I decided to
face her forward in the Beco Gemini. Pic
below. She seems to like facing forward
a lot (except for when she wants to nap).
Very exciting.
I haven’t yet taken any long walks with her facing forward because
I am still very conscious of the heat and its effects on her. And my exercise routine continues to
suffer. I am still doing the planks,
pushups, squats and pull ups but I have noticed that I don’t have the desire
(or perhaps the willpower) to do them at night right before bed. I have to get them in earlier in order to
actually do them. Willpower and desire
has also been lacking in the food department.
This makes a lot of sense since
sleep deprivation can hit you with a double-whammy – weakened willpower because
you have been using it to keep yourself going with not enough sleep as well as
your body’s increased production of the hunger hormone.
For me, I am eating a lot more sweets then I think is good
for me or Elle. I also had this problem
during the first trimester of my pregnancy so then, I decided to limit myself
to one treat per week. I am going to
try that this coming week and see how I feel…
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