Monday, December 15, 2008
Drinking
So on Sunday, our friend Marc asked me if Sariah had any jaundice because she looked a little yellow. I told him she has always had a bit of an olive complexion and I have no idea where she gets it from. But since he said that I have been looking at her more closely and she does seem a little yellow. James has always thought that she is dehydrated and now I'm starting to worry a bit. She really doesn't drink. She hasn't taken a bottle in a long time. She just refuses them. Doesn't want them in her mouth at all. I thought that was okay and I would just transition her straight to a sippy. No big deal. Well she had just finally started taking the sippy when she got sick. And now she is back to not really wanting it either. She will chew on them, but doesn't really want to drink out of it. I tried the straw again today. She actually took a couple of sips!! Whooo hooo. But I'm just thinking how can I get her to drink more. She really only nurses in the morning and at night. The doctor said that when I wean her completely, that she will start drinking because her thirst will kick in. But I don't think she is getting enough now. Any suggestions? I think I'm just going to have to really push it on her all the time. Just every spare second try to give her something.
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8 comments:
Ok... so I know Marc was worried... but remember... His baby is BROWN. Any other color looks sick. My suggestion though is try some yummy juice! It may taste nice to her and she may want to drink it more. That is how we started Noah with a sippy. His happy with water now.
If you are super worried watch the white of her eyes they will change to a yellow tint if she is really sick.
put juice in the sippy cup, and try a different brand of sippy cup??? Lilly swore of sippy cups and drinking until I found the right cup! Good luck. Keep track of her wet diapers, as long as she is peeing she is not dehydrated.
does she eat a lot of carrots? My babies always turned yellowish orangish when they ate a lot of carrots.
I would check the sippy cup. Some of them are very difficult to get anything out of. We found some "disposable" ones at WalMart. They worked great. GOOD LUCK
All my kids were jaundiced as babies. There is a difference between the yellow and just olive complextion. I also tend to have an olive complextion (which can look slightly yellowish in some lights) so it may just be heredity. Don't worry as long as she is still having wet diapers (I forget how many at her age, but I'm sure you can look it up online). It takes a lot to get dehydrated to the point of liver malfunction. And remember you can get liquids from other sources: like soup, jello, ice cream or sherbert, etc. If your still really concerned call me and I'll come take a look.
Claire didn't drink a lot either when she got down to nursing in the morning and night. We just made sure she was wetting her diapers enough and she was so that helped relieve my worries, plus our doc wasn't worried which helped too. I'd just keep doing what you're doing and watching her. She looks great to me in all of her pics!
It sounds really gross, but when we couldn't get Haley to drink, someone gave us the advice to put her in a warm bathtub (no soaps or bubbles) and give her a tippy with no lid on it. Let her play around with it and encourage her to dip it, splash it and drink it. Somehow, making a game out of drinking with the tippy worked. We did the same thing with Sophie.
That said - I think she just has olive skin. Keep a watch on her eyes, if they are super white then she is fine.
I have the same suggestion with trying Juice -- HOWEVER . . . BEWARE!!! Once you start with the juice, you may have trouble getting her to drink anything else!!! And they're really not supposed to have more than 4 ounces of juice a day (too much sugar, causes cavities, too many calories and they won't be hungry for food . . . ) Soooooo, what we did was WATER DOWN the juice. Literally, we'd dilute it half and half with water. She'll still get the sweet juice flavor, which she WANTS (and entices her to drink), but she gets half the sugar/calories, etc. Plus she is getting flouridated water in her diet, which is also a positive. Eventually, I water down the juice so much, that they are fine with water alone soon after.
ONe more thing . . . we also struggled with our younger two kids about drinking cows milk at 12 months old. They WOULDN'T drink it!!! So frustrating!!! So . . . (I'm so sneaky, but I'm sure other Moms have done this) I actually started out with chocolate milk. We made it chocolate enough, so that it was desirable to the kids. THEN, we did the same process of using less and less chocolate syrup. Eventually, they didn't need the syrup anymore. (oh, and I usually had to warm the milk up at first, too, when they are transitioning from WARM breast milk to cold whole milk. After a few days, I'd gradually warm it up less and less until they'd take it cold - right out of the fridge.)
Kids . . . what are we going to do with them!!! :)
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