[...] Babble (blog) [...]

[...] The time I didn’t agree with her doctor. [...]

She sounds just like Giggles. That girl was sleeping 12 hours nights when she was barely a month old. Now when she was awake during the day she needed to be held and ate all the day long.

I love our girls’ ped. he always tells me what he thinks but always follows with saying “But your her mom, you live with her, you know better than I do.” It’s probably why when we moved further away I never switched. The girls only go once a year and when they are ill so driving the 45 minutes each way to see him, so worth it.

Dude, that doctor is insane! Most moms would kill for a baby to be sleeping that long at night! I understand that advice if the baby is underweight or not gaining weight, but otherwise, I subscribe to the “NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY” theory. (Yes, the theory requires all caps.)

And I’ve disagreed with the pediatrician many times… resulting in switching pediatricians (twice). But when someone tries to tell me that a baby with a chronic cough for a year is normal (“babies get sick”), then I know something isn’t quite right with the doc. Babies DO get sick, but they get better too!

Anyway, I could rant on and on about this, but I’ll stop now…

Not with a baby, but I paid over $500 for my kid to see a new dr in town who tried to convince us both that he should not go to mainstream high school. I couldn’t find a single teacher that agreed with her (neither did dad or I). That hurt her credibility with me and we cancelled his next appt.

Vivi is such a doll, Casey!! I’d let her sleep too!

When my oldest was a year old he began having constant ear infections – 7 within the next 6 months. The fevers he had, even while on antibiotics, often climbed to 105. His doctors, of which he saw several within the same office, all told me that his infections, even with their frequency, were totally normal. Then, at 18 months, I was called at work to come and get him from daycare because he had a fever. Within 60 seconds of getting him home his eyes rolled back in his head and he started convulsing. I thought I was watching my son die. The 911 operator couldn’t understand me because I was screaming into the receiver. Those few minutes felt like they lasted for days while I watched him seize. We learned that he was having febrile seizures; that his brain couldn’t handle the rate at which his fevers climbed. We realized that all those times he would be feverish and not wanting to respond to us and staring of into the distance he had actually been suffering petit mal seizures (without the convulsions). After that trip in the ambulance, my pediatrician still tried to tell me that this was normal childhood illness. My response: “The hell it is and I want a specialist NOW!” The Ear, Nose, and Throat doc we saw immediately suggested tubes. After speaking with Joseph he observed that our son likely wasn’t hearing the beginnings and endings of words and that as a result his speech development was suffering. In the 3 weeks it took to get to the surgery he had ANOTHER infection, accompanied by ANOTHER grand mal seizure. Even being on antibiotics for the 12 days preceeding the procedure his ears were still so infected that the doctor had to drain huge pockets of fluid before he could place the tubes. He said that Joseph had likely not had any relief since he first began having problems at the one year mark. I felt like the worst mother on the planet for having not insisted on seeing the specialist sooner. What would have happened if I had listened to my pediatrician and let him continue on with infection after infection? Now I trust my instincts. My second child, by the way, had 12 grand mal febrile seizures before reached 2 years-old. At least the second time around knew what it was.

Oh totally. I’ve ignored doctors opinions on co-sleeping and waking the baby to feed them with both of my sons. If my child were incapable of holding onto nutrition to go that long at night, HE WOULDN’T. His empty tummy would wake him up. They’re not going to starve to death. Nature made babies the way she did for a reason, I’ve always said.

That’s crazy. My ped told us it was fine when my daughter started sleeping through the night at 3 weeks old, because she was drinking fairly large(6oz) bottles for her age during the day, so she just didn’t need the extra breastmilk(I was exclusively pumping so I knew exactly how much she was getting) at night. He said we should consider ourselves lucky and enjoy a good night’s sleep. He just told us at her 6 month check-up it was fine that she was back down to only 18-24 oz. of formula a day because she only wanted baby food. It didn’t matter if she got her bottle first or her baby food, she just wouldn’t drink more than that. The kid eats one container of fruit and one container of yogurt at breakfast, and one container of veggies or a dinner, and one container of fruit for lunch and dinner, plus biter biscuits, Gerber Puffs, and the occasional french fry when we eat out. The girl’s a bottomless pit. She’s also in the 90th percentile for height and only the 75th percentile for weight, so she’s not fat at all. I think she has a hollow leg like her 8 year old brother. LOL

YES- and I still don’t have concrete evidence, but I know I was right.

When my (breastfed) son was about 6-8 weeks old, his poop turned into exclusively diarrhea. It went from being beautiful, mustardy, seedy newborn poop, to being the color and consistency of “first foods” peaches. I took him in to the doctor after a week or so of that; since there was no stool in the diaper when we went, the [childless] pediatrician told me that *rolleyes* baby poop is always soft, some kids just had different consistency than others, blah blah blah. I went to the general practitioner who told me the same thing.

He was constantly getting yeast infections and diaper rashes so bad that the skin on his bottom would slough off and it would bleed. The GP was making things worse by prescribing hydrocortisone which thins the skin (I didn’t realize that at the time), making it easier for the diaper to rub through that skin.

Once he started on solid foods, and partial formula when I had to go back to work, it started to get better, finally clearing up once he was doing mainly solid food with milk on the side.

It turns out, my boy is allergic to hazelnuts – and I was chowing down Ferrero Rocher chocolates like crazy during those first few months – and has an very strong onion/garlic intolerance. Incidentally, we finally figured that out when we started him on third foods, because he started having eczema*; I looked up causes of that and realized it was every time we gave him those “third foods” (which virtually all have onion/garlic).

Most of the docs I was seeing acted as if his digestive problems were normal baby issues, and the one who suggested that it was an allergy problem was convinced it was milk. I actually went dairy-free for two weeks, but nothing changed – because it wasn’t the milk!

Unfortunately, since I WAS a first time mom, there WERE some things I didn’t know; some pieces of the puzzle I didn’t have. I wish someone had taken me seriously that, even as a first time mom who looks 5-10 years younger than I really am, I was experienced enough and smart enough that I really knew what was “normal” FOR MY KID and knew when something was wrong. If they had, maybe they would have suggested allergy testing and asked if *I* had any sensitivities we might expect to see in him.

Just this year, we’ve seen NEW digestive symptoms tied to this intolerance (encopresis, ahoy!), which convince me that the original months of diarrhea and diaper rash could have been avoided if someone had just believed I knew what I was talking about.

At the 2 month check up the nurse practitioner tried to bully us into getting the baby to sleep on his own in his crib in his room. LOL, no. I told my husband if she wanted to come over our house and get him out of the crib every 2 hours to nurse, then maybe I’d consider it. Also, I really like co-sleeping, it gives me peace of mind I wouldn’t have otherwise.

I got the same “words of wisdom” from my doctor when my first daughter was sleeping all night after only a few weeks. I woke her up one night and after that was like “Nope. If you’re sleeping I’m not going to mess with that.” You’re not alone.

Teagan’s been sleeping from 9:30p to 6:30a for some time now. She’s 4 1/2 mos. At her 4 mos check up, I asked her CRNP if it was ok that I had started giving her baby food. She said to wait til 6 mos, but give her rice cereal if she was hungry. I tried that for a few days, but baby girl didn’t like it. I went back to giving her the baby food bc it was pitiful to watch her watch our forks go from plate to mouth while she made chewing motions with her mouth while getting fussier and fussier (Poor baby…). Now she’s happy!

omg – that is crazy. I would never wake a baby up to feed unless there were some nutritional issues going on (premie, losing weight, etc.). Otherwise, let them sleep!

I’ve never really gotten bad advice from a doctor who I disagreed with, but this week I realized that a nurse practitioner I saw a couple of years ago for my son’s annual visit (6 yrs old) probably didn’t take my question about him not being potty trained at night very seriously when she just said ‘no big deal’ instead of offering any further advice. I assume it is because she just didn’t realize that it might be related to anything else. Just this week, he’s 7 1/2 now, we saw a pediatric urologist who now says that he’s ‘holding it’ during the day which is causing the peeing at night. We have some behavior modification strategies to work with now, so hopefully we’ll get somewhere now.

Doctors are just people. My husband, sister, and brother in law are doctors. Doctors tend to be really solid on medical things and you should listen to your doctor there, but a lot of medicine is gray and things that have to do with parenting are even more gray. Should you wake a baby? Not a healthy one. But what if its a symptom of a health problem? It’s a tough job, being a pediatrician like my husband. He has to try to guess what parents want while also trying to figure out if there is a real medical problem or just a parenting problem he doesn’t want to comment on. Medicine is art as much as science and it works best when the parent and doctor work together.

they tried to tell my mother that i needed to be woken up and fed 2 oz every 2 hrs. My mom being a first time mother tried it and she said that was the worst 4 weeks of her life. at a month old she put rice in my bottle and let me eat untill i was full and i slept the entire night. I’m not a mother but just from my mother’s experience and my friends, let the babe sleep!!! especially if its perfectly healthy other wise. Docs arent always right!