Mommy Tested. Doctor Approved.
When M was around one year old, I decided it was time to offer her peanut butter. Around that time, the LEAP study had just come out, recommending the introduction of peanuts before one year of age. It made sense to me that early exposure to peanuts would lessen the likelihood of allergies to peanuts, so I felt confident that M would do just fine with it. And it was my pediatric duty! What could possibly go wrong?
Continue reading “PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY, HOLD THE PEANUT BUTTER”
A few months ago, I had an incident that happened where, really, all my medical knowledge went out the window, and I ruminated in my concerns as a worried parent. Maybe this happened because our newest addition to the family “B” is likely our last baby, and I am worried more about anything that might happen to him.
A few weeks after he turned one year old, I was changing his diaper and noticed a bulge in his left inguinal area. It seemed tender to touch, and I immediately called my husband to come look – I told him it looked like an inguinal hernia. It was soft, and B wasn’t overly fussy, so I put a new diaper on him and decided I would monitor it as the day went on. It was of course on a weekend, but I decided first thing Monday I would schedule an appointment with a urologist.
Continue reading “BUMP IN THE NIGHT”
A new year, a new blog post? I again fell off from blogging after telling myself I would blog more one year ago. And then COVID happened. And then I went off and had a baby. But it is another year and the mommying hasn’t stopped, and for sure the electronics haven’t either.
Allowing my kids to use electronics has always been met with guilt by me. As a pediatrician, I rotely advise patients to limit their electronics to less than one to two hours daily (even saying it here I feel like I sound like a broken record). I target this mostly at the children themselves rather than the parents, hoping that if I tell kids one to two hours, then they at least think they should be on electronics for less time than they already are and meanwhile eyeing their parents sympathetically. As we got into the pandemic last year (last year now? So weird to say), I found myself easing the rules more and more with my children as we went more stir crazy at home. And let’s face it, I myself was on my phone more too, looking for an escape from the worries of the pandemic and uncertainty of the world.
Continue reading “NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION – LESS ELECTRONICS?”
When my oldest daughter was a baby, I sleep trained her early on, and I was very fortunate that she slept through the night for the next 2 and a half years. We had a little blip when we transitioned her from the crib to a bed, but some additional sleep training did the trick.
And then she turned 3 years old. I had noticed a pattern when talking to patients that their 3 year olds were fighting sleep. It is a tough age because they may be outgrowing their naps at 3 years old. After napping during the day, it may be hard to put them down to sleep at night. However, if they don’t nap, then comes the evening meltdown, screaming and crying and whining about anything and everything, and then all that behavior makes it hard for them to calm down to go to sleep at night, too!
Continue reading “JUST GO TO SLEEP!”
Over the years as a pediatrician, I have come to dread the 4 year old check up as much as many parents do. It’s the age when we give vaccine boosters, and at 4 years old, children know exactly what may happen at the doctor’s office. As a pediatrician, I had noticed that the children whose parents had talked to them beforehand about vaccines seemed to do better than children who found out at the appointment that they would be getting shots. I tucked away this mental note as I thought about my own daughter one day turning four.
Our family has been fortunate enough over the years to travel with our 2 daughters, so they have been on plane trips before. However. I personally have never taken them by myself on a plane since I always had my husband with me for man on man coverage. A few months ago, my husband flew early out of town, and the plan was for me to take the girls separately to meet up with him and to visit friends. When we discussed this plan a few months prior to trip, my anticipatory instincts kicked in, and I started preparing for how I would handle a toddler and preschooler by myself. I was nervous about being double teamed by two very energetic and feisty opponents, I mean children. Factor in the fact that I rarely travel without my husband in the first place, and my anxiety was compounded.
Continue reading “TRAVELING…WITH CHILDREN”
The thought of returning to work was always looming in my head during my maternity leave. After the initial shock of the first month of having had my first baby, M, I then thought about how I needed to prepare over time a new routine for my return to work. I certainly felt sad about returning to work after being home with the baby, but a part of me was excited to return to work — to see my coworkers and patients again, and if truth be told, I thought it might be good to get a little break from being with the baby all the time.
Potty training. More fun and frustrating times. As M turned two years old, I started looking for the signs that she might be ready to potty train. She was interested (very interested) in following us to the bathroom, she was staying dry in her diaper for a few hours at a time, and she would go off into her own corner to go number two. All these signs pointed to M being ready, but I was so hesitant to start potty training, because if M had shown us anything up to this point, it was that she was stubborn and that she would do things her way. I kept putting it off. “Oh, I’ll wait until the weather is warmer, and I can just have M run around with her diaper off.” And, “Oh, let me wait until I have a long free weekend so that I can focus all my attention on potty training.”
Soon enough, I ran out of excuses. Summer was approaching, and I was pregnant with my second child, and I was determined to have M out of diapers before my second child arrived. And don’t they say that sometimes your first child regresses after you have another child? What if after the new baby came, M wanted to stay in diapers all the time?!
After I wrote about breastfeeding last month, I realized I need to talk about pumping, especially as a working mother. Similar to when I first started breastfeeding, it was hard for me to grasp what pumping would feel like or how it would work before actually doing it. During my pregnancy, I made sure to research breast pumps, and I talked to my insurance about what was covered and where I could get one. Being my Type A self, I made a whole spreadsheet about breast pumps. If I couldn’t prepare myself for what it would feel like to pump, at least I could prepare myself for what pumps were out there!
After I had M, I pumped after each time I breastfed her, and I would get a little milk each time, which I slowly saved over time. In my own head, I thought if I pumped between her feedings, that it would take away from milk that she would get at her nursing sessions. And I had to work hard for that milk. If I was distracted or stressed, I could visibly see in the bottles how much less milk I was making, which discouraged me at times.
