Health issues, time, stress and babies.

Between allergies, eczema, head issues, growth issues, ankle issues, eating issues, sensory issues, low iron and vitamin D, reflux and now a heart issue, a pead, a monthly health nurse, a dietitian, an allergy specialist, physio therapist, occupational therapist, blood tests and a speech pathologist, sometimes I feel like life is a bit hectic and overwhelming! How can I deal with all this if we have another baby? Where will the baby fit in? What if the next baby has health issues too?! I already feel so run off my feet sometimes trying to keep up with everything, and already had to put of studying uni as we have so many appointments. I just didn't have the time to keep up with uni and I would have had to take too many classes off for his appointments.

So here we were again, at another appointment, hearing the words 'I'm just a bit concerned about...' this time they needed to call the head pediatrician after the register had a listen to his heart. They found a murmur in his heart. We have another appointment in a few weeks time to see about it again and an ultrasound.

I know everything is mild, and nothing is life threatening or anything, we are so incredibly blessed about that. That's what I hold on to all time, there is always someone more worse off, right? But I think the hardest thing is the unknown of the future,.... I think? And the unknown in general. I don't know all this doctor words, I don't know how to deal with all these sensory issues.. like seriously, how do I deal with a child having a melt down in the car because he wants his top off? With him deciding to stop talking and sleeping because we were packing up the house?

And his head, stressing about all the shrinking going up on there, seriously?! A shrinking head?? Only my son! Goodness me.

Intolerance's and allergies, wow, that's a bit of a list too!
His rolled in ankle.
His hips.
His knees.
His weight loss.
His lack of eating.
And now his heart?

Where was the warning that my sons whole body would seem like a pin cushion? That for his first birthday he would have 6 tests on his poor body. That every few months we have to hold him tight while he screams for a blood test? That people won't understand why he can be upset by the way something feels or I'm that mean mummy who won't let my child eat someones birthday cake. That every time he stops talking you're worried that his skull has pressure on his brain. Ugh! It can be SO hard.

Those that have a child with a few health issues, how do you have time for number 2? How would I cope if I had two children with health issues?

Eczema & Hazelwood. (2)

I wanted to share some photo's of my son's eczema journey, pre hazelwood necklace and now.

I wrote a post not long ago all about Hazelwood and my sons eczema so I wanted to share more about it since we've been using Hazelwood for a little while now.

Prepare for an eczema photo dump! You will be amazed at the transformation of my little guy since wearing Hazelwood.

I got my & my son's Hazelwood from www.allaboutamber.com.au.

Pre Hazelwood:

At it's worst:

Sometimes he had it all over his body.

Wearing Hazelwood:

Eczema & Hazelwood.

I have been struggling with my son's eczema for a year now. Sometimes it's excruciating for him, other times it's mild. But It's always there. Usually our routine is putting a steroid or charcoal cream on his eczema three times a day. When it's really bad, our list of things we put on him and bathe him in is endless! He is on a special diet to try and stop his eczema from flaring up. No wheat, grains or berries. He can't have dairy & egg due to allergies anyway. Food is pretty boring for this little guy (it's amazing what's out there though!).


I was at my WITS end! We had tried everything! Every product available! From the chemist, supermarket.. you name it, we've tried it!

I was looking into laser for his eczema, which seems really effective and great! But only wanted to do that as a last resort..
So I thought why not give a hazelwood necklace a go? After paying for it & postage it was about $30AUS but I figured I spend more then that a fortnight on eczema products anyway, so why not? If it doesn't work on him, it's super cute!
When Jydan was very first diagnosed with eczema someone suggested the hazelwood to me... I thought 'oh yeah.. right. As if that would work!' .. and never looked into it again. But I had tried EVERY.THING!

The necklace arrived a few days after I ordered it & I thought it was way adorable. I got to choose what style I wanted ect & it was exactly what I had chosen. The research I had done said it takes about two weeks of wearing for their to be any noticeable difference.
The first few days we still had to use all his creams. He only had mild eczema but it was on his belly and legs, we still mainly kept wheat out of his diet, except half a slice of toast in the mornings. I wasn't overly strict about him wearing the necklace 24/7. Somedays I forgot to put it on him, others he kicked it off at night (we wrap it around his ankle at night).

First day wearing the necklace, some eczema on his belly, back and legs, very dry skin, but clothes are covering.
 

Fifth day of wearing the necklace, mild spots on face, skin alot healthier though. Sporting a purple ribbon for crainio awareness.

All of a sudden, after about a week he didn't have ANY eczema! None! Without using creams. He ALWAYS has some, even if it's mild. He was completely clear and it had only been a week.
We stopped putting his creams on him and just moisturised him with sorbolene cream (even with the sorbolene cream, we've been able to be more slack with). He hasn't been itchy, he hasn't scratched, he hasn't been irritated, he is even sleeping through the day sooo much better!
I thought, well, why not introduce more wheat into his diet? It's not like he's intolerant to wheat, grains & berries.. it's just flares up his eczema. He has NO reactions with wheat anymore.. no matter how much he eats! Before, half a slice of toast was his limit, even that, was probably too much.. now his body can handle it all.

Less then two weeks... completely clear!!

Happy little man!

Yes it's still early days, so I'll continue to keep you updated on how it continues to go, but for my little man to be able to handle all sorts of wheat with no need to use any creams is pretty great!

So, a little bit about how the hazelwood works.
Hazelwood is classed as medical therapeutic jewelry, as well as Amber.
The ends of twigs from a particular plant, an alkaline, are harvested which alow the plant to completely grow back, it's also untreated, which makes hazelwood jewellery 100% natural.
One thing I was also unsure about it is getting it wet. However, because hazelwood is from an absorbing plant, getting it wet actually helps it absorb better. It's good to get it wet often! But not in chlorine.
Hazelwood draws excess acid from the skin and neutralises the body's acidity in the body and skin. Because my son had/has reflux also, I knew that having too much acid in his body would highly be possible.  Too much acid can stop the body absorbing other minerals, which is interesting since my son also has lacked in iron & vitamin D.
Hazelwood jewellery is known to work for approximately 6-12months , depending on how much acid is in the skin. You will be able to tell if the jewellery needs replacing as the ends that are cream, will turn brown. Eczema symptoms will also return (or reflux symptoms, or whatever else you choose to use the hazelwood for). Progressive jewellery should last longer and longer.

Hazelwood can be used for so many more things, and it will be our first point of call from now on.
We buy our hazelwood from www.allaboutamber.com.au ... take a look!!

Food is a scary thought!

I can't help but be incredibly scared when we try new foods, lucky most of the time food that don't agree with Jydan just cause a rash, but still, you don't want you little bub filled with an itchy rash.
I wasn't one of those mums that were orginally scared of feeding their baby, and I wasn't one of those mums that camped outside a hospital when they introduced new foods to their child encase of a reaction.. I really had no worries about food... until I realised how food effects my little boy!

My son has quite a few food intolerance and allergies which is something I didn't really think about when having a child. I know lactose intolerance may be a possibly but not his handful of other ones. Lactose intolerance runs in my family, so we figured it may get passed down from me.

At six weeks old, when we went for Jydan's six week check at the doctors, the doctors thought he was lactose intolerant, by his symptoms, his poos ect. She couldn't actually say yes or no without us getting him tested but it definitely seemed that way. Cutting out dairy from my own diet (I was breastfeeding and still am) confirmed that he was lactose intolerant. There's still a huge variety of foods he can have and alot of cheese's don't contain lactose. We have just started supplementing some breastfeeds with soy formula and will move on to goats milk when the time comes.
He seems fine on the soy formula, which is heaps different when I tried him on formula, that wasn't dairy free, when he was a few weeks old. He ended up vomiting non stop for hours with about 5 runny poops. All I wanted was him to sleep for a little bit - that was a complete fail!! Poor thing, I know now I was poisoning his little system.
I won't introduce lactose to him for a while yet, I can tell from when I do eat dairy and his stomach gurgling, that it does still react with him.

I also have horribly sensitive skin and eczema so we made allowances if our son was to have sensitive skin too and started with sensitive products and used essential oils instead of wash's ect. However, his skin is worse then we ever imagined! Plants, grass, soap, wipes, oils, shampoo's, creams, sticky tape, wool.. Eggs, wheat, grains, dairy, berries.. it's really insane.
I've wrote about baby eczema a few months ago that you can read here. what were using to help prevent and get rid of the eczema on extremely sensitive skin.
With alot of creams and washes and wheat, grains and berries they can really play up Jydan's eczema. That's why we avoid them. We were told to avoid quite a list full of foods but decided to try them out anyway.  Gluten and berries do in fact make him break out. Wheat rusks tend to be the worst. Rice is fine. Although, now my son is 13 months we are able to give him some wheat without a reaction, more then a slice of bread a day or so does still cause an eczema reaction. This tells us that he should grow out of it by two - yeey!! Berries we have not tried to reintroduce yet.

Jydan's eczema also started before he was even having solids so we knew that it was environmental as well. The washes we were using, although sensitive, still contained ingredient that his skin didn't like. and the avocado, apricot, coconut and jajoba oil we were using on his skin and hair contained plants and such that his skin also didn't like.
It took AGES to find a moisturiser and wash that works for him.

His first egg reaction - note the red swollen face.

My son also has low iron and vitamin D so at about 8 months we thought it was a fantastic to help boost some iron with egg! Well that was a miserable scary fail and he's allergic to egg! (face swelling and red!).. We've tried it a couple of times since accidentally and yep, definitely allergic! I had a croissant the other day and didn't even think it may contain egg.. until about ten minutes later his face went red and swelled! So definitely no egg to up his iron! I think egg is the worst of his allergies, and each reaction seemed to have got worse. We supplement egg by using rice flour and golden syrup, or olive oil. Which made such a delicious birthday cake!!

WATERMELON!

After battling with foods we also battle with eating in general. It seems to Jydan that food is a scary thought for him too! Jydan doesn't like food. It's not really his thing apparently! We are lucky if he eats two meals a day, and thats breakfast and dinner. If he doesn't want to eat he will more or less just play with the food. He is really fussy about foods and will only eat foods he can feed himself aswell.He also hates the spoon, which we've found out is because of an association to reflux. If he was given grapes, watermelon and bananas all day though he would eat!! But considering he has lost weight about 4 months in a row, about 100 grams (about 0.22 pounds) a month, he needs to have something a bit more fatty then watered fruits!
We now go to see a speech pathologist to help with his eating. We've seen them once and they were really really helpful! I was blown away, and are going back probably monthly to keep an eye on his eating progress. They just gave us a few tips on how to encourage him eating, and to not stress about food because then it makes food stressful. We want food to be fun and enjoyable so he will eat. He just doesn't seem to have an appetite at all!
We also see a dietitian that we talk to about the weight side of things, how to increase fat contents and that sort of thing. So hopefully with the help of encouraging him to eat and increasing fats we will have a baby that will start to put on weight!!

It seems like it's all a never ending cycle!! Here's to the end of allergies and the start of eating! I think with our next child I will be much more cautious about food, knowing that it runs in our little family now. I'll definitely be a bit more wearier about introducing foods, thats for sure!

Baby Jydan - 11 Months.

Nine Months:

44-47 weeks

Wow, I can't believe Jydan is ONE in a MONTH! Party planning is in full swing and I'm SO excited.
Talking about Jydan turning one, we had his first birthday photos done...

I'll reveal the photo on Jydan's first birthday post. I wanted to do a cake smash but with all Jydan's allergies and Jydan's birthday being a hungry caterpiller theme a watermelon smash was so fitting, it was crazy! We had the same photographer for our maternity shoot and Jydan's newborn shoot and I can't recommend TK's photography enough! :D. The first take and second take went soo bad. Luckily Tanya captured some cute photos and some family snaps between teething screams and tantrums. My poor little man did not cope that day at all.. uh! But we're doing TAKE THREE a bit later on. When Jydan is a bit better.

We've had some AWFUL teething going on this month. It's been horrendous! My poor little man. We've had some pretty super fun times too. Besides birthday organising, this month we had a holiday interstate, which you can read about HERE  and went to my uncles wedding which you can read about HERE, my Opa's birthday dinner, football grand final, learning new and exciting things like furniture walking and exploring new foods!

We are battling a pretty bad rash at the moment... We've been to the doctors twice about it and we're still not sure what it is! A viral infection, a reaction or German measles!!

Jydan also had his first 'big boy' accident this month too. He sprained his wrist!! yes , my 11 month old SPRAINED HIS WRIST! I can't believe it! He was trying to furniture walk and then he let go, and lost his balance, and fell on his arm! He was pretty good about it though and it healed up pretty quick!

Wrapping his sprained wrist up in an icey face washer.

It's been a pretty hard month actually, on not much sleep at all, but that's okay, we all have our bad times... lets hope for a better month this month!

Teething:
We've had some AWFUL teething going on this month. It's been horrendous! My poor little man. We've had some pretty super fun times too He is cutting two wisdom's and a canine. Apparently the canines are the nasty ones so I'm kinda glad that we are half way through them :/. What's making it all worse is he's cross cutting. If teething wasn't bad enough.

Swimming:

We've had one week off swimming this month and will have this wednesday off too for his little buddy's first birthday party! I can't believe he is off to first birthday parties now! Anyway, he is doing so well at swimming. He is a fantastic little paddle and kicker, the teacher seems to be always impressed.
We have to time his naps perfectly on swimming day because if he's too tired he is soo crabby. But if he's awake, he's happy :).

Jydan's Milestones:

Jydan is FINALLY crawling properly! He has been commando crawling since he was nine months and has finally got up on his knees. We didn't think he would actually ever crawl! He is now furniture walking, so we just thought he would skip it and walk! We weren't too worried though because he is so good with his words. He even says 'I love you' now!! It's soo gorgeous, he says 'I laaa you' awww, bless him! So that's his first three word sentence, and what a gorgeous sentence! I think that proves we say that soo much to him - hehe. He also said at one point, while he was mid-feed 'More Yum Yum'.. it was gorgeous! Melted my heart. He got of the boob, looked at me and said 'More yum yum?' soo cute!
I really love that he communicates soo well. He doesn't use his words all the time, I don't expect him to at this age, but still! Some of his favourite words this month have been "up" "down" and "what" (as in 'what's that?').
Jydan drinks out of a pop top now. I would drink out of a pop top drink bottle and Jydan always wa nted to share - as our gorgeous babes do so we bought him a little filtered pop top water bottle that's small enough for him to hold and he is going great at it... it just gets very wet and messy.. a bib is always in order.

   

Reflux:
Because we are using nurofen (for the first time boohoo) for his teeth his poor tummy has been playing up too. When we bought the nurofen from the chemist (we have the best chemist) they did say that it can cause belly problems to those who have sensitive guts. Yep, that's poor jydy bum - and yep his stomach did gurgle alot the next day after giving it to him. So we are giving him reflux medicine too at the moment. I feel soo guilty because at the moment he is having vit D, iron, zantac and nurofen and panadol when needed.

Eczema:
Eczema has been pretty good for the most of the month but pretty nasty the last couple of days. With this mystary rash his eczema has been soo bad. We've had to bathe him in pinetarson and cover his red body in cortisone. It's pretty nasty, the poor little boy.

Routine:

With holidaying and teething, routine hasn't been going very well-at all! Actually he has made his own little routine.. waking at 2 am - 5am. Apparently that's the time to party! haha! We've just been putting him in our bed because I'm not getting up every 5 minutes :/.
When it's bad and he needs to be rocked back to sleep, I just go in the lounge and chuck a show on and rock him. Oh well.. he usually sleeps in till about 9 when he does it. I make a joke that he still thinks he is a newborn! haha.
He has two naps a day still, thank goodness. He has a 10am one and a 2pm. I hope he doesn't drop these anytime soon :P. My sanity time ;). It means I can get house work done and spend more time with Jydan when he's awake too!

Health Clinic Appointment:
Jydan went to the health clinic this month and actually LOST a little bit of weight. He also hasn't grown at all! I was so surprised, I suspected he had!
As usual, the nurse is always surprised about the amount of words Jydan knows... I think they don't believe me? I must say, I don't really know of any other bubs the same age that says the same amount of words.

Paediatrician Appointment:
No paeds app this month...

Weight/Height/Looks:

Jydan is about 8.3 kilos now , he was 8.4 kilos last month, so I was a bit sad. So that 18.29 pounds.. so yep he's tiny, lol! He is 71 cms tall, which is 27.9 inches, which isn't too bad! His height isn't far off average. Jydan is completely in 0's now, 6-12 month clothing. I'm so glad because he has so many really really cute clothes in this size! :D
Jydan has the biggest beautiful eyes, they are soo dark too, some people ask if they are black! So gorgeous!
Jydan's hair colour is really out now, now that his hair is growing more and quicker. He still hasn't got as much hair as he was born with.. I think he will be about 13 months until he does! I can't believe he lost it all.
Jydan's about to go up in sock sizes too, into 1-2 year old socks. :)

Nappies:

I got the cutest nappy made for Jydan's first birthday! It's so gorgeous! Just to match his hungry caterpillar party and photoshoot theme ;)

Jydan's Likes/Dislikes:

Jydan still loves his teddy called Fred! It's so adorable , he can't sleep without him.. aww! He kisses him to sleep too.
I think his favourite thing of all though is ME! He loves me soo much! I'm not just saying it because I'm his mum but he wants to be with me or on me 24/7, haha! He even wants to sleep in our bed!! My sweet, sweet mummys boy. It definitely makes me feel loved too :D
At the moment Jydan is hating food, ugh! What a horrible thing to hate, gr! Hopefully he gets over his little food phobia. It's because of his teethies. They must be really sore for him.
He also had a cot phobia. Another horrible thing to hate haha.. I think we are finally getting over his little cot phobia.



Feeding:

I can't believe we are only a month away from our twelve month breastfeeding goal! I'm really proud of how close we've come. We'll definitely make it too! :D. After twelve months I'm thinking of weaning him through the day, but I'm not sure.. I haven't really decided. I'm sure Ill let you know though ;). He's feeding alot more atm because he isn't really eating solids. He is probably having about 5 tablespoons a day if he's lucky! He use to have 5 tablespoon a meal, 3 X a day, plus afternoon tea! So I hope he builds up his apatite again!