Our evening visit (9/13/2008)

So Wyatt got two immunizations yesterday (still has one more), has diarrhea from the Augmentin and is still getting over his pneumonia. Needless to say he was not a happy little guy last night. We actually started out well. He was being cute and sort of cooing at us. I decided to Kangaroo hold him on Pat's recommendation earlier in the day. He was quiet for a while, but he soon had a Wyatt Riot and we ended up staying for three hours trying to get him to go to sleep. We had couples on either side of us spending time with their quiet babies. I felt bad for them, but there was little we could do.

At one point I could hear and feel his stomach or intestines churning. About 45 minutes later he had a massive bout of diarrhea. We could hear it squirting out. Luckily, it was Rus' turn to change his diaper.

I think one of the problems was that I was kind of holding him in cradle position and I think he could smell breast milk. He was rooting, so I tried to breast feed him, but that just made him mad. I think I also panicked a little and was re-positioning him too much.

I also noticed Wyatt do this strange thing with his head where it twitched and his eyes fluttered. It only lasted 3 seconds. Dr. Shektel was not concerned because it didn't last very long (if it had lasted more like 20 seconds he would have been more worried), but said he would keep an eye on it. He also said that as their nervous systems mature they sometimes do weird things. I wasn't sure it was significant, I had just never seen anything like it before.

Rachel tried to help us settle Wyatt down, but Wyatt wasn't having any of it. He was getting overtired. You could tell he was exhausted, but he was fighting it. We finally resorted to Sweeties. Once the Sweeties was introduced, Rus actually did a pretty good job of settling Wyatt down when I turned him over to pump.

I thought at some point how this was a time when you put the baby in the car and drove him around until he fell asleep. I wish they had a car simulater in NICU. When I talked to my friend Maria (Turlock Maria) last night she said they do have a car simulater - the bouncer. I wonder if I could bring a bouncer in to NICU?

We finally left Wyatt in his crib with very heavy eyelids. John had taken over while Rachel went on her dinner break. Rachel said that John likes to hold Wyatt and we really like John, so we felt that even if Wyatt didn't go to sleep he was in good hands.