@Singersmom07, our son got RSV when he was 9 weeks old. Very scary! DH and I had gone out on our first date since his birth. Our friend was watching him. She called and said he seemed to be having a hard time breathing. She called his doctor, who listened to him over the phone and told us to get him to the ER right away. The triage nurse said it was a good thing we’d brought him in. I still feel bad about it - he caught the cold at daycare, where I’d started leaving him the previous week because I had to go back to work.
Congratulations, @alwaysamom! Wow, that will be nice for your D and SIL to have so much time with their sweet baby boy.
@Singersmom07, I am happy that your GS is doing well. RSV is very serious.
My middle son had RSV at 3 months and it turned into a series of bad ear infections. He wound up having his first set of ear tubes at 9 months, followed by 3 more sets before the age of 4 1/2. I didn’t realize at the time to get him checked for speech delays. By the time I got him into speech therapy, he was virtually unintelligible and needed 4 years of speech. SO, my advice is to have him tested for speech delays early and often. The first two times I tested middle son, they said he was fine. I learned with my next son and got him into speech therapy at 16 months, one month after HIS first set of tubes. He had chronic ear infections, but didn’t have RSV. My youngest son also had RSV, at 7 weeks, but it didn’t turn into ear infections. He wound up needing speech therapy as well, but nobody was ever able to say why.
RSV is insidious. I thought they had a vaccine for it?
Agree that speech therapy can be invaluable, but it depends on the therapist and a good match between the therapist and patient. For S, none of the speech therapists clicked with him until 5th grade. He made amazing progress that year and no one can tell he ever had or needed speech therapy any more. He did have a series of therapists from pre-school, 2nd grade, and also 5th grade. None of the therapists provided worked out for him until he went to the local university and worked with speech therapy students who were thrilled to work with a student whose only issue was a mild speech issue that they quickly and fully helped him resolve.
@Himom -
That can be true. I was very fortunate that the speech therapists who worked with all 3 of my sons were excellent. They each had various different therapists depending on who was providing the services. I dealt with NYC DOE, my suburban school district and early intervention in two counties and you can’t tell that any of my sons ever had really serious speech impediments, especially middle son. I remember when he “graduated” from speech class, he came home and told me “Now, I speak with precision.” He was in second grade. He’s 23 now and still speaks with precision and deliberation.
I guess the only thing I’d suggest is that if the speech issue persists, continue trying to find new therapists so that one (or more) will click and help the student. It can be a process finding the right one(s). My S just loved going to speech therapy when he had a great match and enjoyed the sessions and was self-correcting. He also loved the brain teasers the speech therapy students brought for him to solve.
I’m so glad we didn’t stop after the first 3 speech therapists (each “graduated” him), and continued until his speech issues were wholly resolved at the speech therapy program at our local university.
S2 had recurrent ear infections and a burst eardrum (but no tubes). He had trouble with certain sounds, and the preschool he attended had someone come evaluate every year. When he was four, the evaluator said “it’s time.” Because the speech pathologist found that he had problems with dipthongs, she focused on a phonics-type approach. Not only did S2 learn to pronounce correctly, he learned to decode and read in the process! She told us later he had done a year’s worth of work in a summer. He was frustrated at not being understood, so he was apparently very motivated, and the bonus reading part didn’t hurt either.
S1 had many ear infections, too, and the ped at the time gave him long-term antibiotics. They don’t do that any more, thank goodness.
Congrats, alwaysamom. DIL had 42 hours of labor, and that sounded outrageous to me. How nice that they get to spend a year with the baby. My DIL is fortunate to get 12 weeks maternity leave, and hopes to go back to work at 75% for another 12 weeks if her employer agrees. S1 took off 2 weeks when the baby was born, and an additional 6 weeks only working 2 days/week. They’re taking a financial hit, but feel it’s worthwhile.
Singersmom07 - Glad your GS is doing better. Illnesses when they’re so young and vulnerable are scary.
Just got back from finally seeing my GD. She was 5 weeks old while we were there. I missed her as soon as we left. They change so quickly at that age.
@shellfell Thank you! I agree that that length of labor sounds outrageous. She is recovering well but slowly. It’s wonderful that they get to spend that time with the baby. Everyone here gets a year off of parental leave. Many employers allow the parents to share it so they will each take six months and the extra month overlap will be leftover vacation time from 2017 for both of them. They will each earn about 80% of their salaries on their time off. Another perq of living in Canada. 
I understand the difficulty of missing them immediately upon leaving. I’m going through that now. It’s my first grandchild who lives in another city. The others are here. All of her sisters have Skyped with the baby already.
I had 3 months of maternity leave and then H took 6 weeks for working part time at night so he could watch S during the day. Having a year would have been amazing! H was quite exhausted by watching S during the day and working at night.
S1 hopes his D has a relatively good night on the days before he works. It doesn’t always work out that way. On the nights when he’s not going to work the next day, he gets up with the baby and does one of the overnight feedings.
Bumping this to report that my grandson is now successfully on the bottle when his mom isn’t around. I hope I’m not jinxing things by saying this … He’ll take it in a pretty odd position (at least this grandma thinks it’s odd), but he’s contented when his mom is at work. Relief! Thanks again to all who shared their tips and stories.
@frazzled1 Excellent!
Three week old GS is quite gassy and slow to burp. He feeds, then has to be repeatedly, and seemingly painfully (red face, little squalls before the burp) 3-4-5 times over 30 minutes, then he is hungry again,
We are trying warm baths, we are trying warm rice in a sock, any other suggestions that have been helpful?
He is breast fed, had tongue & lip tie, they clipped the tongue tie, but did not do the lip tie as apparently it is difficult to tell how far to clip?
I have heard some little ones like the motion and heat of being on the dryer, appropriately protected and watched, tho haven’t tried this with my kids.
As a nursing mama, I learned that what I ate affected the gaseousness and distress of nursing infants. I stayed away from eating cabbage and curries and other things that I noticed bothered the infants and it improved everyone’s experience.
My g/f had to give up onions for her son.
Try burping him in the football hold, which is holding him on his stomach and rubbing his back that way. A couple of my kids preferred to be burped on their tummies. All we could figure is that the pressure on the tummy allowed the gas to escape. Also, changing the position as you are burping can help sometimes as an adjustment can move the blockage. I took a baby yoga class where I was taught to put the baby on its back and gently bicycle the legs. This also seemed to help with the gassy issues, plus the babies loved the interaction.
I also throw out my situation, which was that my first born was allergic to breast milk, no matter how I adjusted my diet and at not quite two months, I gave up and switched him to soy formula. He finally began to thrive, became less gassy and the colic abated. Sorry to be gross, but does his poop smell absolutely vile and look nasty? My son is 27 and I still remember how nasty it was. Babies who are breast fed have bowel movements that are not bad smelling (though I wouldn’t make a perfume based on it). One of the signs of allergy is if the bm’s are gross.
Good luck and enjoy that grandbaby. Can I admit how jealous I am?
Can I join in and share here?
I’m about to burst.
So far, I’m the only person that DD and SIL have told.
Grandbaby #1 set to arrive in July.
woohoo!!! YAYAYAYAY!
Welcome to the club.