The Last Few Weeks With Babyham

 Part 1 (I started this post a week ago, but life is cray-cray around here so it didn't get finished):


God, in his mercy, helps you forget what life is like with a newborn once you are out of that stage.  And then while you wait for your precious little bundle, you envision yourself rocking and snuggling, nursing and laying them down to sleep.  Cute, darling little babes. 

When the reality is thrust back upon you, it's a bit jarring.  Particularly when you have been graced with what is often labeled a "high needs baby".  In other words, a baby who has decided you never get to sleep ever again.  Ever. 

This is our world right now. 

He sleeps, kind of.  He hates life from about 5 p.m. until somewhere between 10:30 and midnight.  Lots of screaming and over exhaustion, but no real sleeping.  Forget about laying him down during this time.  Not gonna happen.  Then for the remainder of the night he sleeps in somewhere around 1 hour chunks interrupted by bouts of screaming and a little eating.  If you try to lay him down during the night you have decided to make your life miserable.  Moments after being laid down he will start to fuss before breaking out in a full blown scream.  No good mama.  Must.touch.flesh.to.sleep.

This was starting to improve, maybe, a little bit.  But then the rash happened. 

It seemed to come out of nowhere, he woke up one morning with a bad diaper rash.  My attempts to alleviate it all day didn't seem to improve anything.  Then after a few days it spread.  It was no longer just a diaper rash, it was on his cheeks and neck rolls, and then finally on the back of his head in his hair.  It's raw and painful and looks pretty awful.  If you touch it he screams. 

So now our days are filled with cleaning wounds, constant diaper changes to keep it dry (day and night), applying prescription creams and lotions, and trying to keep it from spreading. 

It's far from enjoyable and makes spending time enjoying our son hard.  And while suffering is an expected part of life, it's hard to embrace and accept it. 

Part 2 :

He's slooooowly healing.  His face is mostly healed, his neck is getting there, and his diaper area is pretty good.  But it's also spread some to his legs, arms and back.  So there's that.  Boo.  We've moved beyond the prescription cream to a prescription oral med to try to fight it off. 

Sleep is somewhat improved.  He was only up 4-5 times last night and spent most of the night in the co-sleeper instead of on me.  So odd to see that as success and improvement, but such is life right now. 

I'm going to attach some photos of the rash below, but if you're squeamish or icked out my medical stuff, you may just want to click the "X" now.

They're all iPhone photos, so not the best photo quality.  But really, you don't want quality pics of this.  





I warned you.





Seriously.