At least I assume it’s her first.

Monday night she felt feverish to me, but the forehead thermometer said her temperature was 97.0. She slept alright, waking up once at 4 am but going back to sleep by herself. Despite getting 12 hours and 13 minutes of sleep (I’m still collecting her sleep data) she woke up seeming extremely tired. Normally she lifts her head and pushes off on her hands to look for me, but not this time. Not even when I walked into the room. She stayed curled up flat on the mattress crying for me.

The second clue that something might be wrong was breakfast. Nicki gets a yogurt in the morning. She loves and devours it. She almost never spills any, yogurt is precious to her. Today she turned her head away distracted by other things, getting some of the yogurt on her bib. She even left a bite. In all the months that she’s gotten yogurt she has never, not once, failed to finish her yogurt.

When I went to put her down for her morning nap in the crib and I noticed that she had thrown up the night before. All over the middle of the crib mattress. It was still wet. I felt terrible I didn’t notice it when I picked her up in the morning. Things just seemed off so I ended up putting her down in the rock n’play. She needed sleep, badly, and I thought that was her best chance. She had broken sleep from about 9 until shortly before 12.

Again she felt feverish and looked flush, but again the forhead thermometer reported 97.0. This time, I called baloney and broke out the backup thermometer. New forehead temp was 98.6 (close to fever)! That’s when I broke out the second backup baby thermometer (yes, I’m a first time mom, why do you ask?) a rectal and most accurate thermometer. 100.4, fever town! BTW, that first thermometer is now serving time in the bottom of the waste basket.

Lunch fared worse than better than breakfast. She eat about half of what she normally eats. So I got out a juice cup to make sure she stayed hydrated. She wasn’t up to playing so we cuddled up together with the Lorax. About twenty minutes later the Tylenol kicked in, we turned off the Lorax and I put her back down on her mat with her toys.

I didn’t bother with the crib for second nap, it was straight to the rock n’ play at 2. When she woke up extremely distressed at 2:45. She looked terrible and was crying, but it was too early for a second dose of Tylenol. She clearly needed more rest but was too uncomfortable to sleep. After lots of rocking and far too many lullabies to count she finally drifted off to sleep and napped in my arms until 4:45. Yup that’s almost 6 hours of broken napping throughout the day. Actually, she would have kept napping, but it was time for dinner and I wanted her to be able to fall asleep at night. We gave her a second round of juice before dinner and this time she eat much better.

Today she’s doing much better. She still looks a little flush and has a slightly elevated temperature but the fever’s gone and she’s eating and playing well. Today we’re taking it easy at home, she’s right now asleep in the crib. She even went down for her nap without fusing! Daycare has a symptom free for 24 hour policy, so she needs to be fever free for 24 hours before she can go back anyway.

Posted in Family Life | Tags: Nicole