The tummy bug

After hearing numerous stories from friends in Colorado (or who were even just visiting Colorado) about a nasty stomach bug going around, it finally hit our house this weekend.  For Evan, this was the first time he'd ever thrown up, and it definitely made me understand what parents mean when they say they were up all night with a sick kid now.

 Helping Daddy open his birthday presents

Day 1

Friday was John's birthday, and we spent the night at home so John could open his pressies and we could skype with John's family in Australia.  Evan was a pretty normal kid that night, except he was a bit more demanding (especially during the skype call), so maybe he was already starting to feel a bit off.

Anyway, after midnight that night he woke up crying.  Our typical routine when this happens is to play music via his monitor to see if that calms him back to sleep.  If so, then all is well, and if not then he needs to be checked in on.  So, we turned the music on and everyone went back to sleep.  About 30 minutes later, however, Evan was up crying again.  And this time I also heard him choke/cough.  That is what alarmed me the most.  We thought maybe he was congested and needed his nose cleaned out, so I headed up to his room with the nasal bulb and saline drops.  While I was trying to turn on the night light in his room, John had come up to get Evan out of his crib and asked me "why are his feet all wet?"  The first thing that came to mind was that maybe he threw up, but of course this had never happened before so I wasn't sure.  I went to the crib and ran my hand along the sheet, only to feel the wetness (and chunks, sorry if that's too graphic).

I gave up on the night light and just went and turned on the bedroom light to see the horror.  Evan was covered in his vomit, and so was his crib and the floor nearby.  We felt horrible, like we'd failed as parents.  Our poor son was up vomiting and we had no clue.  John took Evan into the shower to get him washed off, while I cleaned up the mess.  It was bad; two distinct spots on his sheets, and then one that must have occurred while he was standing up in his crib (thus why it was over the crib rail and on the floor).  We decided that we would bring him into our bed for the rest of the night so we could keep a better eye on him.

I laid in bed for the next two hours pretty much awake.  I had so many thoughts going through my mind it was hard to get back to sleep.  I think Evan did eventually fall back to sleep, but he was also laying, quietly and calmly, awake for awhile too.  He was obviously shaken up from the foreign events that he'd just experienced, and so was I.  Almost exactly two hours later (at 3am), Evan woke up and threw up again.  This time in our bed, so that meant we had to strip our sheets now.  In hindsight, we should have expected this and at least laid down some towels.  We had a bowl in the room, but weren't ready to get it into place in time.  At least we got our act figured out for the third rounding puking that happened at 5am, and the 4th round at 6:30am.  We all went back to sleep much more quickly after the latter couple rounds, given we weren't as disrupted having to clean up sheets and such.  After the last round, Evan was asking for water to drink.  He gulped down a lot.  We were worried it was too much and he'd puke it back up, but we figured he needed the hydration.

Around 8am we all got up for the day.  Evan drank a lot more water, which he did then throw up around 8:30am.  I called the doctor's office to find out what else we should be doing, to which I was told to not give him water or milk (although breastmilk was fine) and just give him pedialyte and hold off on any foods for at least six hours.  We were also told to make sure he has a wet diaper at least once every 8 hours.  Well, I ran to the store to get the pedialyte, along with some bland food options (lots of noodles!) for later.  I chose the unflavored pedialyte because I was not impressed with the flavored ones having sugar substitutes in them (sucralose).  Perhaps this was a bad choice, as it tastes terrible and Evan really won't drink it.  We have to trick him into drinking one swallow at a time, with him thinking it's just a cup of water.  

We spent most of the day taking it easy, watching a lot of Evan's DVDs while he snuggled us on the couch.  Evan did get in a few naps yesterday (including a normal length one in the afternoon), but he definitely wanted to eat before the six hour period was up.  We gave him saltine crackers, tried some noodles that he didn't want, and then some toast.  Later he snacked on cheerios, but that was all he ate all day.  I nursed him a few extra times than normal though too.  At dinner time, I had made homemade chicken noodle soup for the whole family, and right as I was about to put a little taste of it in Evan's mouth, he vomited all over his high chair...twice in a row.  What a sight.  I guess every parent will witness this at some point.  Evan had gone all day without more vomiting so I was hopeful that it was over, but alas that was not the case.  He mostly seemed to throw up fluids, so I was worried about dehydration, especially since he wasn't taking the pedialyte and it was almost bed time.  He really hand't been having many wet diapers, but I think we were still making the 1 per 8 hours rule.  To help rehydrate him before bed, we decided to let him try some soup broth (he liked it!) and drink some water and we also still snuck in swallows of pedialyte here and there from a separate cup.

When it got close to bed time, Evan seemed very ready for sleep.  So we did our normal bedtime ritual, except we had planned to put him in the pack n play in our bedroom so we'd be able to keep a closer eye on him throughout the night.  He didn't go down easily, given it was a strange place we were putting him and he was probably feeling more clingy to us, so we let him fall asleep next to us in our bed before transferring him to the pack n play.   He slept fairly well until around midnight or so, and then woke up wanting us.  We moved him into our bed, which is where he stayed for the rest of the night.

Day 2

Even sleeping in our bed, Evan woke up a few times; once around 2:30am asking for 'mup' (his evolved word for milk).  I figured he must have been so hungry and could use the hydration, so I nursed him, which also helped him get back to sleep.  He woke up again asking for 'mup' around 6am, and then we all finally got up around 8am again (only today it was really 7am given Daylight Savings Time ended overnight).  He didn't throw up all night, though, and still hasn't so far today (fingers crossed!).   He's been very lethargic though.  We spent the morning so far watching a line up of his DVDs.  He ate a small bowl of oatmeal (made only with water) for breakfast and snacked on more saltines.  He's had a couple good wet diapers already so I'm feeling good about that, but I can tell he's still not back to normal.  Perhaps he just needs to get more food in his system to have energy again, but until then I'll definitely keep snuggling him on the couch.  Right now he's napping, and has been for over an hour.  I just hope he can get the rest he needs to recoup and feel better soon.

As a parent, we certainly don't enjoy this.  Sure it's no fun to have to clean up after he's been sick, but that is really second nature to me and not what bothers me most.  It's knowing he's not feeling well and may even be feeling scared because of the strange and uncomfortable things his body is doing that makes this so hard.  We've definitely been babying him all weekend and just keep hoping that he gets better soon.