Tricky Tuesday

So I know it's Tuesday and I was going to do another Top Ten list but as Doof is unwell at the moment I thought I'd share two little tricks instead - both of which have come in handy a lot over the last 48 hours...

Trick 1:

When your baby has a blocked nose it can interfere with everything (Dispelling myths 3) so I use "Snuffle babe" vapour rub to help unblock Doof's nose. 

The only problem is it says to rub it on their upper chest - but by the time Doof is wearing a vest, a babygro and a sleeping bag it's questionable how much will ever make it from his chest to his nose. 

So we have tried all sorts...

- putting some under his nose on his sheet once he is asleep (downsides: he might move his head away from it and even worse he might rub his mouth or eyes in it)

- rubbing it on the top bit of his babygro and sleeping bag (I still do this and think it is more effective than the sheet but he can still turn his head to the side and so miss out of the nice fumes...)

- finally I figured out the solution. I wait til Doof is latched in for a feed and then carefully rub a small amount of vapour rub on my boob under where his nose is. The vapour then has at least 10 minutes to work whilst he feeds, it is in close proximity to where you want it to be (ie his nose) and there is no danger of it getting in his eyes/mouth etc. This is especially useful as often the time the blocked nose bothers them most is when they are feeding.

Interestingly the company 4little1 have brought out a vapour ring which sits round a bottle and releases vapour as the baby feeds. I like to think of this as the breastfeeding equivalent :)

 

Trick 2:

Doof hates being given medicine (Dispelling myths 2) which is especially annoying as he's on pretty high doses of vitamins twice a day and has already had 3 bouts of high temperatures. I tried distracting him, slipping it in the side when he was BF, using a syringe, using a spoon etc etc. And then I found this:

It is a dummy with a hollow tube through the middle of the sucking part and a reservoir into which you put the medicine. So when the child sucks the dummy they slowly also suck in the medicine. There is also a plunger so you can 'help' the medicine along if they're not taking it quickly enough.

Initially I was skeptical as Doof has never had a dummy but as soon as I showed it to him, he reached out, took it and put it straight in his mouth!! If I wasn't with him all day I'd assume someone else was giving him a dummy all the time, seeing how natural he made it seem! Anyway he loved it, it does the job, I love that he gets his medicine when needed and it even works when he is stressed out and feeling rotten with a high temperature as it is soothing to suck the dummy.

Hope these are helpful to someone :)