Yesterday afternoon, Thom and I were both feeling a little better and thought we were through the worst of our respective illnesses. After a dinner of rice, we were watching TV when we heard Aaron coughing. It sounded a little different than previously (he had a little cough from what I assumed is the same cold I have). We rushed into his room and as I sat him up, he emptied the contents of his stomach. Or so it seemed until he later threw up 3 more times within about an hour.
I'd never seen him throw up like that, so it was scary. After he was done, he looked around and was chatty and ready to play. We cleaned him (and the crib) up and I tried to nurse him to replace the fluids he lost, but he wasn't interested. 10 minutes later, I realized why. After he threw up the second time, I called my sister Theresa who has 3 kids. She reassured me that throwing up twice was normal and although it was scary, he was fine, just to watch for signs of dehydration. She said it would run its course in 24 hours or so. She suggested that if he threw up twice more within an hour, we should call his doctor. He threw up again when I was on the phone with my sister and again once more after that, although his stomach was pretty empty by then.
I left a message for a nurse to call me back, which she did within 15 minutes. She gave us some guidelines for what to do - nurse him, no solids until 8 hours after he stopped vomiting, then only rice cereal and strained bananas until 24 hour later. Due to his age and size, she wasn't too concerned about dehydration yet, and stressed that we should try to get him to sleep. That was around 9:15. I think we did get him to sleep, I don't remember now, but I do know he threw up one more time after 10pm and that at that point, I nursed him before putting him back down. Not a good idea, apparently, because after sleeping briefly, he woke up and emptied his stomach again, just before 11pm.
Finally, we got him to sleep (I lost track of how many pajamas we went through, but we did do a load of laundry in the middle of the night since he had soiled his top sheet and his sleep sack.) I tried to sleep in his room since even with the monitor in our room I was worried about getting to him quickly if he threw up again. But I couldn't sleep. Every time he sighed in his sleep or moved, I was on edge, worried he was going to be sick. I was making myself sick with worry, so I finally got on the computer to play games, waiting until midnight since I figured if he was going to be sick again, it would probably be within an hour.
At midnight, I went to go sleep in our room. I couldn't get any sleep in his room and I've been tired from fighting this cold, so I needed sleep. But even in our room, I was so worried, I don't think I slept more than a few fitful minutes here and there until shortly after 2am when Aaron woke up again. Since he had gone more than 3 hours without being sick, I tried nursing him. I knew I was supposed to limit how much he ate, so I did stop him before he wanted, but not as soon as I thought I should have since he seemed so hungry. Since he was still hungry, he wasn't going to be easy to put back to sleep, plus I wanted to keep him up for awhile to make sure he was going to keep the milk down, so I held him for awhile. We hung out in the bathroom, which has tile floors, so seemed like a safe place for a sick baby, just in case.
At one point, he started coughing and Thom came to check on us. At that point I asked Thom to take Aaron and get him back to bed since I had gotten no real sleep and Thom had gotten a little. (He's still not back to normal, but he's definitely much better than the previous night.) I finally got to sleep after 3am, once Thom was back from getting Aaron to sleep. And I slept until about 5:30am when Aaron woke up again. Fortunately, at that point, the stomach bug had moved further downstream and he hasn't throw up since 11pm last night.
Julie came today at 11am and is leaving at 3pm (she is normally here from 12-6pm, but she needs to go to an appointment this afternoon). Aaron hasn't had much appetite, but other than being tired, he is in good spirits. He had a little rice cereal at noon and hopefully he is over the worst of his illness.
Thom is home sick today, too. He ran a few errands for us, though.
One thing I've learned from this experience is that you can't have too many waterproof mattress pads, waterproof lap-size pads (which we use on the changing table), infant pajamas, or sheets. I only have 3 fitted sheets for Aaron's bed and one waterproof top sheet that snaps on. I usually have the snap-on one over a fitted sheet which is over a waterproof mattress pad. That way, if the top sheet gets wet, just take it off and you are ready to go. But once that was soiled last night, we just doubled up on bedding - pad, sheet, pad, sheet - so that we could just take off the top set if needed since it seemed likely he was going to go through a few sheets. The supplies we had are more than enough for most days, but on nights like last night, you really don't want to run out of sheets or pajamas at 3 in the morning.
I'm crossing my fingers that I don't get this stomach bug. I'm ready for us all to be well again.
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