What a crazy week. Health visitors, new routines and Bertie having an allergic reaction to egg.
Wednesday started off brilliantly.
The health visitor came for a home visit — the first since The Twinkles were four months old — and I was so excited to find out how much they both weighed.
Historically, there has always been a 5oz difference between them, Cosmo being slightly heavier than his older (by 30 seconds) brother.
We learned that Bertie has almost caught up and there is now only 2oz weight difference between the two.
Plus they are doing really well on the premature centile growth charts... the graph is curving up really nicely and they are perfectly where they should be; not too big, not too small.
Quick View of What You'll Find on This Page
Sitting Unaided
The health visitor was amazed at how well they were doing with their movement too.
She thought that Cosmo was just days from crawling.
She was right, because he’s almost perfected his ‘whale stranded on the beach’ technique. He’s now getting around the house at a great rate on knots!). But was astounded as he isn’t yet sitting up unaided.
As I’m not inspecting different babies on a daily basis, my children’s progress seems totally normal, but she was pretty surprised. She said:
‘It’s quite unusual to be crawling before sitting.’
Whatever.
I’m sure it’ll happen at some point! I’ve never met an able-bodied adult that hasn’t mastered the art of ‘sitting up unaided’.
Apart from when they’re blind drunk.
A Change Of Routine
Anyway. That aside, she watched them play in the Jumperoos and was really smitten by the way they interact with each other.
It must be fairly uncommon, at most of her appointments, to see babies in fits of laughter and they gave her a really good show.
Both babies were chatty and giggly and she left us with a huge grin on her face. I know that they would have been the talk of the office; that afternoon.
I’ve also been subtly changing their routine — just shifting everything by 15 minutes or so — and by Wednesday, they’d really got into the swing of things.
Our new routine is:
7-7.15am — wake and bottle feed | 7oz
8.30am — breakfast (solid food; fruity baby porridge from Boots is the current favourite!)
9.15am — back to bed
10.00am — wake and play
11.30am — lunch (solid food — no bottle)
12.15pm — back to bed
2-2.15pm — wake
3pm — bottle feed 6oz
4.15pm — back to bed
5.00pm — tea time (solid food)
5.45pm — wake (play or a bath a couple of times a week)
6.30pm — bottle feed | 4oz
7pm — bed
Repeat…
This is working so well.
The extra 15 minutes awake is making all the difference and they are going down for a nap with no bother at all.
Eventually the morning and late afternoon naps will peter out and we’ll just be left with the 2 hour sleep during the middle of the day.
Part of me feels a little sad about their routine moving on again, as it means my baby boys are growing up.
WAY TOO FAST!!!
An Allergic Reaction to Egg
But I digress. Back to last Wednesday; 6th November 2013.
We were having such a lovely day — the sort of day when everything runs like clockwork — everyone was happy and everything was going swimmingly.
Until tea-time.
I made a scrambled-egg to give the boys for their supper. It was met with much pulling-of-faces; Bertie coughing a little and Cosmo grimacing at the texture.
They had just two spoonfuls each before I realised that Bertie’s lips were starting to swell. And swell. And swell…
…my baby boy was having a really bad allergic reaction to the egg!!!!
Cue me calling 999 — ’emergency which service do you require?’ — AMBULANCE PLEASE?
My baby is having an allergic reaction to egg!!!’
Blues and Twos
To cut a very long story short, a paramedic in a car came, plus an ambulance, both with sirens and blue lights a-blazing.
They hooked Bertie up to the ECG monitor, did a heel prick test to check his blood sugar and concluded that he wasn’t, thankfully, going into anaphylactic shock.
But due to the fact that he is under a year in age, they were unable to administer anything and we had to be taken into hospital for a consultant to have a look at him.
My boy and I were strapped to the gurney in the back of the ambulance. We were chauffeured into Northampton General accompanied by the sirens and blue lights — with Daddy and Cosmo following behind in the car. Scary stuff. Made worse as I have pretty bad travel sickness.
Let me tell you, lying down — facing backwards — in an ambulance, that is swinging round corners, on a mission to get it’s tiny passenger safely to the nearest hospital is not a great place to be when you have motion sickness.
Bleurgh.
A&E
We got to A&E at Northampton and Bertie was given the once over by a paediatric consultant. She concluded that he IS allergic to egg no shit, really? and gave him an antihistamine to take the swelling down. After a 2 hour wait, we were all discharged.
Not the best way to spend a Wednesday evening. I have certainly had better, that’s for sure.
Anyway. He’s since to the GP and has been booked in for immunology testing. I guess it’s a blessing that it happened this way.
Better to find out in the way we did, than to be on holiday, for example — miles away from anywhere — with him going into anaphylactic shock. At least we’ll get a full breakdown on the severity of the allergy and possibly find out any other allergens that he reacts badly to.
We need a sign above the front door that reads ‘Abandon your eggs all ye who enter here’.
Shame.
We have chickens; I love eggs.
Caro Davies is a former art-director turned writer and content-creator, and editor behind UK lifestyle blog The Listed Home. She writes about home-related topics, from interiors and DIY to food and craft. The Listed Home has been featured in various publications, including Ideal Home, Grazia, and Homes & Antiques magazines.
