My struggle and frustrations with Cloth diapering my son

UGH!

I knew since I was about 4 months pregnant that I wanted to cloth diaper my son. I really liked the idea of keeping disposables out the land fills and also I loved the fact that cloth diapers help prevent diaper rash and are better for babies skin. So I set out on the journey of research to find the right company to do cloth diapers. At this point I just thought there were a few choices I would have to make and Vuala, that would be done with and all I would have to do would be to buy them. Boy was I wrong. Once I started looking into things I realized I had more choices then I wanted, One size, Pockets, All in ones, All in twos, Hybrids, Prefolds, Covers, Fitteds, PUL vs TPU, Hemp vs Micro fiber vd Fleece, One size vd Sized, Velcro vs snaps, I could go on. So once you pick what type you want, you then have to sort through the 100s of brands and pick which one of those you want. I have been looking in to these and doing countless hours of research since I was 4 months pregnant, and now Bradley is 3 1/2 months old and I still am coming across plenty of diapers I have never heard of.

We started off with getting different kinds and seeing what we liked, and we liked what one called a hybrid diaper, G Diaper......

This is what it looks like ^

 < This is Bradley 15 days old in his first one

They were very bulky between his legs as you can see. So what a G diaper is a outer fabric layer that has a plastic snap in liner that holds a micro fiber cloth insert. So with each diaper change you just change the micro fiber insert instead of the entire diaper. So it's suppose to save on space since you only need like 6 or 7 outer cover and 20 or so inserts since you wash them. So I fell in love with the idea... until I started using them. As you can see it didn't fit well on him at all. After about 3 days use I hated them. They don't hold in anything. He was leaking out of every diaper. Not to mention the fact that the plastic snap in liner keeps in heat so it makes him super sweaty and very uncomfortable which results in a cranky baby. So overall the G diaper is one of the worst diapers I have tried. Not to mention the fact that they are expensive... $18 for one cover then $30 for 6 micro fiber inserts. So in total to start you would need about $300. Oh and did I mention you would need to spend that much 3 times to get small, med and large. So not the cheapest choice. Why I liked them in the beginning I have NO idea.

So from there we decided that they were a waste of money and we sold them on Ebay.com for almost as much as we spent on them since he only wore a few of them. We then did more research and found the one size pocket diapers.

So as you can see from the diagram, its a diaper that goes one and off just like a disposable and tossed in the hamper after each change... just like a disposable. They said this diaper is husband proof and daycare proof and grandparent proof. So we thought this may be the one so we go some of them. Oh did I mention they are one size and can be adjusted with just a snap (look at the diagram on the right).

So we ordered some and I really liked them, and so did Randy. So we ordered 40 of them. After about a solid 2 weeks of JUST using cloth diapers and I hit some bumps again. They leak when ever he sleeps, naps as short as 1 hour or over night for 8 hours. The diapers we got are called Alvababies, they are about $6 a diaper and are made in China. Other pocket diapers that are made here in US are about $18-$30 a diaper, so my thought is are they not working because they are cheap quality.

Back to the internet I went. There I found many other options that I could do and now I'm all confused again. There are so many choices. The other ones are more expensive and would cost more to test them out. So how do you decide which ones to try with out breaking the bank. Someone asked me why don't I just give up and us disposables over night. I had to explain that its not just bed time. Any one who is a mother out there knows that a nap schedule for a 3 month old is not set in stone. So to make sure he doesn't to sleep in cloth at nap time would be close to impossible.





UGH

Hospital Stay

Bradly at CHOC the night we got there. 

Friday night we took Bradley to the E.R as I mentioned in my previous entry, well when we woke up on Saturday he was screaming and not happy and obviously in pain. We took him back the E.R and they did another enema and it didn't work so they admitted him Children's Hospital of Orange County. They put him in his room and took all his vitals and got his history with his pooping and his formula changes and all that good stuff. I never realized how many changes and little things that have happened to Bradley since he was born. I was having a really hard time coming up with a time line with everything. I couldn't remember for the life of me how long he was on each formula or when we switched or why he was in the ER in the past. I felt like a bad mom because it all was just a big blur. It seemed like it was all so long ago and I couldn't tell the doctor what he needed to know. He wanted to know what formulas he was on and how long and how old Bradley was and why we switched. Well we have had 7 formulas in his short 3 months so its a lot to remember. So after they got all that information they hooked him up to the monitors to watch his blood pressure and an sleep watch as well. They told us to get some rest since it was about 1am and that the


Pediatric Gastro Specialist would be in the following morning to go over everything with us.

      

 looking up at the mobile

The next morning they did an ultrasound of Bradley's tummy to see what was in his intestines and to look for the so called "blockage" they found in the ER on the x-rays. Shortly after that the GI specialist. Dr. Grant, came in to go over everything with us. He was VERY rude to me and seemed to not care that my son has been in pain for his entire life. But he seemed like he knew what he was talking about. He said that we don't know why this is happening to him and we wont know. He said that its nothing serious, and I shouldn't be in the hospital. I argued that my boy needing help for 3 months to do what should come naturally, at this age should be doing with out really thinking about, isn't normal. He kept referring to a child he has as a patient that goes 20 days with out going #2 and that's perfectly OK. I know I am not a doctor, but that just isn't right.



 My mom made a joke to Dr. Grant about me needing meds to handle him so I don't toss Bradley over the balcony and since she said that Dr. Grant looked at me a little differently as if she was serious. He told me to go on vacation if I get to stressed and that I need to get a break since I am having a hard time with this. I told him that I was having a hard time since he cries most the day, but not because he is crying, its because I can't do anything to help him feel better. Its painful as a mother to know your baby hurts and not be able to do anything about it. He didn't seem to believe me.

So his diagnosis was he was constipated and that was it. His treatment was complicated and I am still not 100% on board with that one...

1tsp Milk of Magnesia once a day - if that doesn't work to continue upping the dosage every 3 days until he goes daily and on his own
1 pill of Lactalose (probiotics) daily
1tsp Maalox twice a day with the same thing as the M.O.M, up dosage as needed
Tylenol for pain as needed
1/8 of a cup of Miralax once a day and up dosage as needed
Change formula from Soy to Enfamil Gentlease.

He didn't feel that Bradley is lactose intolerant and that it's just that his stomach was not mature enough for the milk proteins. He also said that he thinks Bradley's tummy just ins't mature enough to poo normally. That he may just have slow bowels, or possibly that he had too many solid poos that hurt him so badly (always made him bleed) that he is now afraid to go since it will hurt. So with all the meds it will soften it up so much that he wont have a choice but to let it out and it will "re-train" him that its OK to go. He said that his plan is to start with the meds I listed at those dosages and to continue upping everything until he was going on a normal schedule and then stay at that dosage for up to 2 years, but potentially longer.

He made it all seem like it was no big deal and he didn't seem concerned at all with the fact that my boy is uncomfortable at all. When I asked to make him feel better he said Tylenol, but only getting his pooper working is going to work 100%. I mentioned to him that this all seems like a lot of medication for my 3 month old baby and he seemed like it was nothing and kept referring to that girl who goes 20 days. He kept making references to Bradley's future of needing MOM to go and how he may have poo issues for his entire life. I don't understand how this can be life long with out tknowing how it happened.

Before he left he said that he wanted to run one more test to rule out a more serious issue, the test is  called Barium Enema, which basically is like colon hydrotherapy they put a tube in his bum, tape it closed and allow 500cc's of colored water (with barium) so it will go into his bowels and intestines and then take several x-rays. They contrast of the color will black out on the x-rays so they can see if there were any leaks or crinkles that would cause poo to get backed up. They were also looking for something more serious called Hirschsprung's Disease and basically ment that part of his intestines had nerve damage and didn't work and would need surgery. The test was negative thank goodness!

My issue with all this is we still don't know why this is going on, which I asked several times. I don't understand how we can treat something when we don't know whats causing it. How can we change whats going on with out knowing what to change.

I do have to admit he has gone to the restroom by himself 3 times now since we were discharged and is in much better spirits. I just don't want to over medicate my baby. I went to my pediatrician and she was shocked at how much Dr. Grant wants Bradley taking... that makes this even more difficult. UGH.

My troubling question... How do you know whats the best thing to do? Who do you listen to?

Confused and I don't like it!

OK to start from the beginning, When Bradley was 6 days old he had his first suppository since he hadn't had a BM in 4 days. With all the breastfeeding issues he was on milk based formula as a supplement. He had more and more constipation issues so the doctor switched his formula, this repeated itself for 2 months and the constipation did not get any better. They thought for a while that he had acid reflux and gave him medication for that and that didn't work either.

About 3 weeks ago I called my mom crying like a 2 year old because Bradley wouldn't stop crying. (which was my normal day, spells of him crying for 6-7 hours a day non stop). She told me to hang on and had my step mom call my husband and told him to go get soy formula on his way home from work and she told him there was no if, ands or buts about it and it was an order. I kind of laughed at it. So he did as he was told like a good son in law with the hopes that something would work because the crying like this was not only killing me but making me super cranky  and I was biting his head off too.

So we gave Bradley the soy bottle and with in 30 min he had stopped crying and was smiling and totally happy. This lasted for 3 days so the pediatrician agreed that he was lactose intolerant. So we thought that was that and all was good. Boy we were wrong. So with the happy tummy from not having milk came some really backed up bowels, which we read was a side effect of soy.

The doc told us to try watering down his bottle, didn't work. She told us to try more suppositories to regulate him, didn't work. Try apple juice, Nada, try prune juice, still backed up, try watering down the bottles more, still backed up.

So today i decided that this is more then just formula thats making him backed up. He has been having this issue since he was less then a week old and nothing has worked so there has to be more to it. I called the doc today and she said that she was stumped and to take him to CHOC since they would know more about what to do and have more equipment to run tests.

So we went to the ER and gave them the 411 on his 3 months of life and how he has been constipated more then not and how it causes him pain and discomfort and we wanted some answers.

The took X-rays of his chest and tummy to see if anything was in his intestinal tract and if there was something in the way that would cause chronic constipation and sure enough there was a big mass in his colon. So they then took some blood to test his sodium since we have been watering down his bottles and started an IV for some fluids to make sure he is on tack with his fluids. They then did an enema to get the mass out, which worked just like the suppository does. He then told us to use the laxatives and if it doesn't go away to see the GI. He said that he hopes that getting him flushed out will regulate him. If thats not the case then there is some other rare issue that is doing this and we need to see the GI for that.

Here is where things start to confuse me...

Our doctor told us to water down his bottles to help his BM's come in less hard, the doctor in the ER said NO NO NO that can cause sodium deficiencies and vitamin loss. Doctor said to use suppositories every 24 hours and the ER doc said no not at all that it can cause damage to his bum and that it will cause him to be reliant on the stimulation to go and will stop going on his own. Our doctor told us that giving him 6oz of formula every 4 hours was OK and the ER doc said no.

I am getting so confused with the doctors difference in opinions and I don't know what to listen to any more. Its my sons health and I want to do whats right for my son but its so hard to do that when you have different doctors that you trust tell you things that are night and day.

Another thing is the ER doc gave us some laxatives for Bradley to take to hopefully put him on the right track. He said that if it doesn't go away in 4 days to go to a Gastro Doctor and get a colonoscopy and then a nurse came in and said that we should make an appointment with one for a consult right away, which is what my mom says we should do.

I wish that all the children doctors were on the same page with what to do. I wish I knew what the right choice was for my son! It's hard enough to know when to take him in and to worry about getting sick and now I have to worry about what doctors to listen too. UGH