About babies, allergies, sleeplessness & other things that led to where we are today....

To say we've had a pretty challenging time with our two babies is somewhat an understatement! Many times my hubby & I have questioned what on earth we've done that karma seems to dislike us so. Luckily there's nothing life threatening wrong with our little boys, and we're very grateful for that. But they've had a number of issues & health complaints that have made life a little hard going the past few years - not to mention a strain on one's sanity & ability to get a good nights sleep! Here I'll tell you a bit about our first son, Alex, and the trials we went through with him. As you'll soon find out my babies come out and are just like everyone elses - till we get them home, then they seem to break.... And why am I telling you this, well there's two reasons. Firstly, so you can understand where the idea of Zimmer & Jee came from & why I stock the products I do. And secondly, perhaps you can learn from what we've experienced & maybe that will make your parenting path a little easier (i hope so!). Alex has a lot of issues with allergies, eczema, intolerance's & similar problems. For the first few weeks of his life he was calm, content & a good sleeper however he wasn't able to breastfeed (he had an issue latching on due to a severe tongue tie that was undiagonsed). After three weeks living on expressed BM the "cow" dried up and we had to move him onto formula. That's when the issues really began. So at 3 weeks of age after starting formula Alex's demeanour changed. He started crying & grizzling all the time, went from sleeping 5 hrs between feeds overnight to sleeping in 20min increments round the clock. Under the direction of our paediatrician & Dr we tried multiple formulas, with limited success. Alex was now unable to pass a "number #2" so every couple of days we had to use a suppository (now that was great fun.....), and what the poor little guy passed was something akin to tar and came with great pain & screaming. He was 12 weeks old before he could pass a #2 on his own. At 6 weeks of age we took Alex for his checkup. We'd researched and decided against vaccination, however at this appointment we were so pressured by the medical staff that we agreed and he was vaccinated. This was 11am. Alex screamed as soon as he was jabbed, and continued to scream throughout the remainder of the day until he collapsed in my arms at 8pm that night. He was basically comatose for the next three days - limp, not waking for feeds, his eyes would roll around unfocused when he opened them - a very scary time. After this episode Alex, my tiny 6 week old baby, began having fits. His poor sleep pattern of 20min naps around the clock continued till he was 10mths of age. We went to, and failed, 3 sleep clinics in that time where my heart broke as nurses pushed me out the room to let my little boy wail (without ever falling asleep). I was sure there was something wrong that was being overlooked by our medical team, so when he was 8 or so weeks I began seeing Dr after Dr looking for an answer to his issues. At which time I was labelled a hypochondriac & post-natally depressed. Poor feeding continued to be an issue, with milk feeds poorly taken even though his tongue tie had been repaired (it was so severe he couldn't lift his tongue off the floor of his mouth, but Dr's missed this when looking for his feeding issue. My husband discovered the tongue tie after doing some internet research when bub was about 4 weeks old and booked him in for surgery that very week). After fixing the tongue tie his feeds were taken better, but then bub couldn't keep them down. He'd loose an entire bottle and have to be refed, with he and I both saturated. I took to feeding him with us both covered in vomit nappies and towels, ready for the enivitable! Our Dr then labelled Alex as having "severe reflux" and put him on a number of medications that were supposed to be a miracle cure - "you won't believe how well he sleeps now he's on Losec" the Dr told us. Oh, but that wasn't to be! Alex's 20min sleeping pattern continued till he was 10mths of age - it would take me 2 hours to rock, pat & settle him to sleep to have him sleep for only 20mins and be back again, grumpy, tired and unhappy. By this stage I was at my wits end, no answers, no help and an endless sleepless issue that saw me only sleeping 2hours worth of little naps every day. Not good! As you can tell, this is a pretty long winded story! To save you getting really bored I'll stop there and start next time with the story of how I tried to give him to an adoption agency - oh yes, you heard right! And the meditation that got me through the severe lack of sleep. And how, you may be asking, does this related to Zimmer & Jee? I can't tell you how many products and how huge the expense was, trying to slove Alex's issues. Thinking the issue was feeding, we went through bottle after bottle, trying every baby bottle and teat we could find. Thinking it was discomfort causing the lack of sleep, we tried numerous brands of baby sleeping bags, blankets, pj's. Then we blamed his ezcema & tried heaps of different brands of clothes & outfits, bath washes, moisturisers, creams, lotions and potions - every chemist brand, prescribed product plus every organic & natural brand under the sun! And that's how this relates to my shop - I've been there, done that and tried it all! So now you don't have to...all the products I found useful and that worked, I'll have on my site. That's quite a list as you can imagine, so it will be a few months before my store is totally stocked. But when it is, you'll have a "one stop shop" for everything baby, set up by someone who's been there before and tried it all! www.zimmerjee.com.au Have you had a situation like mine? If you have I'd love to hear about it & share our experiences (it's so easy to feel alone isn't it). Please feel free to post your comments here, contact me www.zimmerjee.com.au website or email me at cass@zimmerjee.com.au. And don't forget to visit my store for everything baby www.zimmerjee.com.au