I found if I encouraged mothers to monitor things on paper in the
first week it helped them feel in control. Parents get so busy and tired that
things run together. It is too hard to keep straight or reel off to your HCP
without a written record. However, after my office assistant showed me her 2
YEARS- yes -YEARS- worth of monitoring every bite of food, nap , and diaper
(along with many other things) for her daughter, I realized that moms needed
a transition from close monitoring to " you will just know if your baby is in
trouble". I now tell them if all is going well on the chart by one week then
just stack 8 diapers on the edge of the changing table in the morning and
watch them dissapear. Babies need more monitoring in the early days so we can
catch problems early but by one week things should be going well or moms need
to call.
        On the gas issue, a friend of mine and I tried an experiment where we
told moms in prenatal classes that gas was normal , Dr Lendon Smith once said
" if you dont have gas you are dead" , and even babies who have eaten NOTHING
in NICU have gas.  After we started that we had much fewer mothers
contributing crying to gas and seeking to medically treat normal passing of
gas with no obvious pain. This is not saying that colic is a figment of
imagination or that gas pains cant cause crying - but I see too much use of
meds to treat normal conditions. Thank God they havent invented a drug to
cure hiccups yet!
Debra Kearney, IBCLC

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