Injured Nipple! - Nursing My Fierce Girl

I was dozing off while nursing my little girl when she suddenly got frustrated and gave me a vicious bite!

I have never had such a bad bite from nursing Kieran! She literally bit down and pulled! I screamed in pain while she cried in fright, and thereafter, I stopped nursing her on the injured breast. In fact I developed such a fear of latching her!

The nipple hurts terribly and I stopped latching her on that side, only latching her on the other, and hand expressing the injured breast when it got too engorged. At night, once, I latched her on the injured side as I did not want the supply to go down too badly, and that latch was excruciatingly painful! I took care to unlatch whenever I felt baby was fussy, or when I felt her teeth. Caitlin was definitely teething and very often, she would attempt to bite me.

I got so demoralised that I contemplated stop breastfeeding her altogether. Caitlin refused bottles since she was four or five months old, but I refused to nurse her and gave her a bottle, and she actually drank 30ml of breastmilk from it.

Later, I realised that Caitlin was not only teething but developing a fever. That explained her crankiness and her likeliness to bite while nursing.

Now, it is two weeks since she recovered from her high fever and roseola (fake measles) and she has resumed her lovely, nice, non-biting self, albeit a little fierce when she's refused the things she wants. Oh yes, she bites you when you snatch her toys. It's almost like a reflex action from her. She instinctively lunge forward and bite your arm if you snatch her toys. She reminds me of a puppy! Haha! But she has stopped biting me when she nurses. Thank goodness!

Kieran's flu journey

Here's my son's flu journey. Hubby recorded this in great detail and he requested me to put this up on my blog.

Before I became a parent, I have totally no idea how tormenting it is to nurse a sick child back to health, AND to keep a healthy child HEALTHY, away from the virus and bacteria and bad stuff. I felt totally helpless when Kieran and Caitlin fell sick with flu because I could protect them from everything and kept them happy and safe, but I couldn't protect them from viruses.

Here's the journey. It started before Christmas and so of course, there's no Christmas, no gathering and no tasty tang yuan for us. Unfortunately, this flu episode started right after Kieran was discharged from the hospital for high fever with seizure and being treated with Tamiflu.

Journal of Yunxuan Flu Journey

20 Dec 2013 (Friday):

~8.00pm: First symptoms of flu

Midnight to Wee hours: Administered Nurofen and Paracetamol

Observations: High Fever (>39oC), clear & watery nasal mucus,no poo

21 Dec 2013 (Saturday)

9.00am: Proceed to see Dr. Ong

Observations: clear and watery nasal mucus, daytime with paracetamol maintain temp below 38.5oC, no poo, Administered pill though anus at wee hours to bring down fever, introduced large amount of fluids (~150ml of fluid per hr) can keep temperature in the range of 36.9oC to sub 38oC.

Medication and temperature

12.30pm

Nurofen

39.2

22 Dec 2013 (Sunday)

Observations: clear and watery nasal mucus, daytime with paracetamol maintain temp below 38.5oC, very cranky mood, slept around 7pm, Administered pill through anus for fever at 7pm. No poo

Medication and temperature

12.30am	Paracetamol	38.4
2.30am	Pill through anus	39.3
12.00pm	Paracetamol	37.6
7.00pm	Pill through anus	38.8

23 Dec 2013 (Monday)

Observations: woke up at 2am to play. Started to have thick greenish nasal mucus. Started to cough badly. temperature on the rise at 2am so given paracetamol. went back to sleep at 4.00am. between 2.00am to 4.00am given 220ml of fluids (150ml of prune juice 70ml of nutrifresh). temperature on rise at 7.10am. administer paracetamol. given lots of fluids and paracetamol managed to keep temperature in sub 38oC range.  Pill through anus given at 8pm. Paracetamol at 11.15pm. Got poo a few times

Medication and temperature

2.00am	Paracetamol	?
7.10am	Paracetamol	37.8
11.30am	-	37.1
1.25pm	Paracetamol	37.5
3.00pm	-	37.5 (drank 40ml)
4.22pm	-	37.0 (drank 70ml)
5.34pm	-	37.6
8.00pm	Insert pill though anus	38.8
11.15pm	Paracetamol	37.0 (Drank 150ml of fluid per hr)

24 Dec 2013

Observation: Temperature rise at 6.00am. 38.7oC, given Nerofen at 6.00am. 3.00am Poo in diaper. Lousy appetite whole day. Only gotten better in evening. Went to see TCM and is diagnosed with 毛丹.

Medication and temperature

1.30am – 2.30am	-	Sub 37.0
6.00am	Nurofen	38.7
10.55am	Paracetamol	38.1
11.39am	-	38.0
1.25pm	-	36.9 (drank 150ml honey water)
3.30pm	Nurofen	39.0
6.30pm	TCM medicine	36.9
9.00pm	Insert pill through anus	39.4 (drank occasional sips of fluid)

25 Dec 2013

Observation: woke up at 3.30am to play. Slept at 4.30am. Morning started to sweat a little, body temp maintained normal the whole morning. Still have greenish yellowish nasal mucus, seems to have signs of reduced fluidity. Pooed one small piece in morning. Pooed a lot in afternoon 3.00pm and a bit at 9.30pm. Appetite much better, eaten one full bowl of porriage and drank 100+ml of fluids between 7.00pm and 10.30pm. Very sleepy the whole day.

Medication and temperature

12.30am	TCM medicine	36.2 (drank occasional sips and 140ml of Nutrifresh)
3.30am	Paracetamol	38.0
4.30am	-	38.2 (drank 70ml plain water)
6.30am	-	37.2
8.15am	TCM Medicine	36.7
11.20am	TCM medicine	37.1 (drank 140ml of honey)
2.45pm	TCM Medicine	36.9
5.00pm	Paracetamol	37.9
8.30pm	TCM Medicine	36.9
11.30pm	TCM Medicine	36.9

26 Dec 2013

Observation: Assumed yunxuan recovered. End of journal.

Medication and temperature

3.00am	TCM Medicine	36.9
7.00am	-	36.6
10.30am	TCM Medicine	36.9
4.00pm	TCM Medicine	36.9

End of journal.

To add on, on Sunday morning, we decided to visit Thomson Chinese Medicine at United Square and get TCM medicine for the whole family. The main reason is my poor Caitlin had cough and she coughed until her voice turns hoarse, vomited milk and phlegm and woke up every two hours even in the middle of the night due to terrible cough and mucous blocking her nose. For 2 days we had been administering Nuelin 1.5ml and Rhinatiol 1ml to her, given by Dr Ong. And her condition worsened. When we went online to check, I found that Rhinatiol is UNSUITABLE for children below 2 years old, and it worsened airway congestion!!! Darn! So that's why we stopped the medication on Saturday night, and phew, she slept soundly through the night. That's why we gave up on western medication and think we might as well go to see TCM. One of the mummies in the breastfeeding facebook page I joined recommended Sinseh Siah from Thomson Chinese Medicine, so we went. After 2 days of medicine, we've seen some improvement. Will update again if there are more changes.

Update on 23 Oct 2014: Our family have been visiting Traditional Chinese medicine sin seh and our health is getting better! We have almost monthly trips to Thomson Chinese Medicine at United Square, and Kieran will have paediatric tui na and herbal medicine prescribed to suit his condition. This helps to improve his digestion and strengthen immunity. Caitlin has tui na if she's not feeling well. We don't get TCM herbs for her because she screams and kicks even before the spoon reaches her mouth. Feisty girl! My hubby sees Sin seh Teng for TCM medicine and I do too occasionally. We seldom fall sick now. A healthy family is a happy family! Oh, and we all switched to organic food. Sometimes we can't get organic groceries for some items but if we could, we will definitely eat organic.