For the Benefit of Mrs. E-Lo

I made a comment on E-Lo's site that reminded me of a story I thought I should post, seeing as she's going to be a new mom and all. One of the first things the Wife and I learned upon becoming parents (right after the realization that we were so full of shit before we had kids) is that as a parent, you need to trust your instincts. Here are two examples of the parent knowing better than the pediatrician, and not realizing it.

Our first boy was a few months old. My wife tried to breast feed but was having difficulty so we decided to bottle feed. Our son would get gas bubbles and scream for 30 to 60 minutes. We tried the Mylecon, but it had limited success. During a visit with the pediatrician, we mentioned this to her and her statement was that some babies were just gassy and to put some Mylecon in the formula when we fed him. We tried it with no success. The next visit we inquired about switching formulas. We were told again that some babies were gassy and that changing formulas was a bad idea. However, after nearly 6 months of screaming baby, you're ready to try anything. So, we decided to try soy formula as we heard it was easiest on the baby digestive system. It took 24 HOURS for the problem to go away. We then had a smiling, laughing baby that almost never had gas bubbles. I was ready to kill the pediatrician.

Around our first son's first birthday (pretty sure it was the 1st), he had been kind of grumpy. He was running a low grade fever (around 99 ish) and wasn't acting himself. We called the pediatrician's office and reported the symptoms. They said he probably just had a little flu virus and not to worry about it. The next morning, we woke up and found fluid in his crib that had drained from his ears. We again called the pediatrician and brought him in. Turns out he had an ear infection and that it had gotten so bad it perforated his ear and drained (that means poked a hole in his eardrum). Again I was furious.

The moral of the stories is that you know you kid better than anyone. Don't let a doctor tell you there's nothing wrong with your kid if you think there is. And if you think your kid needs to go to the pediatrician's office, tell them you want to bring the kid in and don't take no for an answer.

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