Baby D and the Eye Infection

Ever since he was born, Baby D has had eye problems. Mostly just green gooeys, which I figured were normal. Over time, the gooeys dried up and stopped being a problem--in the right eye. Three days ago, though, his left eye got way worse.

When I saw "way worse," I mean that he had so many gooeys that unless I was washing them off his eyes every hour or so, he couldn't open his eye because his lashes were glued to his cheek. Also in the mornings he would wake up with just a giant encrusted line of green goop, dried, on his lashline. Poor kid.

But this morning it seems to have cleared up. Here is what I did:

1. Prayed

2. Dripped breastmilk into his eye every time we breastfed, and also used it on tissues and cotton balls to clean out the goopies

3. Massaged his tear duct every time we nursed (I tried to at other times, but he wouldn't hold still--but given a choice between nursing and having his tear duct rubbed or not nursing and not getting it rubbed, he picked nursing)

I will say that we only started the tear duct massage yesterday morning after some Google research, but it seems to have worked.

Yesterday I took him over to my mom's house so she could see him, and while he was sitting in his little chair his eyes got all goopy. So I used a tissue to wipe all the goo away. He didn't cry or anything, and he didn't really move that much. My mom noted this and said, "He trusts you."

That kind of melted my heart a little bit. She's right. This baby does trust me. Every time he gets goo in his nose I grab the nose bulb and suction it out. He hates it but he'll just look in my eyes and hold still while I do it, despite. I'm so glad he knows, at the tender age of, what? eleven weeks, that I only do things he hates because they're good for him.

That level of trust has come from a bunch of things: our breastfeeding relationship in which I feed him with my own body every time he shows signs of hunger (I try to catch it before he has to cry). Our bedsharing that means we basically cuddle all night long and he never has to be cold or lonely or scared or hungry in the night. Our showers together. How promptly I try to change his diaper (he hates being wet there so much!). How I carry him all the time, either in my arms or in a sling or wrap, so he never has to be lonely or bored.

And really, all those things have made my life infinitely easier. He rarely cries, because he never really needs to. It makes things way less stressful around here. I'm so glad I stumbled across natural parenting. It has been a real blessing.