Pacified

We took Lyla out of the house for the first time. She had her first pediatrician visit and came out of it nearly unscathed, except for the bandage on her right foot.

She's a bit yellow, you see, and as a precaution they drew a little blood to ensure that she's not too yellow. The way I understand it, babies need more oxygen in the womb, and that oxygen is carried by red blood cells. Once the baby is born and those extra red blood cells aren't needed, they die, and bilirubin helps break them down in the liver. Bilirubin is, drumroll please, yellow.

Winter babies sometimes struggle with jaundice due to relative lack of sunshine. Long before levels of bilirubin become dangerous, doctors will prescribe some sort of sunlamp treatment. Lyla is nowhere near that point yet but had the blood drawn because, as you might imagine, pediatricians like to err on the side of caution.

Pricking that foot pissed off Lyla something fierce. I tried to match her energy level when consoling her and calmed as she calmed. Continuing this strategy will hopefully prompt the emotion part of Lyla's prefrontal cortex to develop healthily. It's a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo that I only sort of pretend to understand. Suffice it to say that there's research to support that emotionally neglected babies (such as the Romanian orphans in the study) had way more emotional problems when they got older. Duh. But it's crazy to think that a study basically proved that you shouldn't just let your baby cry.

Last night Lyla had another grand fuss-fest around 1:00 AM. It's like she won't calm down when it's our bedtime. A breakthrough came at 2:00 AM, when downstairs I stuck my pinky in her mouth. Her mother was drained, you see, literally, and I wanted to see if Lyla simply wanted to suck on something. And voila! Happy baby! So after a quick middle-of-the-night Google search, we determined that putting Lyla to bed with a pacifier would not cause her to deal drugs in kindergarten.

The pros to pacifier use at night:

- A 2005 study found that it decreased SIDS.
- Babies in general, and Lyla especially, like to suck.
- It helps Mom and Dad sleep and thus be better parents in the morning.

The cons:

- Some parents use the pacifier as a crutch and fail to adequately comfort their baby, opting instead to always shove in the Nuk.
- Nipple confusion.
- Who are we kidding? It got Lyla to go to sleep!

A word about nipple confusion. Experts recommend no pacifier until breastfeeding is established, usually occurring after about a month. Lyla was one week old yesterday. So are we bad parents? I doubt it. She's a good little eater. She poops frequently, and with artistic flair. And when midnight hits, she's fussier than Elton John at Old Country Buffet. No brainer: if the pacifier pacifies, use it.