First Vaccinations

Yesterday our little baby Peach had her first set of vaccinations. Three shots, two in one thigh and one in the other. Poor baby.

Becoming a Mom took her to the health clinic and said baby Peach was happy as could be, smiling at her and cooing and generally making happy baby noises. Little did she know what was about to happen.

The nurse asked Mom if she wanted to nurse Peach while she got the injections. Mom didn’t want to do that and held her on her side while the nurse gave her the shots in the upper thigh. She started to cry when the first needle went in, then screamed after the second.  Because she was so distraught, Mom started to nurse Peach to comfort her while the third injection was given, but this wasn’t enough to dull the pain of the final needle and poor baby Peach screamed again.

For the rest of the day Peach was very clingy and miserable – understandable after such a traumatic experience. When I got home from work I held her on my chest where she slept fitfully for about an hour and a half before I went to change her diaper.

Little did I realize how tender her thighs were. I normally stroke the outside of her legs when I’m taking her diaper off so she knows what’s going on, but that suddenly caused my sleepy little baby to scream in pain and cry her heart out. Feeling terrible, I quickly changed her diaper and tried to soothe her without effect.

We gave her a bit of baby Tylenol syrup to help her through the pain – she didn’t really like that at all. I have no idea why manufacturers decide it’s a good idea to put those terrible flavorings in the syrups… I suspect just straight sugar would be better as the baby hasn’t a clue what that flavor is supposed to be and it certainly doesn’t taste like breast milk!

At that point Mom took baby Peach back and nursed her in bed until she fell asleep. She slept poorly, waking up 3 times during the night when she normally would wake up 1 or 2 times.

Today she’s much better, almost back to her normal self. Her thighs still have the little bandaids on the spots where she got the injections but the swelling of her thighs is pretty much gone and she’s not tender there any more.

I’m not sure who it was more traumatic for – Mom and Becoming A Dad – or baby Peach.