Riley Update

Since this sweet little girl turned 5 months, I thought before we got up on December, we should visit what she has been doing!
The steroid did the trick and cleared up her skin.  Our last day of the steroid cream was on Sunday, unfortunately, she is already starting to show signs that her eczema is starting to come back.  We didn't even make it a week. :(  If it gets any worse, we will start the steroid cream again.  The weather is suppose to be getting warmer, so I am going to hold off on calling Dr. Jain for now.  I am also stopped her vitamin D supplement, so I will start that again.
Other then that, she is doing great.  We sit up better and better every day.  She is eating like a pro.  I wish I could say the same thing about sleeping.  Nights are rough.  But hopefully they will get better one of these days.
Emma still absolutely loves being a big sister and is excited that Riley is now eating and sitting up.  She loves to make her smile, and Riley will do big smiles when Emma is acting crazy.  Can't believe she is about to be 6 months!!!!!

Riley's Catch Up

 2 month!!

 3 Months!!

4 Months!!

It has been a wild last couple of months with this sweet little girl.  Over all, she is very healthy and continues to measure VERY tall.  At her 4 month appointment, she finally showed up on the growth curve....at greater then 95%!!  She is a good eater and lovers her oatmeal.  She is actually ready to start with fruits and vegetables.  Much earlier then Emma!  She is rolling over with ease, starting to tripod sit, and will put anything and everything into her mouth!

As a lot of you know, we have gone back and forth with having her on a allergy specific formula.  She has been having bad eczema, and that in combination of her spitting up and fussiness, her Doctor thought that it was possible she had an allergy to milk.  Riley never seemed to be very content when I had her on the allergy formula, and this last go around, her eczema never went away, so I put her back on her regular formula and made an appointment with Emma's allergist.  When she turned 4 months, I noticed a slight decrease in her fussiness.  I am now thinking she was just a colicy baby.  From what I have read about colic, it tends to get better at the 4 month mark.  

To have the total picture, we went ahead and did a food allergy test with her yesterday.  Because she is still so young, we didn't do as extensive as we did with Emma, but we know that she is NOT allergic to diary, eggs, or peanuts.  This is what a negative test result looks like!!

Riley did great during her test.  She didn't even cry.  So we don't know what is causing her eczema, but Dr. Jain stressed that we need to get it completely gone and keep it under control.  He said that they are finding out that children who are predisposed to food allergies, can develop those allergies when they start eating.  This is because the skin around their mouth is damaged from the eczema with open sores and the food is able to penetrate through their skin, causing the onset of allergies.  So as soon as we get her cheeks cleared up, he gave us the green light on moving on to fruit and veggies.  So our game plan for now is twice a day baths, twice a day steroid cream, aquaphor, and a daily dose of vitamin D.  Once it clears up, we will continue with the steroids every other day for a week.  Then we will do the steroid cream on the first onset of symptoms.  As long as her "flares" are only every so often, we are good to go.  If we have to keep using the steroid cream, then we will have to go back and see Dr. Jain again to come up with a new plan.  The steroid cream can cause damage to the skin if used too often, so I am really hoping that it clears up quickly!  Dr. Jain also mentioned that a lot of eczema had spots that looked like they were caused by her itching at them.  So we know that it starting to bug her.  This could explain some of the very long nights we have had when she just didn't seem to settle and was some what thrashing around in her bed.  Since we know that it is bothering her, if we see that again, we will give her some Tylenol.  Hopefully this will work and we won't need to do anything further!!!