So we'd had our sights set on Wednesday the 24th for about a week or two, though it had nothing to do with Christmas Eve. Instead (secularists that we are, more or less) we had chosen that night to finally "Ferberize" Henry. For those of you who haven't heard of it, the term refers to a way of teaching babies to go to sleep on their own. There's a whole lot to it, but in a nutshell what you do is put the baby down at night and let him cry it out, checking up on him at regular intervals. It usually takes three or four days to complete.
As difficult as the process was likely to be emotionally, KG ad I both were jonesing for it. As I mentioned in a recent post, HG keeps us up quite a bit at night. It's literally been months since either of us has had a truly good night of sleep. Those of you who speak to me often can testify that I've become a pale imitation of my former self. I'm sure KG would say something similar. We're both on a two-week break for the holidays so we'd picked Wednesday, hoping to have a little vacation left when we were done. Of course, we also thought it'd be nice for HG in the long run. I can't imagine he gets much rest waking up every hour or so.
In the end, we didn't get the chance. Early Wednesday evening, I noticed a persistent wheezing coming from the baby, like his wind-pipe was constricting. As I'm wont to do, I didn't really digest it at first. That kind of wheezing is a scary sound, sure, but it wasn't so bad at that point and I think I was just hoping it'd go away. Nobody wants to see their baby sick.
When the sound persisted, I called the pediatrician's office. The doctor on call that night is probably my favorite in the group. She's kind of young and when we'd first met her we'd had our doubts, but she really seems to know her stuff and she's always as nice as can be. Lucky for everyone, Henry obligingly made the wheezing sound as soon as she got on the phone. The doctor quickly identified it, telling me HG had the croup and loading me up with various instructions. Hoping against hope - and with no little amount of selfishness - I asked if we could still sleep train him. Definitely not, she told me. It wasn't incredibly serious, but we needed to help him recover first. We set about doing that.
Our main task involved running a hot shower in the bathroom and taking him in there to breathe in the steam (HG snapped the photo to the left immediately after opening the bathroom door). We did this again and again and again over the next day or so, for twenty minutes at a time. Henry was an absolute trooper throughout, so much so that I keep thinking about it. It's the kind of thing that can make you like your baby as a person, on top of all the love you feel. Honest to God, he only made one complaint the whole time, early on when we stupidly took him in there with all kinds of warm clothes on (once we figured it out and got him down to his diapers he grew calm and happy again). Treatment after treatment, he'd be in there all red-faced and sweaty just smiling away at us. I'm a grown man and I honestly think he handled those weird conditions better than I did.
As of today, he's doing better - still wheezing, but definitely less so. We're lucky I suppose, as I think he only caught a mild case. Hopefully, he'll be through it in a day or two.
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