Spitup

Alisa spit up all the time during the 1st 7 months of her life (minus the first 3 weeks or so). We always had to put a bib on her and have several burp cloths handy or there would be a mess and someone would have to change clothes. Even with our precautions, we sometimes still had to change clothes (or wipe up the spitup and sit in wet clothes for awhile). And we were constantly soaking and rubbing spitup off of the carpet or calling Minga over to lick it up. We made several trips to the store to buy more burpcloths.

On warm days, the office smelled so strongly of baby chowder (what our friends Sheryl & Daniel call spitup) because she spends a good deal of time playing on the floor in there while I work and it's the hottest room in the house. And when she crawls and moves around a lot, she spits up more. We keep her upright for at least 30 minutes after she finishes eating to help minimize this. Between 3 months and 6 months, she loved spending time on her tummy and this really made her prone to spitting up (we always had a burp cloth under her during tummy time). Once she learned how to roll over, it was hard to keep her on her back. And as she has became more mobile, she doesn't want to sit in her chair very long so we have to distract her or hold her on our lap until it is "okay" to get down and play. She wants to just go go go!

It became really apparent to me how consumed I became with anticipating spitup because one day about a month ago I leaned forward while in the Lazy Boy chair to hand Alisa a toy as she sat in her Bumbo chair on the floor. I thought "Oh wait, I'd better stop leaning over or I might spit up!" Then I thought, "What?! What am I thinking?! I don't have to worry about spitting up! I'm not a baby...my gastroesophageal sphincter is fully developed!" I found it very exciting to think that I could turn upside down for as long as I wanted and I wouldn't spit up. It was a weird moment.

All of that to say that things have finally improved in the past few weeks! She does not spit up as often or in large quantities and it is a huge relief already. We should have a party and have the carpets professionally cleaned once she's improved a little more so we can put that mess behind us.

On 9-07-07 she spit up while her head was down and I didn't see it at first because I wasn't watching her closely. As you can see, I sure saw it when she looked up:

Here is a lovely video of her spitting up on 9-22-07: