Babies Sick February 23, 2009
Posted by pjpajamas in family life.Tags: sick babies
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My babies are sick, both of them. Started with a cough. Now it’s a cough and a fever. The older one is also vomiting. The younger one is doing better, maybe because he’s still breastfeeding.
It’s one of those things where my medical knowledge starts to conflict with everything else in my brain.
When do I give acetaminophen? Some website say over 100, some say 103. Who came up with the arbitrary number? Didn’t my school give a lecture about how fevers are really not dangerous?
And then when do I call the doctor? When do I go to the doctor?
If I hadn’t already done an ER rotation, I would probably be at the doctors. But now that I’ve worked in a ER, I know the kid should be really really sick or else we would be waiting around for hours just to be kicked out. On my ER rotation, I pretty much had to kick out all of the pediatric cases that I saw.
Now, why isn’t the doctor calling back?
It’s going to be a couple of long nights…
Sam’s Club / Walmart in China February 10, 2009
Posted by pjpajamas in china.Tags: china, sam's club, walmart
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I’ve never been to a Sam’s Club in US, but I assume it’s huge like a Costco. I’ve been to Walmart. I think people can agree with me when I say it’s where we go for the cheap stuff. Not so good quality, but cheap.
So there’s a lot of things that we’re used to having in the US, that’s kind of hard to buy in China. Not impossible, just not usually at the local farmer’s market. So we go to a nearby Sam’s Club/Walmart. It’s just simple things like butter and cheese.
First of all the parking lot is truly kickass. There’s a little light and sensor above each parking space. It’s red of there’s a car and green if it’s empty. Instead of driving slowly around looking carefully for a space, you can go straight to the green. I love it. There are always things like this that I wonder why isn’t really incorporated in US. But then, it’s never quite as crowded in the US as it is in China.
The other thing I noticed is that everything at Sam’s Club/Walmart is really high-end and expensive compared to the local stores. I’m not very good with brands and such, but I do know Clarks just because I have a pair for work. Sam’s Club/Walmart had a little stand for Clarks.
Going straight to the butter/cheese. It’s interesting, because here at a local supermarket you can find like a dozen different brand of cheese and butter. There probably isn’t a huge difference between them, but the point is that the market is really saturated.
There at China Sam’s Club/Walmart, there was only one brand of cheese and butter. Not the brand that I buy in the US. I’m sure this brand had to cut a deal with Walmart.
I can’t help but think that the US brands that haven’t made it into China are probably missing out on some profits.
Another brand I love and was able to still get in China – Dreyer’s ice cream. A lot of brands, even though it’s technically the same brand, the product is extremely different. I don’t really understand it. Well I understand that the “American” brand bought in China, is really made in China. But isn’t the “American” brand bought in America also made in China?
I’ve written before about how Mead Johnson’s Enfamil’s formula is really disgustingly sweet and completely different in the two countries. One label – two different products.
Now I’m writing – the Dreyer’s ice-cream is even better in China.
Adjusting Your Babies Jet Lag February 9, 2009
Posted by pjpajamas in china, family life.Tags: baby, china, jetlag
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My first born is under 2 years of age and she has already been back to China three times. Dealing with jet lag is always a pain, especially when coming back to the US. However, I believe my husband and I are really getting better at it.
This last time was different, because now we have two babies. We’ve looked up the internet on this jetlag issue before and the advice is always to adjust them early, even before you get on the flight. But most of the advice is assuming people are traveling between states, not halfway around the world.
This time, we followed the advice. We let the babies sleep later and later everyday so that they were going to be around 11:30 to midnight. We did this because our flight to China was leaving at 12:30 am. So we figured it’s better that they can stay awake until the plane takes off.
Going to China is 15 hours, coming back is 12 to 13 hours.
Going to China – our bedtime is their afternoon (around 2 to 3 pm). So it’s not that bad. We just go to sleep around 2/3pm and wake up around 2/3 am. And we move that back by 1 to 2 hours everyday. It’s actually kind of nice to finally be an early bird for once.
Coming back is always the hard part. Because now, our bedtime is like 8 am in the morning. It really doesn’t help to go to sleep at 8 am in the morning and then wake up 8 pm at night and just be awake all night. In the past, we’ve also tried to adjust backwards where we made our daughter sleep an hour later each day. That really took a long time to adjust – almost 3 weeks. And it was painful. This time, we adjusted forwards. We would wake our daughter up and hour early each day. This worked so much better. She adjusted pretty much in a week.
We really couldn’t apply the same strategy to our son – the younger one. So that was the tough part. As my daughter got adjusted and he didn’t – I found myself being up all the time. As soon as she fell asleep, he would wake up.
Either way, it hasn’t even been two full weeks and they are both adjusted now and I’m just happy I can get 6 hours of sleep per night.
I think this experience is preparing me for residency.
Update – Back from China February 9, 2009
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I was in ShenZhen for about 2 months. WordPress is blocked in China, so I didn’t even bother trying to write.
I’ve been back for two weeks now. The two babies are finally over their jetlags, I’m starting to get at least 5 to 6 hours of sleep at night.
Soon I should be posting some more blogs!
