Mommy, Pass Me the Nipple Cream

Now that Oliver's sleeping unswaddled, he's sucking his thumb and fingers double time. Both of his thumbers and pointer fingers got completely raw, as well as patches of his middle fingers (see photo). Then the skin started to split. Poor baby must have been in pain. I didn't know what to do for him. I wondered if vaseline was safe to swallow. Or lotion? Neither of those options sounded particularly good. I went online and finally found a solution that was agreeable to me. Use nipple cream! The type that is safe for baby, of course.

Luckily, the hospital had given me a few sample tubes of nipple cream that I'd never used. I slapped that sucker on his hands last night and the night before, and there's already an improvement.