About a week ago Siler started to get sick. Nothing to serious, just a cough and runny nose. She had also been tugging at her ear, so we took her to the doctor to make sure she wasn’t getting an ear infection. We caught it early enough before an ear infection could develop. They gave her some drops for the ears and we gave her children’s Benadryl for the other stuff.

After maybe the 2nd day of taking Benadryl, Siler turned into Ms. Crabby Patty. She would just get upset over anything and start crying. We would be sitting in the floor playing and then all of sudden she would start crying and just throw out in the floor. When it was time to eat, she would eat for a little while and then start food in the floor and trying to climb out of her high chair. Basically just doing things she normally does not do. This went on for maybe 2-3 more days, all the while taking Benadryl. Everything made her mad and upset.

At some point Jennifer was talking to her mom on the phone discussing Siler’s new bad attitude when Jennifer’s mom mentioned that sometimes Benadryl has that affect on babies. Personally, I had never heard that before, but it seemed to make sense. Siler is a pretty happy child and then all of sudden in the last few days she started acting really cranky. We figured we test this hypothesis and stop giving Siler the Benadryl. The next day it was like we had gotten our child back. Acting happy, playing and just having fun. Siler played like she usually does and did really well eating her supper. No tantrums or bad attitude. As you can imagine it quite a relief having back to normal and something we’ll remember from now on.