Pediatric Medicine
It's 2 in the morning, the baby is crying, your husband is holding him, and you're waiting for the doctor to call back.  Well... why not try to look up things on your own also!

Pediatric medicine sites
Kids Doctor is a searchable pediatric medicine site..

NICHD General Site

The Virtual Children's Hospital has a lot of useful information.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has an immunization initiatives site.

Sick kids
I just found this link which really doesn't belong here, but it can live here for a while.  It's a website called bravekids.org, which lets you look up a resource and a condition, for example, a camp for kids with autism.

General advice
It might not take a village to raise a kid, but it sure does take a lot of advice.  In the last three years, my friends have given me absolutely wonderful advice -- and I've picked up a lot on the Berkeley Parent's Network too.  Here is their Health and Medical Recommendations home page.  Awesome stuff.

Head lice
Oh my.  I hear that this is somewhere in our future, and truthfully, I *can* wait.  Forever, hopefully.  Here's my friend Mel's suggestion (and Mel is very good at this stuff):

"I recommend the HOLISTA brand of Tea Tree Oil Shampoo, which I purchased at Wal Mart. It was packaged with a 250 ml (about 8 1/2 oz.) bottle and a smaller 25 ml bottle of 100% pure Tea Tree Oil. You can add the pure stuff to any other lotion or shampoo, or use it as is for minor abrasions and skin ailments - a natural antiseptic/germicide.

The outbreak was quickly contained at our school, nevertheless I
immediately used the shampoo on J-W every night for a couple of
weeks as a preventive measure...and I am happy to report we had no problems. I even added a few drops of the oil to the rinse water for his sheet and blanket used at school (they do not use pillows). It does smell rather pleasant if somewhat medicinal.

This shampoo is also used for actual infestations and is (as others have said re Tea Tree Oil) quite effective."

[Ed. Note. We have now been through several of these.  Here is a summary of the advice that I found and keep on file]

One technique
1. Use a metal lice comb -- a plastic comb is not good enought --
and go through the hair small section by small section every night for about 3 weeks.  That covers about 2 life cycles and if you miss an egg/nit one night, you should get it the next -- or sometime in the next few weeks.   The second time my daughter had lice this is what we did, and I was surprised to still pull out nits after 6 days of combing. It is just difficult to see them and pull them out when freshly laid and the eggs are so small and near the scalp especially in very thick hair.

2. Try LiceRGone, available on the internet at www.licergone.com.  It is an enzyme shampoo, similar to meat tenderizer, and apparently loosens the glue that holds eggs/nits to the hair shaft.  In addition to shampooing, I put some in a spray bottle with water and sprayed my daughter's hair whle using the lice comb to help loosen eggs/nits.

3. Make sure the parents of your daughter's friends are checking their kids hair.  Even if your daughter is lice free she can be easily re-infested by friends when girls put their heads together while they play.

Here also is a very simple combing program.

Cetaphil cleanser method
go here: www.nuvoforheadlice.com
the hair dryer method (heat kills the lice) combined with cetaphil gentle cleanser really
worked for us. the key was going back and doing their prescribed treatment on days
1, 7, 14 and 21 . And for really tought outbreaks I treated a few nights the first week
and then on the other prescribed nights. That way anything that hatches dies :-)

The Cetaphyl method kills the lice better than the toxic stuff since some lice are resistant to poison.

Note that lice cannot live if they don't have a host. You can bag things for 48 hours to kill the lice.

Nursing


Vitamin/mineral needs and consumption
How much calcium does my child need?
Here is a link to the NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) site's "milk matters" calcium education campaign

The Anachronistic Mom's notes on