5 months and I can flip

Keath is 5 months old and he can flip from his back to tummy loh. There would even be instances where we find him sleeping on his tummy. Scary- we will quickly turn him back to sleep on his back. So at 4+ months, we find that he is more and more responsive. He smiles when you smile at him; he laughs out loud; he can hold and bite a teether; he flaps his hands in the water while bathing; he squeaks high pitch; he grabs things.

Dont know whether to be happy or sad that whenever he cries, only mummy can calm him down. If mummy cant calm him down, mummy's boobs can. Which also means that mummy is very tired taking care of him cos he needs to stick with mummy all the time. My biceps are toned now, but my wrist is painful and my lower back aches. It is physically tiring but emotionally rich when taking care of a baby.

Keath is growing chubbier by the months. This is his growth rate, which is shooting up exponentially.
At birth: 25th percentile
1 month: 25th percentile
2 months: 50th percentile
3 months: 75th percentile
4 months: 85th percentile
5 months: 90th percentile
Now: >90th percentile
There is nothing i can do to make sure he doesnt drink excessive milk unless i apply for npl and comfort him when he cries. So what to do, mil just has to feed him to stop him from crying. We found out that he tends to cry lesser when we bring him out. But that would mean non-stop pushing of stroller and walking the whole day. He is the type whereby once you stop the motion, he would cry. Why is it that he cant keep still one! I cannot imagine the time when he starts to walk, how are we going to find the energy to care for him!

Enough of his developmental milestones. Here are some pictures to share with you.

Kiss ah gong

Who says im like Michelin??

Full and satisfied

Point point

Let me count, when is it time to drink milk again.

I got valley.

I cannot decide whether to sleep or eat.

Keath in a carrier

On tummy still can chew his fingers

No double chin from this angle!

I can grab my feet already!

I'm 4 months old and Mummy is not around

Keath is now 4+ months old! Very fast very fast, my maternity leave has ended. Sadded. Just when i got used to the routine at home, now must go back to work. And it didnt help that my boss gave me a very big welcome gift when back in the office. With this big piece of project, i would be busy without any lull period for at least another year :(:( My hair has started to drop in large quantities (gulp) from the 3rd month mark. Work isnt helping boo.

So talking about Keath at 4 months old. He is of course very adorable. More and more adorable. Easier to manage (at least for me) and definitely more responsive. He smiles and talks a lot after drinking his milk; will become cranky if he stays awake past the 1.5 hour mark; still loves sleeping in my arms. How was he when i went back to work? Bad, he kept crying and after my second day at work, his voice became hoarse. The only way my mil could stop him from crying is to stuff a milk bottle into his mouth. Is he really hungry? But he isnt like that when I'm around leh. So whenever he cries, mummy will come to the rescue! My hugs are like magic and I feel needed. I'm sure he feels needed too; it's mutual.

We go to my mil's place everyday after work. She helps us take care of him at night. We will go to her house every evening to play with keath and will leave until i make him sleep every night. It is only a short say 2 hours that we get to see him everyday. Miss Keath a lot while at work and can only look at his photos in my gallery. Breastfeeding while at work is tough! You got to carve out time to pump milk in the office; sleep later and wake up earlier than normal people to pump milk at home etc. But i will persevere as i still want to provide for him this way.

At 3+ months, we see Keath being proficient in tummy time! He suddenly was able to hold his head up high for long periods of time. He also started to grasp the toys with his hands (more so with the left hand). He discovered his hands as can be seen by him observing his fingers. When i saw these 'first' abilities, i felt so touched. Now that i'm back at work, it would be difficult to observe the 'firsts'. At this point, he is putting his hands into his mouth very often and I can already see one tooth that is starting to grow. He is also learning how to flip now and gets really irritated and fussy when he cant do it yet. Aww, he's such a precious gem. Some photos at 3+ months old!

黄头巾

Love to look at the Keath who is soundly asleep. Look at the long lashes, the cute button nose, the pouty lips and kissable cheeks. Too lovable not to love.

Mummy left me at home and went out with her friends. I'm so upset.

Beginner stage of tummy time.

I'm not a mischievous boy.

I can grasp a toy already. Left hand usually.

Come on everybody, hip hop in the house.

谁讲我是pie kia!

Tummy time is easy for me now

 I want to flip but i cant. Angry!

Kiss me mama!

I dont want to take selfie.

Ok la ok la, take.

Third Month

Damn fast, Keath is already 3 months old. I am now very used to the life and routine with him at home everyday and I dread going back to work in a month's time. Horrors.

With another month that passed, I am now familiar with Keath's patterns. Feeding pattern, cry pattern, poo pattern, basically what is it that he wants. It is very difficult to put him to sleep everyday (we are not just talking about the sleep at night, but rather the daytime naps) as it requires a lot of carrying and rocking. You can rock for 20 min and once you put him down, he wakes up immediately. When you carry him, you cant do it sitting down, he will know and protest. You got to do it standing up and basically walk around the house. Oh did i mention that it also involves patting him and singing at the same time? Yup, so we carry, rock, walk, pat and sing at the same time to make him sleep. Otherwise, another easier method is to nurse him to sleep. But once you pull out the human pacifier, he wakes up. We gave him the pacifier but he rejects it most of the time, crying even louder.

During this month, what we see is a rounder version of Keath. Yes, he's always hungry! I dont know whether to think that he really is hungry or is it that he is just greedy. We are feeding him 120ml of milk 10 times a day and yet he still cries after we pull out the bottle. I read from many articles that a baby only needs 900ml of milk a day but Keath is drinking 1200ml. Mil likes to give him milk when he cries at the 2 hour mark while i like to drag the timing if it is possible. When the confinement nanny was here, we fed Keath at the 2.5 - 3 hour mark. So as a result, we saw rapid weight gain in Keath now. Many people who saw Keath at the baby shower were surprised to see so much changes in him after one month. I'm not sure if we are overfeeding him.

A milestone this month is that Keath discovered his voice! We have begun to hear him make more noises and attempt to 'talk' to us. He is now able to respond with a smile or some gibberish reply when we talk to him. Whenever he smiles or responds, my heart melts awwww. And you would forget that you spent so much time rocking the rascal to sleep which didnt happen. And because of this, I have been busy taking videos of him this month. I am amazed at how i can talk so much rubbish to him everyday just to see him smile >_< He is also now able to indicate to us when he is about to poo and when he has finish pooing. He has also discovered his hands and is occasionally sucking his fingers now.

Another thing that I want to talk about is breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is beautiful. It is smth that you hear so much about when you are pregnant and wonder how difficult it would be. It is indeed tiring to breastfeed. It takes more time and effort than feeding your baby with formula milk. You need to cling the baby onto you whenever he cries at 2-3 hours; to keep your supply up, you still need to pump out milk after he latches on; you also cant dream of sleeping for long stretches of time because you will wake up with rock hard and painful boobs. We bottle feed Keath most of the time and I latch him only 1-2 times a day. Cos he doesnt unlatch every time and would cling on to me as a pacifier and sleep after he is full. It is more time efficient to feed him with a bottle and you would know how much he is drinking.

But then, i really enjoy latching him on as there is the undescribable bond that you have with your baby when he latches on. Like, he is feeding on the sustenance of your life and you know that only you can provide him with the nutrients that he needs to grow up. You feel responsible for him and you know that he can only rely on you. You need him and he needs you. It's smth only mothers can give. And it works wonders! Whenever Keath cries, i know there is smth that will ultimately keep him quiet. He may be hungry, tired, fussy, scared, pain after a jab and once you shove the neh into his mouth, he calms down hahaa. It's magic. I hope that he wouldnt bite after he starts teething!

Some photos taken this month! I'm enjoying every moment with him before i go to work.

 

I like to slouch like daddy.

First time out in a stroller. (he can only stay quiet in a stroller for 15 min max. the carrier is still my best friend)

Do you like my cheeks?

 

I'm asking again, do you like my cheeks?

Second Month loh!

21 Sep 2015 (Mon)
So fast, Keath is 2 months old already! What has mama been doing at home with him? Taking pictures and cuddling him :):)

Oooo, i am mama's little monster.

Did you say that i can have a milk buffet?

I love to be entertained!

Sometimes i have a good dream, sometimes something bad comes along.

Feeling satisfied after milk milk

I like mama to pom pom me

I can see more clearly now. I love moving colourful objects and i can now turn my head together with the direction of the moving objects!

Achievement unlocked! Mama brought me out in a manduca carrier for dinner with my grandparents. She didnt drop any food on my head while eating.

I love car rides and I love milk. When these two add up, I fully enjoy the moment!

Baby Shower

13 Sep 2015 (Sun)
Yes, we held the baby shower a little later than the first month cos of the lunar seventh month as advised by the fs master. It was a full day of activity as we have 6 different groups of visitors coming throughout the day! Ordered food from neo garden since it is a trusted brand. Luckily one of our neighbours have not moved in yet, leaving us with space to place the food.

Some simple streamers that i ordered online to decor the house a little.

It would be the first time Keath sees so many people and we are worried if he would be even crankier than his usual self. He's usually awake in the day as he is a light sleeper. He needs to be carried to sleep in the day and once you put him down on the cot, he will stare at you with his eyes big big and then start crying! So similarly on the day of the baby shower, Keath was also like that - needs constant attention and cuddling. He's constantly in my mil's arms, sometimes in my mum's arms.

I would say that Keath wasnt fazed or overstimulated by the many people who came. Thanks to all for the well wishes, angbaos and presents for Keath. It was a tiring day for all of us but we are glad to share our bundle of joy with the people around us.

Happy 1.5 months Keath!

Full Month loh!

19 Aug 2015 (Wed)
Time really passes very quickly. Keath man yue loh! Looking at him everyday is a new joy that I have found in life. Despite the crying that we have to deal with, he is still such a darling to me. For his first month, the fengshui master asked us to bring him to bai bai and to shave/trim his hair. As we do not have an altar in our house, we went to both our parents' houses for Keath to bai bai.

We first went to my mum's place. Keath was sleeping throughout the whole time but miraculously, he opened his eyes and smiled when we brought him in front of the altar! After we are done with the incense, he went back to sleep. :) Goey was also very excited when she saw a baby in my arms, kept jumping up and down to try see what was it that i was carrying. When my mum carried him to see the baby, she just gently smelt Keath, no licking or anything. It is also amazing how she can remember me even though i have not been home for a long long time. Goey is another smart and adorable baby in our family. She looks huge as compared to Keath below.

And then we went to mil's house. After a second round of bai bai, we went back to our house for his hair cut! We engaged a professional baby hairdresser from taimaobi.com to help shave his hair. It costs $50. Didnt dare to bring him to any random hairdresser as we are afraid that they dont know how to do the job. We think that $50 is considered reasonable given that they come straight to your house.

We were considering whether to trim or shave his hair and finally decided to shave since our parents kept saying that his hair will grow out thicker after we shave. We also read forums to say that baby's hair will drop in patches at the 3rd/4th month and you would have to shave his hair then anyway. So we decided to shave his hair, as well as his brows. Left the eyelashes alone since well, a boy doesnt need long lashes. The final look at his very shuai hair since birth! So much hair - got side burn somemore.

The lady who did the hair shaving was very professional. When baby started crying, she also knew how to calm him down.

She said that Keath has a lot of hair. Usually, the hair that she shaves off from newborns can be used to make 1 maobi. But for him, we can make 2, hah! But we didnt opt for it because the maobi would just be left in the cabinet, just like how I have now kept his hair in the cabinet.

 

All done.

After this hair shaving ceremony, it was time for my confinement nanny to leave. Horrors! She has been of great help to us during the past 1 month and I was jittery about her leaving. We took care of the baby for the one night and it was tough! It was even worse when darling had to go to school in the evening and I was home alone. Only managed to have dinner at 11+pm - but you dont feel the hunger. You only want the baby to settle down and to please sleep. Your sleep at night gets even more interrupted than before esp when the baby doesnt sleep well. I missed my confinement nanny super a lot that day. 

She is Auntie Xiu Ju from PEM. I have learnt many things from her during the one month and I like her for her independence and knowledge. We can get along very well and have many things to talk about. She puts baby and my interests well before hers and would share her knowledge and observation on baby Keath with me. And from the one month with Keath, i could tell that she genuinely cares for him rather than take this as a job. I also like her confinement food - it is simple, healthy and nutritious. On the day that she left, she still called and asked if i was coping well. She was on the green line to meet her husband and upon hearing that i have not had my dinner even though it was late, she wanted to come over and help me. Wa, i was so touched! Then on sunday, 4 days after she left, she still called me from malaysia and ask if i was ok. Such a nice lady. If i were to have a second one, i would definitely want her to do the confinement for me, maybe for a minimum 2 months the next time round!

Whole new experience

Oh wow, it is a whole new experience. Motherhood is the most difficult task in the world! The first two weeks wheezed past with a blink of an eye. You cant say that maternity leave is a shiok period for the mother to rest because it is nothing like that! In the first two weeks, there are a lot of adjustments to be made to your life. It is a totally different way of life altogether!

What was done in these 2+ weeks:
1) Brought him to see the PD one week after birth. It was the first trip out after coming back and I was apprehensive cos I'm not sure how to take care of him outside - but luckily we had the nanny with us. Anw, PD tested him for jaundice and it turned out that he is just a level below the level that requires treatment. We brought him downstairs to sun in the morning to keep his jaundice level in check. After 2 weeks, the jaundice went down by itself.

2) Did a newborn photoshoot for him when he was 6 days old. Aww, just saw the pictures and they are super duper cute! We were so worried that it would be difficult to do the shoot cos it can only be done when the newborn is asleep. However, Keath was sooo cooperative and cute that day that he slept through the entire 2 hour session. The photographer (Mamamiyo who did our maternity shoot) just changed his clothes and put him into various positions for the shoot.

3) Went to the fengshui master and got his advice on Keath's chinese name. Based on his personality, we have in the end decided on 许展衡. We also asked about the baby shower for him. FS master asked us to avoid organising the baby shower in the lunar 7th month. We could however pray to the ancestors and shave his hair at the one month mark. With his chinese name, Darl went to ICA to officiate him as a singapore citizen. Collected the SG50 gift from the government.

4) Settled the insurance policy for him. We initially bought a Prudential life insurance plan for him when i was preggy. At that time, it insured me when I was pregnant. Now that he is born, the policy is meant to be transferred to him.

5) Started on the jamu massage. It was very shiok as I have not done massage for a long time. The masseur (Ida - 9424 9829) has been doing this for the past 21 years and she is professional. She checked my stitches before the massage and told me that she could not wrap me because there was one part which was still swollen. She advised me to see my gynae and soak myself in salt water for the wound to heal faster. Mum accompanied me to the gynae and he prescribed me antibiotics and also asked me to soak myself in salt water. At 2.5 weeks, she did the massage for me when the stitches were no longer painful. After the massage, i also began to regain the colour on my face and no longer looked pale.

6) Did 2 sessions of boob massage. Had to deal with engorgement. It was the most painful at day 4 after delivery as your milk starts coming in. Mdm Ida came to my rescue and unblocked the milk ducts and cleared the engorgement for me. But be warned, it is damn painful - imagine someone pressing hard on an area which is already sore plus delicate.

7) Hosting guests. The house was bustling with visitors in the initial weeks as parents/ parents in law/ friends/ colleagues came visiting. Thank you to all those who made an effort to come down and those who kept checking on me. Touched that people remb that this is the period when the mother also needs to be taken care of. I used to just focus on the baby when the baby is born and didnt realise that the mum is the one who needs to go through a whole new change in her life. I now know.

8) Got accustomed to the routine of frequent feeds. The main job scope for me now is to be a cow machine. I have to pump or latch him every 2-3 hourly. It is definitely not easy, especially when it comes to night feeds. I used to do pure latching and it really helped with the mother-son bonding. I just love looking at him when he feeds directly - the small reliable thing clinging onto you and you know that you can provide for him in the most comforting way. Then it got to a point where the PD said that he wasnt drinking enough and asked to bottle feed after latching. So it became a 50 latch-50 bottle thing for which feeding took a longer period of time. Then practicality came over me when i was overly-fatigued and I concluded that it may be better to just express everything out and bottle feed him. We have so much certainty now as we are assured that he was drinking enough.

I used to want to give him purely breastmilk because why not, when there is enough supply. But then they were saying that he may be too used to breastmilk and when i stop breastfeeding one day, he may not want to take any other milk. So now, we have changed the routine to giving him 1 formula feed out of the 8 feeds per day.

I used to take the hospital's advice to not bottle feed him when he is not latching as there may be nipple confusion when he latches. We tried spoon feeding and cup feeding as advised by the hospital but did not know how to do it well. In the end, we resorted to bottle feeding and was thankful that he was not confused on how he should suck. Many practices got to be changed along the way when you realise that it may not work.

9) Got accustomed to the lack of sleep. Gone were the days where you could have a stretch of 6 hours of sleep (sounds like it is too little? wait till you become a mum and you know that this is a luxury.) Must treasure the time when your CL is with you because you could still ignore the baby's cries in the middle of the night. Right now, i do put an alarm to wake myself up in the middle of the night to express milk but sometimes i just overslept. The outcome is that even though you could sleep a stretch of 4-6 hours, you will wake up with a very hard and overflowing breast. But im not complaining, i cant imagine the nights where we have to take care of him at night in future!

10) Got accustomed to the confinement food. I am really ok with eating every dish with ginger and sesame oil you know. Every meal, the CL cooks a veg, fish/ pork/ chicken and a soup for me. I have not gotten sick of the food yet. In fact, i could finish everything and I dont think i would ever get sick of it. I feel that i eat more healthily now as compared to the outside food that i used to eat.

11) Got accustomed to the routine lifestyle. I am actually ok with staying at home everyday, experiencing the routine lifestyle day by day. I dont crave going out as perhaps there is this resistance to change feeling in me? Plus, i dont know if i can handle him if i bring him outside now. I am very comfortable doing the same things at home for the little darling all the time. I dread the time when the CL leaves as there would be a change to the routine lifestyle that i would be experiencing. I didnt know that i am someone who is resistance to change until now.

12) Learning how to be a mother. There are so many things to learn and this is an ongoing process. I have tried changing his diapers and bathing him and they were tough. It looked easy when the CL did it for him but when i did it myself, i am slow and it is just not as smooth. Also now, whenever he cries, the CL seems to be able to coax him down and it is not as easy a task for me. Maybe cos i smell of milk and Keath just wants to drink when he gets near me?? But i know that raising a child is not just about making sure he eats, sleeps and poos as there are many more aspects to it. It will just get more difficult and complicated when your child grows up. I love looking at him everyday, be it when he is quietly sleeping, happily playing by himself (seldom) or crying his lungs out. I know i want to protect him and give him the best of everything. A part of me wants him to quickly grow up, but I know when that time comes, i would hope that time slows down and he be a mummy's boy forever. Am enjoying this whole new experience with much love!

I love his hair a lot - very shuai. Bu she de to shave his hair leh.

My lovable cutie pie!

 

The CL says that my boy has a lot of strength! At one week old, he is able to wriggle both his arms out of the swaddle cloth - she has not seen this in any babies before. Then at one+ week old, he is able to change his sleeping position 90 degrees! (his head was supposed to be on the blue towel but he turned 90 degrees to the right by himself.)

Seldom see him smile. Glad i got this pic!