Saturday, December 31, 2011

Goodbye 2011

Summing up 2011, I realized it really has been a rather good year for me.

A year of learnings... learning more about myself, self-reflections, and year of new experiences, being pregnant, and being a new mother. From this day on, everyday will be a day of new learnings. Learning how to be more tolerant, tolerating the frustration of not knowing what baby wants, tolerating the boredom of staying home with baby, and learning how to read baby's cues, how to parent a small baby, how to be a wonderful mother, how to sacrifice myself for the good of others especially my precious darling baby, and how to love my hubby and baby more.

Baby is reaching his 3rd month milestone. Next month, many things will be happening. Celebrating the New Year, Chinese New Year, baby going for 3rd month injection, me going for Hep B injection, baby going through growth spurt and hubby going to camp for National Service so I've got to stay with parents for 2 weeks right before Chinese New Year. I'm a little troubled by all these changes which will happen within a short period. I am most afraid of baby's growth spurt but I know I can do it fine because I've survived baby's 2 growth spurts. I can survive the next one! I will embrace all these changes and challenges with open arms and a positive mind.

Goodbye 2011. Welcome 2012. A wonderful year ahead when I can watch my little darling baby grow up, reaching his milestones, crawling, standing, walking, climbing, and thriving... living his life to the fullest. Through him, I too, live my life to the fullest. Welcome to my world, baby Yun Xuan. Mummy loves you :)

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Little Santa Baby

Merry Christmas, everyone!

18 Dec, we invited a few of my friends to my house and here we dressed up little baby Yun Xuan in Santa romper! He's a little Santa baby!


Grandpa hugs little Santa.

Little Santa at the play gym.
Little Santa laughs at me.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Confinement Sleepwear

Front Open button sleepwear suitable for confinement use, hospital wear, night time wear and for breastfeeding baby at home. It's not too hot because its cotton. This material is better than the silky type of blouse which cost around $40-60 at major shopping malls. I tried both kind. This one is more comfy and easier to breast feed. This is good for breast feeding as you unbutton easily. The side pocket is also convenient for you to put stuff temporally as you hold your baby. It's only $9.90.

Even after confinement, I'm still wearing it at home. Hehe.


Edited on 21 April 2012: The price of this sleepwear is actually $9.90. I wrote $15 previously. Recently found out that I mixed up the price of this one with price of another sleepwear that I bought.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Housewarming

We held a housewarming on 17 Dec 2011, which also was baby Yun Xuan's Welcome baby party. Oh well, he'll steal the limelight however we name the party :)

Yun Xuan was about 2 months and 1 week by the time we hold this "baby shower". I strongly believe baby showers should be held when baby is 2 or 3 months old. At least baby enjoy the company of people talking to and holding him. Why hold it so early when baby is 1 month old, so small and delicate, sleepy most of the time and mummy is most prob still recovering from post natal blues. At least on 17 Dec, baby Yun Xuan and I were able to enjoy the day! During confinement, I was so depressed, when people visited me, I had to force myself to act happy and smile. Sometimes I couldn't suppress the tears and they kept dropping even while I was talking to the guests!

We had intended to hold this baby shower together with our housewarming. We just moved into our new flat in Punggol. The weather was great that day. In fact, it was so cooling recently, its almost like Winter in Singapore. Haha. How I wish it was a real Winter. I would really wish to see snow. I've never seen snow in my life. We planned a trip to Europe but it had to be postponed indefinitely because little Yun Xuan came into our lives :D

Yun Xuan and me taking a picture with our neighbor Karen and son, Xavier. Yun Xuan's future playmate!

Daddy Yilin tried to soothe a hungry Yun Xuan.

Nai nai and Yun Xuan.

Yun Xuan giving me a one-sided smile... :)
Yun Xuan sat comfortably on Grandpa's leg. He looked so relaxed!
He's finally tired and took a nap in my arms. I love the peaceful look on his face when he sleeps. A precious little angel.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

play time!

Baby Yun Xuan is now 2 months old and he loves to play his play gym!



Baby Yun Xuan is my dear teddy bear. Loves to dress him up in his soft and teddy bear feel bodysuit so that I can hug him like my teddy... a very heavy teddy though. I think he should be close to 6kg although I didn't weigh him recently. My dearest boy!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

How to store and use expressed breast milk?

How do I store EBM?

Expressed Breast Milk or EBM can be stored using a breast milk storage bag, a plastic bottle or a glass bottle. I stored mine in Avent bottles like this:

Label them with the date and time you expressed out the milk. I also store them in glass bottles given by hospitals.

It is recommended that you don't store too much milk in one big bottle because when you want to take it out to thaw, you'll waste the milk if you do not need to use so much of it at one go.

My friends also get free glass bottles from Mount Alvernia before they discharge so that they can store breast milk in them. I got mine from a mother I knew in the forum. We buy plastic caps for the glass bottles like the ones in the picture below from Mount Alvernia pharmacy. You can only get them in hospital pharmacy.

The Avent bottles can store up to 180ml while the glass bottles can only store up to 120ml. Remember to leave a gap and not to fill the breast milk to the brim because breast milk, like all liquids expand when frozen and the bottle may crack. One of my breast milk overflow the bottle and broke the cap when it is frozen.

How long can I keep the EBM?

Here's a simple formula to remember how long you can keep EBM:
In freezer: 3 months
In fridge: 3 days
In room temperature: 3 hours
If baby already started drinking the milk, use it up within 1 hr, although some websites say we can leave it to feed for the next feed. In hot and humid Singapore, bacteria grows more quickly.

Do not re-warm, or re-freeze breast milk that you took out to use and don't put used breast milk back into the fridge.

How to heat up the EBM?

No, you do not heat it up. You only warm it up! So do not boil it or use hot water to pure over the bottle.

To use the EBM, if you take it out from the freezer, put it in the fridge to thaw. Do not thaw it outside at room temperature. It takes about 12 hours to thaw completely so do remember to take it out of the freezer one day before the day you need to use it. After it is completely thawed, the EBM can be kept in the fridge for another 3 days.

After taking the thawed EBM or freshly expressed and kept in fridge EBM out from the fridge, put it in a bottle of warm water to heat. Remember not to boil EBM or use boiling water to heat up the EBM. High temperatures can kill the nutrients in the EBM. We should use water at 40 Degree Celsius. I usually don't test the temperature to exactly 40 Degrees Celcius. I simply take a cup of warm water, pressed out from my water flask, and test with my hand that its not too hot. It should not have steam coming out from it, and it should not scald your hand when you touch it. Then I place the sterilized milk bottle with EBM into the cup of warm water. After the water has cooled and the EBM is not warm yet, I press out another cup of warm water, test it, add cool tap water if its too hot, and then warm the EBM again. I repeat this again and again until the EBM is nicely at room temperature. Actually if you ask me, I'd rather give baby EBM that is too cold rather than too hot as baby may be scalded.

Also, the contents of EBM, when stored in fridge will separate into layers. Swirl the bottle a bit before warming and feeding.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Getting ready for Yun Xuan's tummy time!

Baby Yun Xuan will be 2 months soon! I've just placed an order for a play mat for him. I hope he will enjoy it :)

Here's where I got the playmat: Terrifictikes.com. It's introduced by my neighbor when we visited his home and saw his son having tummy time on this really nice large rubber mat. I think Yun Xuan will surely enjoy it! There's a Christmas sale going on now so grab it now if you have a baby getting ready for his tummy time soon!

I'm packing up my home to be ready for housewarming. I'm intending to cater buffet from Miao Yi, a vegetarian restaurant that is famous for catering nice buffet food, and I'm going to spend a little bit more on balloons deco for my beloved Yun Xuan. Hehe. Nice to fill our house with happy colors and cheery balloons and deco. I'm going to get the balloons package from this place: The Kids Party Store which has its shop in nearby Sengkang. Maybe I'll place my orders when I go Compass Point for grocery shopping.

Difficult to pack up my home ready for housewarming when I'm caring for baby, doing daily household chores, cooking, washing etc all at the same time. Its tends to just get messy all the time. Being a mother requires multi-tasking skills!