Tuesday, March 20, 2012

5 months going to 6!

Wow... baby is, today, 5 months 1 week and 3 days old.
He has come a long way from the sleepy head to the boisterous squealing babe who resists naps and screams for attention.
I love my dearest little babe no matter how naughty he is or how tired he made me. I realized until now, I have not scolded him once before. To me, it doesn't make sense to scold baby now. If he did something to inconvenience me like peeing on me and on himself, pooing all over, screams and cry at the most unlikely time, he didn't intentionally mean to do them, so scolding him doesn't stop from doing them too.
He's a darling too, always smiling, always squealing in delight, and always look so cute. He's a big magnet for girls at such a young age! The NTUC Fairprice cashier, a young and pretty lady just said he's very cute. He reciprocated with a lovely gaze with his large round eyes. If he's in a good mood, he'll smile but he was tired just now.

Now he is an expert at flipping over onto his tummy. He can swivel around on his tummy to the direction he wants to face. He pushes his head and shoulder up with his arms like a mini push up. He can't flip back onto his back yet though. Sometimes, he woke up in the middle of the night to practice flipping over but he couldn't flip himself back and couldn't sleep on his tummy, so he cried. That's super cute! He can sit, supported with his arms, and with no support from me for 1 min max while watching a youtube kiddy video on iPad but his arms will feel uncomfortable after awhile and he'll cry to complain. He can vocalise consonants and vowels now, saying meh, nah, neh... but he has yet to call bababa or mamama. I'm looking forward to that day!

He has stranger anxiety but he has yet to understand separation anxiety. But I am experiencing separation anxiety ahead of him! haha. I will not have him out of sight for long. So far, the longest separation since we move to our Punggol home is when Hubby and I went for a 2hr 15min movie at Bishan while leaving him with my parents in law at Ang Mo Kio and we rushed home after the movie. He slept with us every night because we just can't imagine having to sleep without baby. If he sees stranger, he'll cry or make a "I'm about to cry" face depending on his mood. If he is full and has slept well, he might happily accept the stranger. I made sure I'm always in his sight when he is in a place he has never been before, or when there are strangers around.

Babies are such lovely creatures! Little baby Kieran is God's gift to me! Oh now, i'm also teaching him to recognize both his Chinese and English name Yun Xuan and Kieran. My parents in laws call him Yun Xuan but my parents and sisters like to call him Kieran.

I'm exhausted on many days and I haven't been to a facial since I was pregnant. A stay home mom slough 24hr but for my darling baby, every sacrifice and effort put in is worth it.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Attention demanding baby

As my baby gets older, he gets more and more attention demanding.

He is seriously draining me of my energy every single day! Oh well, there are joys and pains to every job and this is one of the pains of my job as a full time mummy. Haha. Oh but just looking at his alert eyes and his cute smile makes my heart flutter with happiness and pride.

Sippy Cup/ Training Cup experiment
I bought a soft spout Tommy Tippee sippy cup for baby. I also bought a hard spout First Years sippy cup. Both for him to experiment, play with and enjoy drinking from.

Today I put some warm water into the Tommy Tippee cup and let him sip. He got some water into his mouth and his expression was priceless! He had never tasted water before as he had always been on breast milk. He looked as if he had tasted something very weird! Haha. But he still took it anyway. I'm thinking of putting some breast milk in the sippy cup and let him drink it from there once he's good at sucking the sippy. I'm skipping bottles totally since bottle training a baby who's latched on all the time is such a big hassle, and babies have to learn to use a sippy cup or training cup by the time they take solids anyway. So I got cups for 6 months old and let my baby play with it first. I'm looking forward to feeding him solids. In a month's time, I'll be able to make delicious pureed banana, apple, sweet potato and other nice food for him. I'll capture his expressions when he first taste food!

Rid Wind
Baby has wind in tummy these few days and he often spit out milk after nursing because of the wind. I use rid wind once a day, starting from yesterday morning, and he's so much better. But the spitting is a laundry problem... imagine me and baby having to change clothes twice before we leave the house because he spits right after we are dressed up! Milk spits smell so badly when they dry up.

Demanding... demanding...
Because he is so demanding of my attention, I shall bring him to the baby fair and see if I can get some new toys to interest him. I was hoping he'll like the jumperoo. If I could let him jump until he is tired and fall asleep, wouldn't it be good! Nowadays, he'll open his eyes and look around curiously, refusing to sleep even if he's tired, and when he's overtired, he'll be very cranky and difficult to soothe to sleep. I saw my friend's baby girl who is about the same age as Yun Xuan fall asleep within 15 min of yawning, and she doesn't need much coaxing! Oh gosh... I pity myself... I had to either rock and sing song, hold and pat his buttocks, rock in sarong cradle and sing song, nurse him with side lying position, or nurse him with cradle hold and rock him... and I try all of these methods above every time he wants to be soothed to sleep. Most of the time, he's screaming or crying at the top of his lungs. The best is he sometimes dozed off for 30min and he's wide awake and cooing for attention again! I don't know whether this is a boy and girl difference or just a difference of character, or (hopefully) is just a passing phase. He's teething now and keeps drooling, putting his lips together to make a Mmm look (super cute when he does that) and keeps wanting to bite everything. So I hope the recent crankiness is related to his teething. Its cute because my husband's and my fingers are now his favorite teethers. His fingers are S size teethers, mine are M size and my husband's are L size ones. Haha.