6 month old

Kieran is 6 month old and Kieran's mummy is now looking for opportunities to work part time.

There's this part of me that tells me if I go back to full time work, I will be able to see a stable increase in my bank account again and I will be able to buy lots of nice stuff for baby, and I won't think twice about bringing baby to enrichment lessons... but I always pull myself back, telling myself that if I do that, I will be like most working mummies, having to work many hours, OT, many stresses, having to leave early in the morning, leave baby to someone else's care and come back late in evening, sometimes too tired, hungry and stress to play with baby and take care of baby. I do not want that at all.

Oh well, I shall see how this works out. I'm trying out several ways of earning income and sustaining my life as a stay home mom. If all else fails, I will have to go back to full time work. I cannot stay home all the time because even though hubby is ok with it, I think he'll be stressed with the burden of a growing baby.

So I'm considering teaching art which is my love, teaching tuition to lower primary school students in English, Maths or Chinese which I have experience doing as an undergraduate, or I can teach part time in Childcare as unexperienced teacher (I wonder if they will accept?), or I can make handmake stuff to sell online, or I can import maternity and babies' clothes and other stuff to sell online. I'm also interested in importing organic baby foods to sell.

I've also written to the BMSG to become their volunteer. They'll contact me to attend the training. It'll be fun and I'm so proud of breastfeeding journey with baby. It's totally rewarding and exciting although its really tough to begin with.

Oh well... so many things to try out. Haha. Life is fun :)

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.

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.

settling down with baby

Settling down in my new home. Its cool to be here in Punggol. The weather is almost always cool, and at night, when there's a storm, the wind raged up a cool howling sound, like wolves' howls. Isn't it great? Its like sleeping in a tent in the wild. I've always always love nature!

The cool weather is great for my baby. He's really scared of heat. It pains me to see him sweaty all over after a nap. Oh yes, baby fusses every evening but the change is that I've already got used to it and am prepared to handle his fusses even though he still tires me out every time. Hubby came home late usually, and after dinner and unpacking some stuff, he needs to sleep earlier to prepare for tomorrow's work, and boy, he really can sleep over baby's cries -.-" So its up to me alone to entertain this little tyke until he got tired and finally sleep.

Our house is in a mess coz there r just so many things to unpack and tidy up. So many things to do everyday. Feeding baby, bathing baby etc, all these are routine chores. So when I get some free time, I'll do the unpacking and sorting.

I'm extremely grateful to my parents and parents in law for coming over to help with household chores and cooking. I really cannot imagine doing all these alone with a small baby to care for. I dun mind it if I have full night's sleep but this little one has been waking me up 3 times over the night, and demands to be held and played with in the early morning. Which machine has this much energy?

Today, we bring baby out. He's getting very used to the car seat and does not fusses as much as the first time we put him in it. Dad drove us to visit my aunts. One of my aunts is handicapped so she couldn't come to visit baby. She's so happy to see my baby just now. Then we went out for lunch at Greenland Vegetarian Restaurant. Very tasty food. I will rate it 8/10. As we ate, baby too, had his "lunch" over the breastfeeding cover. Haha. He's so guai, not making too much noises and not fussing. Otherwise, I'll have to entertain him and walk around, which isn't so convenient in a restaurant. I love it when he unlatches after he's had his fill and sleep soundly at my chest. He looks so contented and so snugly warm.

He's now sleeping on my parents' bed. At my parents home now after lunch. Hubby is coming for dinner, and then we'll go home together with baby. I'm enjoying the day :)

Refusing to nap

Baby was super active yesterday. He refused to nap and fussed at my breast since afternoon.

The night before, he skipped his evening fussiness and kept sleeping after feeds. I thought it's a wonderful break for hubby and me. Little did I know that he will pay it back double the next day. Lol...

I was so tired by evening that I handed baby to mother in law and took naps. Actually I was hoping hubby would come home to help but he suddenly felt weakness in his body and usually that is the first sign of cold or flu for him. So he kept a distance from baby, wore a mask and slept outside. I can only depend on myself. I told him it's alright, I'm independent. But in the end, I gave up and handed baby to mother in law to be coaxed to sleep after I fed him. I tried to ignore his cries and whimpers which melted my heart and tried to catch some sleep myself.

I was glad that the next time I heard baby crying for milk, it's 3am already. Mother in law had put baby to sleep in the cot beside me. I'm amazed she managed to rock baby to sleep. It must have been very difficult. Baby is extremely naughty during his fussy period and he'll demand for so much attention and threaten to be rocked in his favourite way or else face his loud and endless cry.

Now baby is stretching and grunting in the cot. Not yet in deep deep sleep yet. Boy, his grunts are super loud! He just had his milk and I've pumped out the rest of the milk to relieve engorgement. I really should have sterilized the pump so as to pump and keep the milk. I pumped out one full bottle. Such a waste to throw it away but I was too tired and didn't think clearly. I usually try to keep the milk I pump out during night feeds because milk flow is faster between midnight to 6am and I really can pump out a lot to store at a short time. Never mind, I shall do that for the second feed.

Baby picks up routine very quickly. When he wakes up in the morning, he needs to have milk. After morning bath, he needs to have milk, even if he'd had milk shortly before, he'll still demand for it. If he's not hungry, he'll drink only a few minutes but at least he suckled and that's good enough for him. This tells me that I have to train him sleeping routine as soon as he begin to want to sleep longer. I read that babies will develop sleep wake cycle at 6-8weeks old, so at this time, it's best time to develop a good sleeping routine that will help baby sleep better and be less fussy during sleeping time.

Time for bed before baby wakes up for second night feed. Good night... I mean... Morning... Yawn...

Baby cold

Oh no, we are so sad. Baby was only 23 day old when he suddenly developed cold symptoms. Yesterday 3am, baby woke up for milk but after drinking, he still woke up at 4am, 5am and 6am, crying but not drinking a lot of milk when I offered him nipple. He started coughing a lot and making weird noises with his nose. We realized that its not normal and wanted to take him to polyclinic as we had planned to bring him for his jaundice check up. But in the morning, hubby and I decided its better to bring him to pediatrician instead. He seemed to be feeling really terrible.

Dr Ong saw him and explained to us some coughing and sneezing is normal but checked and said baby has a lot mucous. But he dun recommend babies this young taking medicine. He said there are babies who stopped breathing altogether and turned blue after taking medicine that cause drowsiness. He told me us to use a saline spray to spray into baby's nostrils to let the mucous come out. He said baby will sneeze it out or it will come out as runny substance.

We used it once yesterday and baby was crying and crying. We had to hold his head. Poor thing! We used it again this morning and afternoon. He seemed more relieve after using the spray. We'll use it again this evening a few min before his feed and then let him sleep. Hopefully he'll be fine. My poor baby. I hope he will get well soon. In the day he's ok. The worst usually happened at night, usually when he wakes up for night feeds... and that will be my problem alone coz at that time, nobody can help me :(

What's worse is that mother in law had cold and its probably her who passed the virus to baby even though she already took good precaution like wearing a mask. So its more tiring because we dun dare to let her carry baby. We have to care for baby on our own and hubby has to learn how to bathe baby. Sigh. Its all so tormenting... but I shall survive this, and baby will get stronger!