The Birth Order Effect

Credit: http://www.bestpsychologydegrees.com/birth-order/

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A day as a working mom

Let's start from midnight. 

12-1am: Breastfeed baby for 15-20 minutes. Sleep. 

2-3am: Breastfeed baby for 15-20 minutes. Sleep. 

4-5am: Breastfeed baby for 15-20 minutes. Change his diaper. Carry him around the house for a while. 

5-6am: If I'm lucky, baby sleeps. If not, I'll put him on the bed and let him babble away while I pat his back. 

6-7am: Breastfeed baby if he wakes up. If not, I'll continue to sleep. 

7-8am: Talk to baby a while, might need breastfeeding if he wants it. Take a really quick shower. Gobble down my breakfast of oats, milk, cereal, and biscuits. 

8-9am: Prepare baby's warm bath water. Wipe him down. Change his diaper. Dress him up. Talk to him a while. Breastfeed him for 10 minutes until he's somewhat drowsy. 

9-10am: Put baby in car seat. Drive to babysitter's house. Depending on traffic condition, journey takes 35-40 minutes. If the day is hot with sun shining brightly into the backseat, baby will wail and I can't do anything but continue to try pacifying him with my voice while driving in the bloody jam.

10-11am: Work.

11am: Pumping time! Total yield from both breasts is approximately 2oz (50-70ml) only at the moment. Sigh.

11:30-1:30pm: Work, then lunch.

1:30pm: Pumping time! Total yield from both breasts is approximately 2oz (50-70ml) only at the moment. Sigh.

2-3:30pm: Work.

3:30pm: Pumping time! Total yield from both breasts is approximately 2oz (50-70ml) only at the moment. Sigh.

3:30-5pm: Work.

5pm: Fetch baby from babysitter.

6-8pm: Reach home. Watch TV while breastfeeding baby. Play with him a while when he's full.

8-10pm: A combination of playing, breastfeeding, and talking to him while trying to put him to sleep. His dad will carry him around for further play time.

10pm-12am: Sleep time for me! Must sleep before the next cycle starts again. :)

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Here and there

 

Hubby's favorite steamed egg with pork. He cooked this a few weeks back. :)

 

Now that's why I never miss night nursing. My son is gonna be very smart! :)

My first purchase from iherb.com and I bought almond milk and Organic Milkmaid Tea. The Spring Dragon Longevity Tea packets are free samples.

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Dinner @ Obanhmi, Damansara Uptown

Obanhmi

 

Venue: 33 Jalan SS21/56B, Damansara Uptown (same row as The Ship)

 

Obanhmi sells Vietnam's number one baguette since 1958.

 

Note: Obanhmi replaced the previous Entree eatery at the same lot.
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Check out their Meal Deal 1 & 2 before ordering your meal. By the way, if you want to eat freshly baked baguettes, check out their baguette reload schedule.

 They are closed on Mondays.

Stew-O

 

This is my favorite dish. Dipping chunks of freshly baked baguette in a bowl of piping hot, authentic Vietnamese style beef stew is the best way to savor this dish.

O.M.G

 

Size matter? Then this is for you. Twice the load of O-Sunny, i.e. original Vietnamese Baguette served with pâté, homemade mayonnaise, ham, pickled radish & carrot, chili, cilantro, with a choice of pork or lemongrass chicken, and sunny side-up egg.

O-BBQ

 

This freshly baked baguette is served with BBQ pork, sunny side-up egg, home-made mayonaise, pickled carrot & daikon, cilantro, and Vietnamese chilli sauce.

O-GA

Ga means chicken. This freshly baked baguette is served with chicken teriyaki, pickled carrot & daikon, and Vietnamese chilli sauce.

Check out their full menu here.

 

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Hubby cooks red dates lactating tea

Ingredients:

A handful of seedless Chinese dried red dates, a handful of dried longan, a handful of lotus seeds, a chunk of dried white fungus, sugar, water

Cook the lotus seeds for 20 minutes in half a liter of water. Then, dump the rest of the ingredients in. Add sugar to taste before switching off heat. Serve warm. 

This red dates lactating tea is known to boost breast milk supply. It's a nice add-on to my daily intake of fluid, which is mainly plain water, oat milk, soy drink, and full cream milk.

With white fungus

Without white fungus

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Surviving the Fourth Trimester

 

Parenting Benefits Cartoon #122 by Cathy Thorne

What is the Fourth Trimester?

The first three months of a baby's life (after birth) is like a fourth trimester, where baby makes an enormous transition from the womb-world to the real world.

What have I been doing?

• Surviving weeks 1-4. Weeks of baby blues, rebound jaundice, adjustments, realignment of expectations, etc. OMG. Blogged - Behind the scenes: First 4 weeks of motherhood


• Baby's poop and pee. At first, I worried too much about his diaper counts and his poop's color. After a while, you just gotta stop worrying about every single thing and start enjoying the baby! Blogged - Poop-plosion!


• Tummy ache. This is a major no fun. Baby will be yelling on top of his lungs with tears flowing and nose dripping. So sad seeing him like that. So, the solution is: 1) What I'm doing continuously is observing my food intake and I find out that baby's tummy has problem with me taking food cooked in coconut milk, spices, and curry. So I stop taking all those food; 2) After his daily morning bath, I'll rub his tummy and the sole of his feet with Yu Yi Oil (we mothers swear by this oil!) to prevent possible build-up of wind in his little tummy; 3) Burp him every time after he unlatches from drinking breast milk.


• Growth spurt. This is very interesting. Common times for growth spurts are during the first few days at home and around 7-10 days, 2-3 weeks, 4-6 weeks, 3 months, 4 months, 6 months and 9 months (more or less). However, different baby may do things differently. Growth spurt signs include: 1) Wants to be fed MUCH MORE OFTEN; 2) Very fussy, crying without a normal reason, i.e. dirty diaper, hungry or sleepy; 3) Suddenly baby wants much more physical contact. For instance, your baby only wants to sleep when he lies in your arms, or he suddenly wants to sleep feeling belly-to-belly contact. In other words, the mother is going to be very, very tired, especially during the first 6-8 weeks of baby's life whereby mother and baby are having crucial adjustments between each other. Husbands, you must sayang your wife more. :D


• Milk supply. Okay, this is a taboo subject. Some breastfeeding mothers, including yours truly will be experiencing episodes of low milk supply. I know some mothers have plenty of milk and they have a freezer full of frozen breast milk, but some just won't have that much milk. As much as I'd like to boast that my baby is fully breastfed, I couldn't shake away the feeling that my milk supply might not be enough to satisfy baby. To maintain and hopefully, boost my milk supply, here's what I do: 1) Eat oatmeal after each main meal; 2) Drink Pink Lady Oat Milk, Organic Black Sesame Powder, and Shaklee Energizing Soy Protein for breakfast; 3) Drink plenty of plain water; 4) Try to eat healthily; 5) Most importantly, try my very best to stay calm and rested, i.e. no stress, which is almost impossible. LOL.


• Weight. By weight, I mean baby's weight. My baby is on the small side, meaning he doesn't look like a mini Michelin man. Everyone should read this article by Dr. Jay Gordon: Look at the Baby, Not the Scale. This is the best paragraph ever: Weight gain should not be used as a major criterion of good health. Developmental milestones and interaction with parents and others are more important. Do not be persuaded to supplement a baby who is doing well. Get help with breastfeeding and use other things besides weight to guide you.


• Sleep. Baby's mantra: Sleep is for the weak. At least, that's what I think baby is saying because he fights sleep so much! Putting him down to sleep on the bed is a battle of will and wits. He prefers to sleep in my arms whole day. LOL!


• What else to do with baby? Apart from the routine feeding, bathing, changing diaper, and putting him to sleep, I also put him at his little Simple Dimple play gym and let him look at all his hanging toys.


• House chores. It's almost impossible to clean the house properly. I'm calling in a part-time cleaning maid once a month. Urgh.

Read more about the Fourth Trimester:

• The Fourth Trimester – AKA: Why Your Newborn is Only Happy in Your Arms
• The little known fourth trimester of pregnancy
• Life in the Fourth Trimester

My favorite paragraph from the last link above: You cannot spoil a newborn! No matter how much you rock, cuddle, wear, or hold your baby, she is going to turn into an independent little person. Children are not spoiled by love and affection; they thrive on it. The fourth trimester is a time for mama to heal and for a newly expanded family to get to know one another. Some mamas refer to this time as a "babymoon." Much like a honeymoon for newlyweds, the fourth trimester shouldn't be about schedules or expectations. Instead it – and our babies – should be greeted with patience and wonder.

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Poop-plosion!

 Baby Diaper Cartoon #550 by Cathy Thorne

Yes, baby is finally sleeping peacefully and that's why I CAN BLOG!!!!!

*victory sign*

Anyway, this post is about an episode of poop-plosion at 5:15 a.m. this morning. I knew baby will poop the moment his diaper was taken off but I was caught off guard and a second too late to wrap him up with a new diaper when a stream of warm yellow poop "flew" and "exploded" all over me. My white top was "re-fashioned" with yellow polka dots.....

No worries. Poop shooting is a very normal phenomenon for breastfed babies. From an article on BabyCenter: Poop explosions are another normal part of the new-parent initiation. "At our baby's second doctor's appointment, poop exploded all over my husband's shirt," says one BabyCenter mom. "It was like a jet engine!"

Again, you can thank immature biology. "Babies can't willfully poop until they get older, so sometimes it just reaches a critical mass and it all comes out at once," says O'Keeffe.

There's not too much you can do about poop blowouts, other than carrying a well-stocked diaper bag and trying your best to keep your sense of humor intact.

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More about breastfed baby poop color:

What Does Color Mean?

Baby poop changes color and it's a constant concern for parents. But for the most part, it needn't be.

"Color has not much to do with anything except the transit time of food [in the baby's system] and the bile coming through the GI tract," Steinmetz says.

The poop color timeline works like this: Yellow means milk is moving through the baby's system quickly. When the process slows down, poop becomes green -- and can unnecessarily worry parents. Even slower, poop turns brown.

"That's why infants often have yellow stools, because they have a very fast transit time," Steinmetz says.

In normal infants, bowel movements change color and frequency as the baby's diet changes, as the digestive tract matures, and as it is populated by new, normal bacteria. It's rare that color changes signal a digestive problem. Usually, color changes just mean that there is more or less of the yellow/green/brown/orange pigments that are picked up along the way.

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Motherhood rocks! ^_^V

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