Excursion to West Coast Park

Yeah! We are going outdoors!

 

 

 

 

 

We went to West Coast Park on a weekend morning, wanting to get some fresh air and to make it a family excursion.  After Jan's first milk feed, we quickly got out of the house and headed towards West Coast Park.  We got there at around 8+am, so the Mac there was not crowded yet and we easily found a parking lot.  Then my wife got her favourite MacDonald breakfast...*embarassed*...

Jan got her first taste of coffee (ok, just kidding...already she is very active without the caffine...) ..and after that she seems to be getting her mouth onto everything...

 

The breakfast was enjoyable, as the Mac there has outdoor seating and the weather was great that day -- not too hot nor too gloomy.  We then took a quick stroll around the park.  That was enjoyable too, saw a number of people sitting on mats laid out on the grass, as well as people camping in tents in the park.  A great place to spend a weekend morning.

No-no! No-no! No-no!

Yes, we have been using that word quite often recently.  Yes, Jan does understand this word.  And yes, she does gets unhappy at times when we say that word to her, as you can see in her photo.

We believe that as parents, one of our greatest responsibility is to draw boundaries for our children; help them know the parameters that are safe for them.  And definitely these parameters should change as the child grows.

The book "Babywise" gave me fresh perspectives on boundaries.  The book asked, "will you let your 10-month-old play with the remote?".  My answer was yes, but I didn't realise that I would be exhibiting inconsistent behaviour when I refuse her the remote when we are at my neighbour's place (fearing that she would bang or drop the remote).  She is not yet old enough to understand the reason...so ya, seems like we parents need to think quite hard of what is ok...my take is to let her stick to toys for now and slowly let her touch more stuff when she exhibit greater maturity.

My colleague has a good way of describing this philosophy.  He said it is called loving the "V" way.  Notice how the letter "V" is narrow at the bottom and widens as you move to the top?  Same way with boundaries.  It's easier to start with very strict boundaries and slowly relax them as the child goes, compared to doing it the other way round.

Change is not easy

If any of you had followed us in changing your baby's schedule, I hope it went well for you =)

It was definitely not easy for us -- there were tense moments when we wanted to blame each other, when we questioned the usefulness of the change, and when we wanted to give up.

Jan was not used to the schedule during the first few days, and after we put her to bed at 7:30pm, she would wake up exactly half-an-hour later, thinking that she just had her usual 3rd nap of the day.  She would then be ALL READY to play...and it was very difficult getting her back to sleep again; it took an hour or more before she relented.

Thank God, now she has gotten used to the new schedule!  The good of this new arrangement is that we are free to do our stuff after 7:30pm, and we can eat our dinner at leisure.  The bad is something we have not tackled head-on yet--how will it be when we have to be out till late and she won't get home till about 10 or 11pm?  Will she be able to start her sleep outside?  Or will she be super-cranky through the night?  *sigh* don't worry too much lah, let's do it one step at a time.  The bottomline is that we are happy that she is getting more sleep, and already we are seeing that she is less cranky during daytime now.

Can this work for you?  It's really for you, your spouse and all the care-takers to decide.  I think what is important is for all to agree that it is something that you want to do, and expect a rough transition period during the first week.

New Schedule?

We had been wondering if we should let Jan sleep earlier. Nowadays she goes to bed at 9+pm. Comparing notes with our friends' babies and recommendation from Supernanny (yes, the USA supernanny series), that timing is too late. So now we are trying to get Jan to bed by 7+pm, and let her sleep as usual to 7:30am. Here's the new schedule that we are trying:

7:30am Wakeup and drink milk #1

8:30am Breakfast

10:00am Morning nap

11:30am Milk #2 + lunch

2:30pm Afternoon nap

4:00pm Milk #3

5:00pm Dinner

6:00pm Bath and get ready for bed

7.00pm Milk #4

7:30pm Bedtime

Well, this is definitely work-in-progress, but if it works out well, we hope that Jan will sleep better at night and give us more time in the evening. Also hope that it will help her be a happier baby in the day.