Farewell, Nee-du

The pacifier (aka the Nee-du) is an amazing invention.  I always try to visualise the expression on the inventor's face when he discovered this simple device that can pacify even the most rowdy baby and help them go to sleep.  He must had been very proud of his invention.

Or maybe not.  Many babies grew so dependent on the pacifier that it became their opium.  Jan was one of them; when she wanted to sleep, she would start searching for her pacifier like an addict.

We had been wanting to wean Jan off the pacifier (aka the Nee-du), but had been putting off the decision as it seemed daunting.  Moreover, it was an easy way for us to get Jan to sleep and to quieten her in public places.

However, many times the pacifier would fall out of her mouth while she was asleep, and then she would wake up almost every hour from 2am to 6am screaming for her pacifier.  One night, after Jan threw her pacifier out from her cot, my darling wife decided that Jan should say farewell to her nee-du.

In the following days, Jan constantly screamed for her pacifier during naptimes.  She would scream at the top of her voice for as long as 45 minutes, with such intensity that ALL my neighbours came over to find out what was happening.  I thought they would ring the police to report me of child abuse, but my plan was to clarify to the police that I was the real abuse victim.  It was extremely challenging to listen to your own baby cry and not doing anything about it.

Our plan was to try for three days and then see how, and we prayed hard we would succeed.  Thankfully, and amazingly, we pulled through!  After the first night, Jan was able to sleep (at night) without much screaming.  She screamed a lot during her afternoon naps though, but by the end of the three days, that became easier also.

So our recommendations to people who want to try this: have total agreement on the plan with your spouse, pray hard and get ear-plugs.

Baby Jan gets royal treatment

For the longest time, I had suspected that my darling wife came from New Zealand, but it wasn't till we started having an oversupply of breast milk in the fridge that my suspicion was confirmed... =P

We felt it was quite "sayang" to throw away the old milk in the freezer, then we found out that others were using it to give milk baths to their babies...so we decided to give it try; it was said to make the baby's skin silky smooth. *wow* And doesn't ancient royalty bath with milk too?

 

So here we were, baby Jan and I, getting ready for our first experience of milk bath.

 

 

 

 

Initially, when we put her into the milk bath, she looked a bit shocked.  I guess she was wondering "why is the bath water different in colour from the usual ones???".

 

 

 

 

 

It didn't take long before she overcame the shock.  She definitely had a great time! 

I did not find it as enjoyable though, 'cos the un-thawed milk has a smell to it, I think it is from the fatty parts of the milk.  The fatiness also make Jan and the bath tub oily after the bath, so we needed to wash both of them.

But well, if it does make her skin "smooth like tofu", then it is worth the sacrifice right? Hahaha...

 

Well, like the chinese saying goes, "All banquets comes to an end".  Jan, it's time to get out of the milk bath...

 

"Mum, that was awesome! Can we have it again some time soon??"

funny face :)

Just some random pics of Jan making funny faces... some look really like those bo gei ah-ma... hahaha!!

Thank God for growth!

We are really thankful for a number of developments over the past few weeks.  Firstly, Jan's appetite has returned!  More importantly, she has been gaining weight.  The strange thing is that Jan drinks less than babies her weight.  She is 7.25kg now and she drinks about 700-800+ml a day; but as long as she is gaining weight I'm not too bothered.  My theory is that she is very energy efficient, so don't need to drink much to get what she needs and even gain weight.  Somehow makes me think of the inverter air-cons....

Definitely a big thank God that Jan no longer wakes up every hour at night.  We stll have not figured out if it was a virus or bug that caused her running stools and discomforts.  However, we are glad that it has lost its impact on Jan's diet and night sleep.  In fact, Jan more or less sleep through to 7am! Really thankful for that, else pt would go crazy with the little sleep she was getting.  More sleep definitely put both of me and pt in better shape.  Jan's stools are still mucus-y though, and sometimes with traces of blood (was considering putting those pictures online, but uh-hmm....I guess you understand). 

Anyway, also thankful that she was able to switch quickly from a 3-hour schedule to a 4-hour schedule.  We noticed she was getting uninterested in feeding, and those feeding sessions were getting increasingly violent (haha....a bit exaggerated, but well, there's some truth in it.  a note when you interpret the word "violent" though, the victim was definitely not Jan).  It was great when we made the switch, the feedings got easier, and this new schedule also gave us more free time.

Lastly, we have also been able to give her the last feed earlier.  Last time we gave the feed at around 11pm, and by the time we finished washing up, it would easily been 1am.  We have since been able to bring the feeding forward to about 10pm.  The worry  of doing that was the baby would wake up in the middle of the night crying for food, but thank God she did not do that.

Well, that's my list of thanksgiving now, definitely look forward to more stuff to thank God for.

Do not worry??!

Jia-en turned 5 months this past week, and I think as much as she has grown, I have learnt much from my role as a parent.

I have grown to understand better why parents worry so much...well, more precisely, I have found that as a parent, there is so much to worry about!  Why is my child having runny stools?  Is there something terrible going on? Eeeks...there's even blood stains in the stools...  Are we teaching her a wrong value by attending to her when she cries?  Is she in some serious trouble when we deliberately don't attend to her when she cries?  These are just some questions that crosses my mind regularly.

Then I was reminded of God's command in Matthew 6:25....do not worry!!!

Becoming a parent really pushes me to trust God more...since now there's more things out of my control, and God does tell me not to worry.

Some updates...

Been a looooong time since the last post. Think have to be more diligent to blog a bit more... Well, not that I don't want to, but Jan has been waking up almost hourly from 3-7am for the past 2-3 weeks and I'm seriously deprived of good sleep! It's really challenging coz I'm always struggling to keep awake at work, especially during meetings. Find it hard to concentrate. Sigh... still praying hard for better nights to come!

Well, we are obviously trying to pin-point why Jan is waking up so often, esp so when she was already sleeping thru the night for a while. Here are some of our guesses:

1. Teething - She's been drooling a LOT since she was 4 mths old and tries to stuff ALL her fingers into her mouth to chew, even if the pacifier is there already...

2. Stomach discomfort - She's been having the runs for more than 10 days, with blood streaks and mucus in her yellow watery/ "pasty" poo (try not to visualise ok?). She'll sometimes wake up in the night crying and then let out a loud fart. Just saw a PD last Tues and she said she might have caught a stomach bug and gave her some probiotics (yakult equivalent). It's been a week since we saw the PD and Jan is not getting any better. Her feeding has been poor as well - only drinking slightly more than half of her normal intake. Going to see the PD again today to see what she says. Praying that it's nothing serious and clear off soon!

Nonetheless, she's still quite her usual self and gets super excited when we talk to her and squeals in delight when we sing. She's really quite fun to play with now and we simply love her laughter!

Oh ya, she's finally flipping! MF and I actually witnessed her first flip about 2 weeks ago and it was a tummy to back flip. Quite unusual coz babies normally do back to tummy first. We kinda figured that it's coz she hates to be on her tummy for too long and probably better if she learns to solve her own problem! Smart girl! :)

goo goo ga ga

Jan is one baby who can complain, wail and scream real loudly but coos so softly that we sometimes call it the "cat mewing". But recently, she has been responding back when we talk to her. She even attempted to sing along and smiles when we sing to her.... amazing!! On "good days", she will laugh quite audibly. Think she loves singing =)

Some "words" she can coo now:
- ah
- eh
- ngai
- ang guh
- uh
- er
- ai

There was once when she was crying and screaming away, I suddenly heard her say "mama". I thought I was hearing things but MF also heard it. So, I declare officially that she's saying mama first!! hahahahaha!!

Oh ya, we started her on the bumbo when she turned 4months! Borrowed from mama's friend, Sharon - she said this bumbo has been sat on by her 2 boys and another friend's son, well worth the investment!