August 7, 2008
Nothing noteworthy to write about these days.
I’m all consumed with MS, and not that I don’t want to write about him, but by the time I’m done with him, there’s just no energy left, let alone creative thought.
Plus, it’s time to do some soul-searching. I tend to forget what the bigger picture is all about, all too often these days.
So will be back when I’m back.
July 13, 2008
MS is napping.
Mommy decides that rather than letting him sleep in front of the TV everytime, perhaps it may be a better idea to let him hear lullabies as he sleeps and when he wakes.
So she sets out to search for and download baby lullabies on the net.
Managed to get about 1.4 hours’ worth of lullabies. Happy happy.
Also downloaded no less than 5 different versions of Brahms’ lullaby.
Mommy has always loved that one.
Mommy remembers wondering some years ago, as she was listening to a nice version of the lullaby, whether she would ever have the chance to sing/hum/play that lullaby to her own child.
And the time has come.
Now she can put a face to the lullaby .. a face with big, beady eyes that stare up at her as if she was his world, nay universe .. and that is more than enough to make her weep.
I have been blessed, praise God.
July 6, 2008
I’m sorry to those of you who visit this blog, looking for something noteworthy to read.
I need to whine again. (If not on my blog then where else?)
This time it’s about MS starting solids and the different wavelength of the pediatricians here compared to back home. Not quite N@zi lah, but I thought it gave a nice ring to the title of the post, haha.
Initially, MS was pretty enthusiastic about trying new foods. I knew he was ready because whenever I put a spoon of food to my mouth or took a sip from my glass, he’d stare at my every movement with awe and often ended up licking his lips.
When he turned 6 months, we were travelling, so I just gave him baby apple juice at first. Apprehensive initially, then he slowly warmed up to the idea, but just in small amounts. Once we got to our travel destination, I tried out cerelac and he took it willingly.
Once we came home, this mommy started getting enthusiastic. I would give him small amounts of cereal in the evenings (all of which he finished with gusto) and gave him some pureed avocado mixed with EBM in the morning. He found the avocado a bit iffy, so some days would accept it, some days not.
When I saw how enthusiastic he was with the cerelac, I started to give him more, and still he scoffed it all up. As for the fruit department however, he wasn’t too great. After a few days of avocado, I tried out pureed banana with some EBM. That didn’t do well either.
Then I did a bad thing.
I tried to force him to take the food. By ‘force’ I mean that sometimes I tried to ‘open’ his mouth with the spoon when he clammed it shut as he saw me approaching with the spoon. Not that I got very much food in that way, at most, just another spoon or so.
What I did get out of all that was a lot of stress because he was losing interest and just refused. I on the other hand, was such a hopelessly impatient mom.
On my mom’s earlier suggestion, I had also added some nutrients into his cerelac, one chl0rella pill each time, pounded to a fine dust that mixed into the cereal. This made the cereal green, strange looking and smelling. The first time he ate it he was oblivious to it and downed the cereal happily, but the 2nd and 3rd times were complete disasters. At this point, he went completely off cerelac too.
At the same time, MS looked like he was having problems passing motion. A few days passed with a lot of f@rting and straining on his part, but nothing came out. When he did poo a few times, the poo was pasty and dry. He was constipated. I tried to get him to drink more juice and water, and I tried to feed him more pureed fruit. Of course, the latter failed miserably and it became a battle between him and me.
One day (I think it was either on the day he rejected cerelac or the day after that), he finally managed to poo a substantial sum. It started off pasty and dry and required so much effort on his part, then as I was changing him, he started crying like he never did before (like there was some pain involved) and his poo came oozing out like soft green slush as if he could have been having stomach pains.
I figured then that he was perhaps taking in a little too much cerelac, too little fruits, and not enough juice and water. Add on to that recipe for disaster the fact that he was beginning to lose interest in trying solids, but yet mommy kept trying to force him.
Seeing the way he was, I decided to lay off solids completely for a while. Give MS a chance to recover and for me to take it easy.
So over the next few weeks thereafter, it was back to just bf, but once in a while I’d try to sneak in some pureed fruit when he seemed up to it (I completely cut out cerelac at this point). Sometimes he’d take in a few small spoons, most days he’d just lock his mouth shut and turn away. Juice and water were the only things he would consider, and even then, sparingly.
He began to pass motion regularly again after that, except about a week ago. This morning, I was left with no choice but to insert an infant suppository because he had not passed motion for 6 days, despite having been given prune juice and lots of water to help him ‘go’.
Now that you’ve read about my ’starting solids faux pas’, this is where the pediatrician bit comes in.
Times like this, I wish I was on more familiar turf. Yes, there are other mommies here, but each one has a baby with a different temperament, and different needs. There are also loads of pediatricians, but their approach is different I feel, from back home. That’s probably because they view raising a baby differently - more cut and dry, not like how we are back home. I think we tend to be a bit more indulgent of our babies as compared to Egypti@ns. Or perhaps, they take on a more “mat salleh” approach to things.
For example:-
(1) When I visited the Diva Tua when MS was 5 months and asked her how I could help break the ‘nursing to sleep’ association, the first thing she did was to reprimand me (in a motherly way lah, she is tua, after all) and tell me that MS shouldn’t be nursing at night anymore in the first place. I asked her how she proposed I stop him because he’d scream and wail if I tried that. Her response was curt, “You need to instil discipline, if not it will be very difficult for you later on and you won’t get your rest”.
Diva Tua’s method was that I gave the final bf to MS when he was going to bed and then not give him anymore milk until 6am the next morning. If he awoke at night, just give him water. “It will be difficult for a few days, but after a while he won’t wake up anymore because he knows he’s only going to get water”.
Easy for her to say, I thought, she’s not the one who has a strong-minded little bub who is more than capable of screaming his lungs out for hours and drive his mommy close to jumping off the window ledge!
So when I went home, I opened Ferber’s book again. I felt that his method of removing night feeds was more humane, ie to gradually space out the night feeds over a week or so until eventually, there are no more feeds left in the night time. I adopted this method when MS was 5 months, and over the course of 2 weeks (and some heavy crying of course), I eventually succeeded. The good part about this method was that it also prevented me from getting engorged.
I was a happy camper for those two weeks. MS would still wake up once or twice in the middle of the night, but he’d protest just a little bit and then promptly fall back to sleep on his own. Unfortunately, at the end of those two weeks, he started waking up for feeds again, at first for one, then two, then three, .. and now it’s back to every 1.5-2 hours, right until morning. In the initial stages, I opted to just let him cry and not give it to him - remember me relating an incident where he wailed for 2 hours non-stop? Then guilt overcame me and H, because we were thinking that perhaps he was teething and needed comforting, wasn’t feeling too well (he had had his immunisations recently too), so thought tak pa lah, kesian MS nangis so much. But as a result, he’s back to his regular routine.
Why can’t I just try to reintroduce Ferber’s night feed reduction method again, you ask? After that 2-hour-non-stop-crying episode plus the fact that MS has certainly become more opinionated and aware of what he wants (or doesn’t want) in comparison to when he was 5 months (plus he doesn’t cry anymore, he screams (ie mengamuk)), I don’t think I have the energy to go through that process again.
(2) The next time I visited the Diva Tua after MS reverted back to his normal night-time feeding pattern, she gave me a schedule to introduce solids to MS. This was her proposition:-
6am: BF
10am: Pureed fruits (in the 1st week)
2pm: BF (in the 3rd week, substitute with pureed vegetables)
6pm: BF
8pm: BF (in the 2nd week, substitute with cereal)
11pm: BF
MS has generally always been BF every 2 hours, day and night. Some days, he has 3-hour stretches. Diva Tua was asking me to not just stretch his feeding time to every 4 hours, but to do away with MS’ beloved milk from some of the feeding sessions.
At one glance, her proposition seems workable, but what do you do when your child has rejected all solids, as MS has done now? Plus, MS doesn’t look like he’s particularly keen on the idea of filling himself up with something other than BM, and I’ve often been told, even by my mom, that sometimes, we need to just let the child decide his own pace.
When I told Diva Tua that it would be difficult to follow her schedule because MS has rejected solids, she told me to just let MS go hungry for 4 hours. “He will be hungry and will take the solids when you offer it.” What if he doesn’t? He will, she asserted. If not, then wait a little longer.
Oh if only it was that simple. Or is it that my threshold for my son’s screaming tantrums are low, and the Egypti@ns have higher pain thresholds? But even my maid said that Diva Tua is “gila” to suggest that I make MS go hungry for that long. “Dia tak tau MS tu macam mana” was her short but spot-on comment.
Besides, I fear that using such regimented methods on MS might scare him off eating solids even more. What do you think?
When I told Diva Tua that MS had reverted back to his night-time feeds, she said it was because I wasn’t feeding him enough cereal before he went to bed. Sigh.
(3) So I consulted another paed. Not tua, and not a diva. Consulting her was by default because Diva Tua ran out of the vaccines which were due for MS and she had asked me to look for another paed in the area who had supplies of the vaccines.
When I asked this 2nd paed why MS was beginning to wake up at night again, and he may or may not be teething (some days I think he is, some days not), she replied that she didn’t know, but agreed that MS shouldn’t feed past midnight anymore. Her suggestion was lain pulak - she said I should give him one last BF at midnight, and then if he wakes up in the middle of the night, give him this special herbal tea preparation for babies that they have in Egypt (known as “Baby Calm”). That will help him sleep till morning, she said.
Of course, that meant that I would have to endure more screams and protests from MS in the middle of the night when he finds out that he’s not getting his bonbons but some silly herbal tea instead. You just have to, came this 2nd paed’s calm reply - it’s for their own good. Not much different from Diva Tua’s suggestion that I give him water, huh?
—–
When I consult the other Malaysian mommies who have babies, or consult friends back home, they all agree that some Egypti@n paeds are rather unorthodox. At least for us Asians. It isn’t the Asian way, some have claimed. Back home, most mommies just allow their babies to feed through the night until the baby itself is ready to drop it (if at all).
I can whine to these other Asian mommies, but unfortunately, they all pretty much have text book babies, who follow their growth and feeding charts on schedule. Often what I get in return are reassurances that things will eventually get better and MS will eventually take to solids, and go back to sleeping through the night again (or at least waking less often). Oh I hope so, because I am tired of having to constantly battle things out with my clever little runt. Mommy always ends up on the losing end.
I’ve reached a point that I don’t care if I have to feed MS all through the night as well, but it would be nice to get some support from your paed, rather than them going tsk tsk at your methods and not actually providing you with the support you need and help you figure out how to solve the predicaments you’re in. Ish.
Times like this, or if there’s a medical emergency with your baby, as I’ve seen some of the other mommies here experience with their babies (hopefully we won’t with MS, insha’Allah) - it really makes me wish that we were back home in Malaysia, where emergency services at the hospitals (the private ones at least) are fast, people understand what you are trying to say, there are loads of doctors available (even if your paed is on holiday or refuses to pick up her mobile or answer your SMSes), and medical care is just so much better.
—–
On a different note, when I observe the methods the Egypti@ns employ in raising their infants and toddlers, I wonder whether this could be one of the reasons as to why the children grow up to be very forceful and strong-willed (traits which of course, carry into adulthood, ahem). I mean, methods like just leaving the babies to cry it out each night for days/weeks on end because you want them to stop night feeding, and again letting them cry it out for hours because you want them to follow a certain feeding routine. Inevitably, this will toughen up the little tykes, I reckon.
Standing joke among some of the Asian mommies here with toddlers who attend nurseries and kindies here: They leave the house Asian, they come home Egypti@n. Hahaha.
Oh well, I don’t have to worry about all that just yet. MS still has some way to go before toddlerhood, and by that time, we’ll most likely be back home in Malaysia, YAY!!
July 1, 2008
Despite what previous postings may have you think, there have been extremely gratifying moments during my mommyhood, like those caught in the pictures above.
Did I mention that MS started sitting a day before he turned 6 months? [See first pic, top left] *beams*
Or that he’s been sitting unaided, turning left & right, bending front to pick something then straighten up again, or reaching for objects in the air - all while continuing to maintain his balance? I’d say this is my first set of bragging rights vis-a-vis my little man. According to the books (they have some use, after all), he should only be managing these in his 8th month?
He’s just 6.5 months.
It’s clearly obvious that MS is in much haste to grow up!
June 29, 2008
*What MS thinks exactly about my attempts to Ferberise him.
This post is partly in response to the comments in my post “To me, it’s a helluva milestone” which were unanswered, and partly to elucidate on the situation I’m currently in. I figured it would be easier to write this as an independent post.
I would say that my biggest difficulty with MS would be his sleep patterns and routines. I have tried quite a few different methods, but so far, none of them has actually hit home.
Let me start by listing out the activities in MS’ regular day.
Nordic Convert, when I nurse him to bed at 2100, I bf him lying down. This is to prevent having to move him once he’s done, because I have never been able to put him down asleep, no matter how long he may have been asleep in my arms. The minute his head or body touches the bed, he’ll wake up and start screaming. So the best way was to involve as little movement as possible on his part once he was asleep.
Initially I nursed him lying down even for the daytimes, because this was the only way I could get him to nap. I’d have to lie down with him, let him bf, then gently pull out the bonbon and move away once he’s asleep.
Now the reason I am trying to change the daytime napping routine by getting the maid instead to put him down for naps is because of the following:-
(i) He cannot sleep whether at night or for naps, without being bf to sleep.
(ii) As a result, when we’re out of the house, he goes into screaming fits when he’s tired and I can’t (or don’t want to) bf him (hoping that he’ll fall asleep instead by me carrying him or something, until we get in the car or home).
(iii) No one can put him down except me.
(iv) Nothing can pacify/settle him except by being bf, not even by me trying to comfort him.
Right now whenever he sees the maid around the time when he’s sleepy, he starts his screaming fits. Note here that my son doesn’t actually “cry” (ie I know he isn’t hungry or in pain or anything) - instead he “screams”, so much so that I think he’ll give himself a sore throat.
Take last night for example. I bf him to bed from 9-9.45pm, then when I retired to bed at midnight, he clamoured for me, whining initially. I had told myself earlier that I wasn’t going to allow him to feed so early into the night because he had had a full feed at 9pm (I was only planning on feeding him at 2am). So I just left him be. Instead of calming down, he “mengamuk” (note: not “menangis” ok, there’s a difference) for TWO solid hours, until it was time to bf him. I give it to him for perseverance. Even his mommy cannot hold out for as long, as I succumbed at 1.45am.
And the thing is that, he bf for just 10 minutes, then was asleep. I, on the other hand, was a total wreck by that time, and couldn’t sleep.
I wonder what caused the turnabout. Back when he was 5 months, I had successfully adopted the night-feed reduction until he was no longer waking at night. I’d feed him at 9pm, he’d whimper a little when I came in to bed at midnight, but he would promptly fall asleep by himself after that, and I would only bf him at 5-6am the next morning.
Then one night, he decides to throw everything out the window and became hysterical. I thought it was a one-off thing, but then it turns out that the night feeds are back.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to bf MS. The skin-to-skin contact, the huge doe-eyes that stare up at me, teh fat dimpled fingers twiddling (or scratching) my face, hair .. I wouldn’t trade those.
But I want him to be able to settle himself back to sleep without having to bf each and every time if and when he wakes up. It’s evident from the 5-10 minute nursing that he’s not that hungry, just wants his bonbons. I also need him to be able to settle himself when he’s tired, and we’re not somewhere I can bf him to sleep.
The fact that he can’t sleep at all without bf does get to me, especially when we’re out. He’ll freak out and scream his lungs out and I just hate it when people stare, which tells you that they’re uncomfortable with your kid’s screams. I mean, I don’t blame them because MS’ screams are L.O.U.D (have always been, right from the time he was born), but there’s nothing I can do about that.
Because he’s a little fussy pot, I try not to take him out so much, because I’m always at wit’s end after about 1/2 hour out of the house. But as a result, I get bored and stressed at home, and by my reckoning, MS gets bored too.
There are other wives with babies in the same age group with MS. Whenever someone holds a dinner or whatever, MS is always the prima donna - the first to scream his lungs out, refuses to nurse because is so distracted by his surroundings (as a result is hungry and screams even more), cannot sleep in public unlike the other babies who will be limp on their parents’ arms (so screams even more), and doesn’t like crowds - he gets stressed and screams when other people wanna cuddle him.
So as a result, H and I are always the first to leave any dinner party, often right after dinner is served. Talk about being anti-social.
But I don’t know how else to deal with it. This is why I try not to take MS out too much. On the one hand, I do try to take him out as much as I can .. to “condition” him so to speak, but when he starts acting up in public (and that’s a 99.99%), I keep kicking myself after that wondering why I even bothered.
Perhaps he’s teething? Perhaps. But this has been going on forever and when I check his gums everything seems ok. Drooling? He’s been a mega drooler since he was born. Biting? He’s been close to biting off my fingers for the last 2 months already anyway. Still no teeth or swollen gums in sight. No fever, rashes, flushed cheeks, etc.
I also want him to be able to sleep in his crib/fall asleep on his own. Myzasha, currently he naps on the living room floor, and we’ve put the crib there as well to get him used to it. Sometimes we’ll let him play in there. By tomorrow, I’m going to get the maid to try and get him to nap in the crib. Let’s see if that works. If it does, then we’ll start moving the cot into the bedroom. And once he’s used to napping in the bedroom, only then will I start trying to get him to sleep in the crib at night.
But knowing my luck, by that time we’ll be on our way for our summer vacation which means that it isn’t a good time to try and sleep train him, or he’ll actually be teething proper.
Sighs.
THIS is a real rant. But I need to get this off my chest, especially after last night.
I don’t know if I have the stamina to continue the efforts to reduce the night-feed again tonight.
Maybe it’s just me.
=====
As an aside, the latest sod0my accusations against DSAI - give it a rest lah, please.
Is that the best they can do to ward off the man’s claims that he can form a government by September?
If that’s your best punch, then truly Malaysia is on its way to the gutter. God help us all.
June 24, 2008
Extracted from today’s Malaysiakini:-
| Judge hits back at ‘devil incarnate’ Mahathir |
| Jun 24, 08 8:55pm |
High Court judge Ian Chin, who two weeks ago make stunning allegations that he was threatened by Dr Mahathir Mohamad for a number of high-profile cases, today fired another stinging salvo at the former prime minister.
 “…Dr Mahathir for what he had done and for what he is trying to do is a devil incarnate but to those who had suffered under his hands, even that description my be rather complimentary,” said Chin in open court during a hearing of an election petition in Sibu, Sarawak, this afternoon. |
Oh hohohoho, we are certainly living in interesting times.
Poetic justice? What goes around comes around? Sepandai-pandai tupai melompat, in the end “terpele’ot” juga?
Whatever it is, the whole nation finally has front row seats. About time.
June 22, 2008
In my bid to try and get MS to fall sleep without having to nurse him, I have resorted to getting the maid to do the job. And, perhaps it may be premature of me to say it, but she’s done it twice and it’s worked! Thanks to Nazrah for suggesting it to me earlier, although at that point when she suggested it, it wasn’t something I was willing to consider.
It all happened by default actually.
Mommy needed a much needed break, so decided that a trip to the hairdresser to mend the sappy looking hair with some fresh new highlights would do the trick. Yes, I have my blonde moments, literally and figuratively speaking. The privilege of being a woman. *winks*
Decided to do this on a weekend so that H would be home (I still won’t leave MS alone with the maid, no way). Made sure I bf MS literally right up until the minute before I walked out the door, and even left 50ml of EBM in the fridge just in case (similar hairdressing sessions back home would take about 3 hours, so I didn’t want MS to throw up a fit with his cow not being there).
H literally booted me out the door with what should have been, to me, very-reassuring-don’t-worries, but I guess I haven’t yet built that confidence level (too paranoid about MS perhaps, and him being my firstborn and all?) so I bade MS farewell with much trepidation.
As I sat on the swivel chair at the hairdresser’s, attempts to drown myself in a book proved futile, couldn’t quite swivel my worries away on the chair either because Mr Salem the hairdresser was busy at work on my hair with his assistant, Mohamed. My mind just kept fleeting back to that little tyke I left at home.
Sighs.
When I’m with him, I can’t wait to get away .. when I’m away, I want to run to him and cuddle him and keep him close.
Finally, when the opportunity arose, I speed-dialled H in between foil-wrapped strands of hair which was en route to being chemically lightened, to check on MS.
“He’s asleep” came H’s calm reply.
What?? How? How? Mommy not there - how did he manage it?
Turns out the maid was just toting him about around the house as H tapped away at his laptop, and MS fell asleep in her arms, his saliva trickling down her arm. No tears, no fuss. A good one hour on top of that!!
And today, after bringing him home from his immunisations, I decided to try it out again. The plan was to bf him first then pass him to the maid to settle him for a nap. Even before I had a chance to bf him, the little tyke was asleep.
No fuss, not like when he’s with mommy.
Now all I need to work on are his nights.
Back in late May, after 1.5 weeks of tears & training to space out his night feeds until there were none left, I had managed to get him to sleep through the night, from 9pm to 5-6am. That lasted for about 2 weeks.
Now he’s back to waking every 2 hours for a feed. Despite feeding him cereal before bedtime to tank him up and all.
Have consulted 2 paeds and both agree that MS shouldn’t take in any more milk after midnight till 6am, so I’m gonna need to work on that again. Sigh. More tears and screams on the way.
May as well work on that and getting him to sleep on his own, at the same time. Right now MS co-sleeps between H and me on our bed.
I don’t mind co-sleeping, in fact, H and I love having him between us, but it seems like it is MS who gets too stimulated with our presence. And a queen sized bed just doesn’t cut it for H, me and MS, not when MS is beginning to do his rotating-clock sleep patterns and mommy has to ensure that there is always a big pillow between herself and MS, otherwise he will keep clamouring for the “bonbons”, even though he just had them!!
Plus, MS must surely win the world’s award for lightest sleeper on earth. All it takes is for me to heave a sigh or gently lie down next to him and he’s up. This despite letting him sleep in front of the TV and all in the daytime, so that he gets used to noise. It doesn’t help either, when you live next to what is perhaps the noisiest street in Egypt, with honk-happy motorists and bleeding siren-happy policemen who seem to have nothing better to do than to blare the sirens as they make their way down the street.
Anyone here have luck in moving a baby back to the crib/cot after co-sleeping all this while?
June 17, 2008
June 17, 2008
Clockwise from top left.
Pic 1: Aha, full access to mommy’s laptop!! Maybe I’ll open up a F@cebook account!
Pic 2: Lalalala, key in my personal details, favourite food: milk, favourite interests: pulling out tigger’s fur, watching tv, poo-ing, .. tum tee tum tum.
Pic 3: Yaaargh!! Whose profile did I delete??
Pic 4: Gulp, I think it was mommy’s. How now brown cow?
June 15, 2008
MS crossed the 6-month mark on 12th June, and so did I.
Who would’ve guessed that I have now been a mommy for 6 months. I still find it bewildering.
It’s definitely been one hell of a roller-coaster. I can’t begin to describe how tough the first few months were, especially when one becomes a mommy at my age. During those difficult times, I just kept creating and pushing towards milestone after milestone, in order to keep the mind sane and focused. PPD and all, thankfully has all but gone.
Some have it easier than others, but God chose to test this mommy a little more than usual, with justifiable measure I believe, so that I can put myself in the right frame of mind to make that transition from selfish woman to selfless mommy. Not quite there yet methinks, but I’m getting there. 
A few moments ago I was clearing up MS’ cupboard, and was taking out all the small-ish clothes, mittens, booties, wraps that he can’t fit into anymore. That turned out to be quite an emotional process, as I realised how much my little babushka has grown in just 6 months. He was small at birth (2.9kg), and now I can barely carry him for 5 minutes without getting a throbbing ache on my shoulder.
Storing those little items into the box left me feeling blue, pensive, elated and thankful, all at one go.
He’s well on his road to toddlerhood, my little man. And his mommy will trudge along behind him. 
Pictures of MS at 6 months will be uploaded soon!
