Constipation

Nat has become a bad drinker ever since she was introduced to solids.

She doesn't like to take her H2O and this resulted in her developing really hard stools. It made our hearts ache as she wrenched, cried and tried with all her might to expel the stools! When she turn to us for help, we just can't do anything else except cheer her on and hug her as she poops.

Never thought constipation could be so traumatic and it made us feel so helpless. If only she heeds our advice and not refuse the water that was given to her! If only it's that easy and a matter of persuasion? Nat is simply too young to decipher what's good for her and the helper who fails to act on instructions on some occasions is not 100% reliant either. We could only count on her grandparents to coax her into drinking the much needed fluids. Grandma suggests that we give her some glucose to entice her taste bud, something which I really didn't want to introduce as I didn't want to cultivate her dependency on sugared drinks. Why can't she develop to like water in it's original taste? Sigh.. must have taken on Chris's genes.. choosy eater, picky drinker. We had to use the suppository on her to expel the stools. Poor girl her stools were the size of adult's. Hopefully this would be the last time we used the suppository..

"BB Nat please listen to your mummy and daddy.. we may not always be right but we definitely always does things at your best interest!"


By the way, googled the below and it kind of worked. Parents could try the BRAT diet to treat diarrhea in infants and cut out BRAT foods to alleviate constipation.

BRAT stands for Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast.

To prevent constipation, you could also try giving your baby apple juice and some barley water and introduce lots of fibre in her diet.

The fall

Nat had a fall on Thurs,19 Nov 2009. A result of negligence by Surnati.

Below is a chronological account of what happened.

At 10:20 - Grandma left home and reminded Sunarti to ensure that the child gate near platform entrance was locked before placing baby on the walker.

At 10:30 Grandpa prepared to leave. Sunarti was feeding Nat before Grandpa left the house. She went to the kitchen to grab food as soon as grandpa leaves. Continued to feed Nat 5 minutes later and proceeded to complete the chores.

At 1042- Placed baby in the walker and entered the master toilet.

At 1043 - Baby happily emerged into the living room, and went towards the door.

Seconds later- Baby, together with the walker, fell down the flight of steps. Cries and screams followed. Sunarti came running out from the room. Picked baby up and went into the kitchen.

At 1045- Tried to stop her from crying and attempted to feed her water by the glass. Baby won't drink and continued crying.

At 1100 - Sunarti called Madam. Phone was engaged. Called Grandma, baby still crying.

At 1110- Grandma returned home. Baby was coaxed by then.

Grandma inspected the bruises located at left corner of the forehead. No visible bleeding. Nat's chest at left corner was slightly bruised, which we suspect was caused by impact when knocked against the walker.

At 1200 - Mummy and daddy rushed home. Darling was smiling by then, no signs of trauma.

We were so pissed with Sunarti for not following our instructions and always making assumptions! I somehow had the premonition that the accident along the stairs was just waiting to happen as soon as Nat was placed on the walker. We reminded Sunarti time and again to be careful and ensure that she is in the same room as baby if she was to place her on the walker. She never listened! I had really wanted to terminate her employment and send her packing! Bits of me wanted to quit immediately to be with Nat. But we are just not convinced that we could do without help at this point in time and a replacement does not automatically mean that she would have the same dedication as Sunarti who knows and understands Nat since birth?

After weighing the pros and Cons, we've decided not to sack her but played the guilty cards instead. Chris played the devil who shelled at her whilst I played the role of the 'understanding employer' who pulled at her heartstrings and made her feel extremely guilty, making sure that she would remember the incident for the rest of her life.

Message reinforced include :- (1) Do not make assumptions, always physically check that the environment is safe (2) To be in the same room as baby, whether she's on the walker or placed in the playpen. (3) Do not feed baby with water whilst she is crying ( prevent choking) (4) To call Sir, madam and grandma and grandpa immediately should anything happen to the baby. (5) Do not lie or think that she could cover up an accident with a lie.

Fortunately we had the circuit cameras installed, which helped get the facts right and ensured that she didn't lie. We've decided to give her a second chance since she didn't attempt to hide the facts and at least she had the wit to call her employers when accidents happen. I could only hope she learnt her mistakes!! Her punishment? To write a letter of confession to document the full account of what happened.

Ikan Bilis

I've introduced ikan bilis to her diet over the weekend and suppose it's quite well received ie no allergic reactions, no 'I don't like it' expression and lots of 'I want more' table banging.

So how is this prepared?

Steps

(1) Buy the dried anchovies.

My experience with anchovies would tell you how lousy a cook I am.. If I were to purchase this on my own, I would have chosen the bigger sized anchovies which is more value for money. Make sense right? But hey, that's not true. According to Chris the smaller the better. The tiny ones are apparently tastier or sweeter. Guess if you were to grade them similar to coffee, the tiny ones have a more robust / bold flavour.

(2) Clean the inerts. Get rid of the blackish parts at the stomach area, but keep the head. Cause the skull contains calcium, which you would want to keep for baby.

(3) Soak for up to 3 hours, change the water at least 4 times to get rid of whatever sodium or dirt. Majority of the ikan bilis sold in Singapore are imported from Indonesia, so would suggest you clean them before grinding.

(4) Your ikan bilis would look really pale by now. Dry it over low heat. I used a wok to heat up the ikan bilis till they start to curl. To ensure that they are 100% dried, I place them in the microwave for 3 minutes of intense 'roasting'.

(5) Use a miller, grind it till powder like.

(6) Store and keep in a cool place.

You could add 1-2 spoonful of powdered ikan bilis and cook it together with the porridge. Unlike cod, ikan bilis has less of a fishy aroma, so baby would be more receptive and takes the porridge more eagerly.

Fish to avoid feeding your baby are shark, marlin and swordfish and try not to eat large amounts of tuna.

Family vs work

Been a long while since I logged in. Am close to not remembering the p/w! Took me 2 tries to get it right! Goodness!

So how has life been? Hectic I must say. The extent and level of details at work is forcing me to even log in at 10ish whilst I express after her last feed. Been having only 5 hours of sleep on average for the past 1 - 2 weeks which no amount of ginseng chicken could help deal with the exhaustion. It was a relieve when I finally touched the bed each day!

Unfortunately, sleep is always 'short-lived'... I would be woken up by little natalie for her early morn feeds at 5ish. Honestly now that she's on solids, life has been slightly better for me. At the very least I don't have to wake up every 2 hours for night feeds.

At the rate baby is growing, I felt I've missed a stage of her development which was made worse when I received phone calls in the afternoon telling me about the amazing stunts that baby could now do. The most recent update was nat waving and saying bye bye to granddad as he leaves home. So jealous, darling doesn't even do that to daddy and mummy. She only cries for attention whenever mummy leaves the room.

Pics

Jalan Jalan

We took Nat out for a quick shopping spree at the expo today. Instead of buying my own stuff, we ended up getting more toys and clothes for Natalie each weekend. Her collection of fisher price and playskool toys are now in abundance! Which reminds me I better remind Sunarti not to throw away the packaging, so we could resell them on ebay once Nat has grown tired of it.

Anyways here are some recent pics of us...

Of Nat and her shoes

Parents love to accessorise their little girls!

As you can tell from all the pics which I've uploaded, I am one of those who loves dolling up our little girl with pretty headbands, hairclips, shoes, hats, caps, stockings, sunglasses etc.

In fact, I must say Nat is quite a cooperative baby as she allows me to don on pretty accessories on her head. Occasionally she'll grab and throw her hat away, but most of the time her accessories stays on.


However she dislikes wearing shoes! Perhaps it's the gravitational pull which makes it easier for her to kick them off... or maybe it's just too uncomfortable for her?... or maybe she treats it like a game that she plays with her dad?

The below were taken after she had kicked off her shoe the 10th time and Chris gave up chiding and wearing it again and again for her..

Excursions

Nat had her fair share of excursions last month.


Week 1 - Attended julia gabriel's orientation at evans rd and their carnival at forum. Compared to the other playmates, she is the youngest and could only watch on as the kids displayed their crawling and walking talents. However she doesnt seem to mind and took on an observer role, listened attentively to the teachers but made loud yawns whenever she felt like it =p. The carnival was an eye-opener for her as all that loud music made her cry. Guess this must had been her first experience with 'heavy metal'.


Week 2 - Spent the weekend shopping at vivo with her yiyi who carried her majority of the time. Mummy and daddy had a wonderful time as we were finally able to shop using both hands!


Week 3 - Picked daddy up at the airport. Daddy's been away at Laos to conduct his recce trip for his cross border vision screening project. Here are some pics taken whilst waiting at the airport.





Week 4 - Sat : Joined Daniel and Sarah for a lunch buffet at Azur. Great ambience, good food, but spread could have been wider. Auntie Sarah helped attend to you whilst mummy had her meal. And of course uncle daniel helped too. ( Hi dan, we should provide you with more opportunities to interact with babies =D so when are we meeting again?)

Sunday: Spent time with yeye and nai nai at their organic farm. She was thrilled to see various 'pockets' of greenhouses with healthy, pretty plants! We took home a large amount of harvest and there is still more to come =). More savings translated for daddy then!

It's been a month ..

Oh my goodness how time flies! It's been a month since I last blogged at the rate I am going it's gonna be 12 entries per year! Yikes !! So much has happened over the past 1 month.

In terms of Nat's diet, she is now on solids. Loves the homemade, sun-dried, blender grinded brown rice cereal with veg or fruits. Current combination would include Japanese carrots (its' natural sweetness is so yummy even mummy love it), broccoli ( taste a little too concentrated for me. The broccoli has a strong distinctive taste when pureed without additional water, but Nat doesn't seem to mind), and steamed California white peaches with organic baby apples (this dish creates such a lovely aroma! definitely finger licking good and she always ask for more). Was thinking of trying fish next.. not sure how to go about it...will have to find time to research.

On her physiological development, she is gaining dexterity with her fingers. She has learnt to stick out her tongue ( see pic above), kick off her shoes, grab her feet, place her feet in her mouth, twist and turn in bed... She is still a little wobbly when seated on her own ie can't prolong sitting down and not topple over. Can't crawl yet and no sign of her first tooth at this stage.

We visited Dr. Toh for her pneumoccocal Jab today and she suggests that we place her on the walker to strengthen her calf and thigh muscles, which we haven't after so many months. One of my colleague has placed her kid in the walker since he was 4 months, but we've heard so many scary stories about walkers that even though we own one we weren't sure when's safe to start using it. So today is the inauguration of her walker. We finally opened the box which has been lying in Nat's room since birth and Chris got it fixed! ( Hey girl, your daddy would only do this for you.. it's extremely rare that daddy would be the handy man in the house. He even jokingly asked if 'gong gong' could fix it instead. But Daddy did it! Such commendable efforts!*applause*). As for the jab, she was really brave! One scream and that's all it takes. Perhaps playing with mummy whilst the injection happened reduced the pain significantly as she saw the angelic face of mine and managed to calm her nerves =)

On sleeping pattern, she goes off to bed by 6.30pm and falls asleep before 7pm. Wakes up at 10ish and early morning at 3ish, sometimes 4 for feeds. She is fully awake by 6am. Which I didn't quite mind as it is close to the time I too wake up to prepare for work.

As for sleep styles, apparently Nat is quite a mobile sleeper. We find her in various positions at different times in the night, turning 360 clockwise in her cot! When she sleeps next to me, she'll wake me up with her little kicks and boxes. She'll pull my hair and yank it really hard when I ignore her. I'll end up screaming and she just laughs it off. How sadistic! And she never does this to Chris.. ok may he has much shorter hair.. but Nat this sort of good stuff you can leave it to daddy k.

Got to go for dinner now.. back for part 2 in a bit.

Developments - the flip!

Nat has mastered the skills of flipping from back to tummy. Attached are the captured moments of her turning!

At 6 months she is using all her senses to explore and learn about her surroundings. She gets more attuned to colours, noises, reacts to Junior's presence and of course my disappearance ie not within her sight. The traits of seperation anxiety seems most accentuated during this week whilst I am home. She demands to be carried and showered with attention all the time. Always wanting to be part of the action! She gets irritated particularly during naps and cries as soon as her little bums touch the bed, her upper torso is still in my arms when she makes her usual protests of being left alone in bed! Got to repeat the putting down process at least 2-3 times before she settles. She'll take short 15 - 30 mins naps in the day. She is at her best when we are out, no tantrums simply a matter of dosing off quietly in the baby carrier or infant seat.

She enjoys looking at books together. We schedule bedtime reading either before or after her bath depending on how alert she is. Grandma will read to her in Mandarin to help her develop an interest in her mother tongue. I will read to her in English. She loves it when both daddy and mummy sing her a medley of nursery rhymes. Repeating in different tones and pitch just never fails to amaze her. She loves board books which are colorful and sturdy, so she could bang her little hands on them. Compared to previous, she is starting to notice finer details and displays interest in alphabets/ words rather than just concertrating on the pictures. I am amazed at how much patience she has when it comes to reading. She listens attentively even when I re-read the book a couple of times at one seating. Love reading to her as it also provides a great opportunity for cuddling and socializing.

Per my earlier entries, Natalie has started on solids. To date, she has been introduced to sweet potato, rice cereal and apples. We're trying out peaches and brocolli next. Freezing the presteamed and pureed baby food really does help to save time as you are able to prepare the varieties in batches. Apples seems easily digested and produces sweet smelling poop. Digested sweet potatoes has a stronger stench and takes longer to digest. So rather than daily poop, we typically had to wait 2-3 days. Was really worrying at first cause she is a breastfed baby and poops on a daily basis. We've even prepared suppositories for her as a precautionary measure. I've also introduced Heinz teething biscuits to her to soothe her gums. Can't wait to see her first pair of milk teeth!

Cute random poses