It's tough being a working mom. Nah it's tough being a mom. Period.

Every day is a dilemma.

It's been 7 months since I went back to work. He's now not only used to his grandparents, but also very sticky to them.

Dilemma #1: Mommy = bad mood? When he's in a good mood in the morning, I have to rush to get him and myself ready and we have no chance to spend quality time together. By the time we get to see him, we have to eat dinner, then rush (again) to bring him home for bed. No time for quality time, just grouchy and some crying. Sigh.

Dilemma #2: As long as you're happy, baby. Compared to the time I first started work, I can be more at ease because I know he's now very used to his grandparents. Perhaps he even prefers being with his grandparents. It hurts when he'd rather have granny or grandpa carry him, when he's not seen mommy and daddy for the whole day. But well, as long as he's happy and well, I guess my feelings are secondary.

Dilemma #3: When I do get time with him, putting him to sleep is always such a challenge that it drains me so much I sometimes am really really tired of motherhood.

And those are just the tip of the ice berg So many other things on my mind I don't even know where to start.

1. My self-modified sleep training methods doesn't seem to be working these few days. (Or is he just teething? Or not used to a different environment?) I was worried this might happen when we move here. Cal is away this week and. To make things simpler for me, I decided to move to Cal's parents' so I won't have to bring Cayden to and fro everyday. But tonight and the night before, he refused to sleep even when he's clearly tired. He cried really hard until he puked on Monday. It was really worrying. I hope it's just teething. Otherwise re-sleep training will be PAINFUL.

2. For the first time in his life, on 10th Apr, mommy will not be around to tuck him into bed. (Maybe grandpa, grandma or daddy can find another cry-free way to put him to bed?) Putting him to sleep is the only constant thing I have been doing in his life. I can't feed him all the time, I've given up bathing him on weekdays, even teaching I don't stress myself too much about it if we can't sit down together on a weekday to read a book. And now bedtime routine too?? I feel like its the last thing we have together.....

3. Work is exploding

4. Cayden had some rashes on his hands - was it the dirty grass? Formula (can't be cos he's been drinking for a few weeks and had been fine)? Or could it be HFMD?!? (Good thing it's getting better. But I noticed some on his face today)

5. My tail bone is aching again - the same pain I got after giving birth

Well, that's why I say - its tough being a mom, whether SAHM, full time working mom or self-employed mom.

Sleep training woes II

Oh I'm terrible... took me so long to get back to this  

So back to the review of the workshop... The trainer, Tammy Fontana (see May's post for her full bio), was a 40+ American lady, eloquent, knew her content very well, could remember each of the parents' pain point at the workshop, and oh my god was she hard core or what! I wonder if she has kids (I think she mentioned she does), and whether those poor little children went through these steps too. But then again, come to think of it, she probably never offered a pacifier, rocked or patted her kids to sleep - ever.

To summarize her instructions:

1. 30min before bedtime, say 9.30pm, start bedtime routine
2. At bed time, 10pm, leave baby in cot alone. Baby does 7 min of quiet play. 'A sleep-trained child should fall asleep within 15 min.'
3. Baby should sleep all the way for 10 hours (average duration for 9-month old) till the next morning 8am without night feeds. '9-month olds do not need food at night.'
4. 10.30-11.30am: 2.5 hours after baby wakes up in the morning, he should take his first nap. Nap typically lasts about 45min-1 hour. 'That's the duration of 1 sleep cycle.'
5. 2-3pm: 2.5 hours after nap #1, he should take nap #2, also 45min-1 hour.
6. 5.30-6.30pm: 2.5 hours after nap #2, he should take nap #3, which should bring him into bedtime.

Durations between naps will drag further apart as baby ages, and number of naps will reduce.

Shocking things I learnt:

1. Sleep and food are totally unrelated
2. It's ok to wake a sleeping baby
3. Me: If naps should last 45min-1 hour, then how come he falls asleep immediately after I pick him up when he cries at the 45th min? Tammy: He's getting such poor quality of sleep at night that he's falling asleep again
4. Me: What if he vomits? Tammy: Just walk in and clean it up. And walk out. No drama. (ok, I'm paraphrasing her here about the drama part, but that's what she meant)

Things she emphasized on:

1. The most important is how he falls asleep during bedtime. Nap time doesn't matter
2. No form of aid is allowed for baby to fall alseep (e.g. pacifier, rock, pat, motion)
3. DO NOT cherry-pick the solutions. Follow everything if you want to see results

See what I mean about her being hard core? Armed with this new set of information, I pondered for daysss.... On one hand, I knew Cayden had to be taught how to fall asleep on his own, for his own good (and brain development), and for my own sanity. On the other hand, I knew we will not be able to just hear him cry behind the door and do NOTHING. What if he gets hurt or something? So I thought maybe I shall sit beside him and watch him. But "DO NOT CHERRY-PICK your solutions" kept ringing in my mind... How do I resolve this dilemma?

Cayden co-sleeps with us, but I've been trying to move him to his own mattress/bed in our own room. Usually our bedtime routine is clean, change, nurse, rock, rock, cry, struggle, rock, lullaby, rock, sleep. (There was a ridiculous point when rocking was not enough and Daddy had to carry him and run all over the house to put him to sleep. Yes, run.) And even after he sleeps, we were always on our toes that he could wake up anytime. So here's what I did. Boy, was it PAINFUL....

Night #1
9.50-10pm I carried him in my arms, but no rocking, no walking, no patting. He was crying, rolling, hands trashing, but fell asleep within 10 min (he was tired that day)
11-11.40pm HORRIBLE. Woke up, cried, vomited, struggled to break free from me, so I ended up leaving him on the bed. Kept crawling towards me. His cries sounded like pleas for me to take him out of this misery. I sat there and when he comes towards me, I hug him, sing to him. But the way he was rolling around seemed like he was having withdrawal symptoms, so so so many times I wanted to just pick him up and start rocking him. It took the last shred of mental resilience to keep reminding myself that - this is for the better. He finally fell asleep 40 mins later, sobbing away.....
6.35-7.05am woke up, cried, refuse to be carried stationary, kept pushing away and rolling away
7.05-7.10am gave milk, drowsy, fell asleep
8.45am wake up. Stick to sleep distribution schedule for naps in the day. (I actually found this to be particularly useful. 'Naps are to re-energize baby's brain so he can continue learning.')

Night #2
10pm bedtime routine, milk, story book, rolled onto bed, lullaby, tossed and fell asleep (!!!)
11.10pm stirred, cried, rolled around. Fell asleep after a while.
5.45am woke up, crying badly, gave milk
6.15am Fell asleep after lying n tossing in bed

Night #3 - similar to Night #2
Night #4 - slight struggle cos I moved him from our bed to his mattress bed (it's a kids sized mattress with soft edges). Instead of sitting and watching him, I ended up lying beside him as he rolls around the bed, hugging him from time to time, lullabying at the same time.

And I never looked back. 

Well, it's always easier to say things on hind sight, but this is really one of the best parenting decisions we've ever made. There's still a lingering thought that maybe he would have outgrown it. But from what I observed in the last 5-6 months, his problem was really not knowing how to fall back to sleep, and this is something that needs to be taught. 

Which brings me to my main message of this post - no matter what experts, experienced parents, books, forums say, ultimately we know our child and ourselves best, and we know what we can live with and what we cannot. There are so many schools of thought in so many different aspects of parenting, that there is no right and wrong. It's what suits your family best. (this is quite a good read)

In our case, we started being very against any sleep training which involved crying. Our philosophy has always been to give Cayden as much love and attention as possible. But his sleeping problems were interfering in his (some days he looks tired even after a nap) and mommy's daily activities. We had to act on it. But not to the extreme of leaving him in his cot alone, or PUPD, or moving the chair further and further away from the cot each night. So I cherry-picked the solutions - from different sources! Well, the truth is 6/10 times, he'll still struggle and fight me when I try an put him to bed. He has to be physically restrained to stop him from crawling out of his bed, and to make him lie down. I realized I didn't need him to be so independent to the extent of putting him in bed and he'll fall asleep alone. I realized I really don't mind (in fact may begin to enjoy if he has less of those struggling times) lying beside him as he tosses and turns and falls asleep. :)

This could be the first valuable lesson we are imparting to him, with many more to come. I just hope the rest aren't as tough as this one... 

First formula!

*gasp* Cayden had his first 1 oz of formula - at 10 months old! He didn't seem to detect a change in taste, maybe cos the quantity is really little. Fingers crossed his digestive tract reacts well to it!

Genesis & Sleep training woes

Friends who have known me for a while must be going 'oh no, not another one of Cindy's blogs!' I've dabbled in fashion, wedding planning and now babies? (When I started Happify, Cal predicted I'll move into kids stuff once we graduate to the next phase of our lives. And we (he) know he's always right.) Well, I guess writing is therapeutic for me. Just like taking a bath or shower. Like looking at the rain with a cup of hot tea in your palms. (yes, I'm an introvert. Ask Myers-Briggs.) But time is a luxury these days, and any 'free' time I have is spent running errands (looking for baby stuff), catching winks (though hardly possible), or getting a hair cut (need to go to work looking less like a mad woman).

Genesis
But I digress. This was originally meant to keep a record of all the useful information (e.g. tips and theories), as well as Cayden's developmental milestones (which I have unfortunately added none, but luckily Cal has been religiously noting in his iPhone). I thought a blog would be convenient to sort by categories or chronologically when I need to refer to them again at #2. And I was recently inspired by Mommy May and Mommy Addie. I enjoy reading their posts, their journey, their thoughts, that I felt the urge to start writing (again).

Twinkle twinkle little star
Specifically, I was inspired by May's Sleep Doctor post. May and I attended a sleep training workshop which left us (and the other attendees) with heavy hearts. (Read all about what we learnt in May's post!) If you notice the labels on the right, 'Sleeping' has been tagged most. The past 9+ months, I have battled constantly with Cayden's sleeping and feeding problems. (More on feeding in a separate entry.) We have read countless of websites, forum discussions, books (kinda)...tried all means - pacifier (he belched), sarong (he thought it was a swing for playing), introduce comfort toy (he started eating it), co-sleeping (didn't work). Nothing could get Cayden to sleep other than nursing and/or rocking.

Colic
It started when he was 3+/4 weeks old. Every evening, he'd cry non-stop from 7-10pm. NOTHING could soothe him. We changed, I nursed, we carried, we rocked, we burped, we lullabied, we played (supposedly) soothing music. We gave gripe water/rid wind, tried ru yi oil, but nothing worked. For about 6-8 weeks, the least we could do was to carry and rock him until he cried himself to sleep. Mommy cried with him many times too.

A workout?
But that formed a habit. For me, I thought of it is as a workout (he was still about 4-5kg only). I had kilos to shed anyway, and I believed he'll outgrow the rocking at some point. At that time, 20-30mins of rocking him to sleep meant he could sleep through from 10pm-5am. Hmm pretty worth it I thought. Sleep training had never crossed my mind.

Sleep-deprived mommy is a grumpy wife
Then at about 16-18 weeks, he suddenly started waking up at night. At first it was every 4 hours, then every 3 hours, then every TWO hours.... I couldn't take it... I had already started work then, and was barely able to cope with changes in schedules, balancing mommyhood and work, but also lack of sleep?! Bedtime routine didn't seem to help. Since if coincided with me going back to work, I thought it could be because he needed more mommy-ness. So we started co-sleeping.

It didn't work either. I waited and waited for him to outgrow it. Each day goes by and I get wearier and wearier. Sleep depravation had been used as a means of torture for prisoners of war. I was Cayden's POW.

I ploughed the internet, consulted friends - 'let him cry la.' Really? 'Ya, we did it. It's painful for a few nights, but after that it's peace.' How many nights? 'Yours 6 months ah, maybe 5-7 nights?' We resisted CIO. He had cried enough during his colic episodes. We didn't want him to go through this kinda of emotional trauma again, and searched for 'cry-less' solutions. There was once I spent hours at Kino shelves flipping through sleep help books, hoping to buy a whole stack. Alas, every single one of them involved crying. I went home empty-handed that day.

Desparate
We carried on rocking him to sleep (no it's not a JUST workout anymore at 9kg), waking up every 2 hours with him, until I knew I was reaching my breaking point. I was desperate. I need to retain my sanity. I needed more help. That was when I stumbled upon the sleep training workshop. I asked May to join me cos she's tried CIO on Ewan too.

To be continued...
This post is getting too long and my eyes are glazing over... In the next post, I'll go straight to the point with the workshop review!

Night peeps

A heavy heart

I knew this was an eventuality. I knew this day would come. But still, it was with a heavy heart as I took down that tin of formula from the shelf. 

Nestle NAN HA for >10 months

Breastfeeding has indeed been quite a journey for me. It started even before I was pregnant - I knew I wanted to give my baby(s) the most natural source of nutrients. (I will not turn this into a 'Breast is Best' post.) However, this nagging feeling that I may not have enough kept worrying me (especially not being particularly well-endowed!). 

When we found out I was expecting, I read up about the topic and spoke to mothers. These are some of the things I learnt:

1. Engorgement is PAINFUL
2. Why pump? Just latch.
3. You WILL have milk, it's just a matter of when
4. Perseverance is the key to success

Armed with these pearls of wisdom, I invested in a Medela Freestyle, and reminded Cal to knock sense into me if I ever wanted to give up at any point of time or for whatever reason. 

On 3 May, 4.31pm, baby Cayden was welcomed into the world! After being cleaned and swaddled, I brought him close to me, and he immediately started rooting! 'That's a good sign!' I thought. Little was I to know that was the beginning of Cayden's ad-tit-tion (addiction to tits, a termed which Daddy coined, which I have shared more in another post.)

*warning single men without sisters who breastfeed should not read on*

I will add a 5th point to my list above: The first month is the WORST. Well, at least MY first month was the worst. My supply came on day 3 before we discharged from the hospital - I was sooo relieved! But then after that, I found I couldn't nap/sleep for >3 consecutive hours cos it was either my own biological clock going 'riiiing riiing, moo moo time', or the real baby is hungry. Since the baby can't be ignored, I tried ignoring the moo moo clock, but it was impossible to sleep with two rock-hard, painful lumps. 

Week 2 was more of the same of week 1. Tiring, painful, doubts (why did Cayden puke? is he latching correctly?)... It was so difficult I really really wanted to give up.

Week 3 ok I'll give it my last shot. Get a lactation consultant to help and see what I'm doing wrong. Turns out the only 'problem' I had was that my supply was too abundant - I was filling up too quickly (hence engorgement) and my flow was too fast for newborn Cayden (that's why he pukes cos he can't drink fast enough). Solution (don't laugh) - chilled cabbages. For application, not consumption.

Week 4 And we thought the worse was over, until Cayden was diagnosed with breastmilk jaundice. After 5 days of home photo-therapy and 3D2N of hospitalization, we had to decide between (a) wait it out for is to clear naturally at 8 weeks, or (b) give formula for 5 days but risk him not wanting to latch after that. It was tempting to go for (b) becos we were guaranteed that the jaundice will go away after 5 days. But what if he didn't want to latch after that? What if he's not getting the best nutrients? On the flip side, I had to endure his little yellow face (and body) every day reminding me how I am the cause of his jaundice.

We went with (a) and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Tomorrow Cayden will create new history by having his first taste of formula. With this journey coming to a (near) end, I look back with mostly fond memories despite the bumpy ride. For the sake of all those antibodies and quiet times we have together, yup, it's more than worth it :)

Failed Chicken + Carrot Pasta :(

When it comes to introducing solids or new foods to Cayden, I'm generally more excited than him. Since his first Bellamy cereal meal (which didn't end so well cos he had bloody stools/cow's milk allergy), I took a liking to Bellamy. Perhaps it's the cute baby picture or the organic brand positioning that appeals to me.

Anyhow, I was excited to find out that baby pasta is quite commonly fed to babies around 7/8 months, especially in the western world. I was even more excited to stumble upon Bellamy's brown rice pasta for 7+ months babies.

Excited me decided Cayden should try it since he's not been hot about porridge. Maybe pasta would entice him more?

So off I went to buy the chicken breast, chop the carrots, boil the pasta. After running between the stove and crawling Cayden, then blender and crawling Cayden, it's done!

I tried it and it's quite yummy indeed!
Alas, Cayden didn't like it one bit :( it seems to be too gluey, so i must find a way to make it more watery.. wasted mummy's efforts... Better luck next time mummy!

Finding a new fruit for Cayden - Apricots!

I was so close to introducing the power fruit blueberry to Cayden last week, only to find out that he could still be at risk of being allergic to it :( 

"In the book, Managing Food Allergy and Intolerance, blueberries are recommended between 6-9 months old. There are also several other pediatric allergy books that say that blueberries are ok from 6-9 months old as well. Please note that some studies show that blueberries "are, however, rarely allergenic" but "may trigger allergic reactions. Most common symptoms, if any: swelling of the lips and eyelids, itchy swollen rash." The odds are great that your baby will not have an adverse reaction to blueberries if they are introduced between 8-9 months old."
http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/blueberrybabyfoodrecipes.htm#.UOcQFm_qmwQ

So i went in search of another power fruit and found apricots! 
- yummilicious - CHECKED
- nutritious - CHECKED
- easily available - CHECKED
- easily prepared - CHECKED

Will start with pure apricot puree and maybe plus cereal, before moving onto more exciting concoctions :)

1. Apricots + bananas
2. Apricot + carrot
3. Apricots + brown rice + chicken breast (8-10 months)
4. Others http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/apricot-baby-food-recipes.html