Breastfeeding Puzzle

I’ve been breastfeeding Sze Yi for 15 months since birth, and then another 8 or 9 months after Sze Juin was born. But she’s still always sick. Even though she is just 3 years old now, but she’s been hospitalized 3 times – 1st time when she’s 5 months old due to acute bronchitis, 2nd time when she’s 35 months due to Hand Foot & Mouth Disease (HFMD), and now at 38 months due to pneumonia. What went wrong?

One thing I couldn’t fathom is that in theory, a breastfeeding child would have a better immune system, less tend to be infected and less prone to fall sick. But Sze Yi was the only child from her school to get the HFMD recently, and mind you, she’s still taking my breast milk. So do you know what agony that I’ve been thru now, trying to sort out this puzzle that has boggled my mind since a long time ago? Why breastfeeding didn’t work for me? Or my children? Ah yes, every time Sze Yi fell sick, a virus of some kind will surely lurk around – as if trying to find the right timing to attack my baby too. Sze Juin has been having fever the very night after Sze Yi was admitted to hospital last Saturday. We were worried because pneumonia could spread too. But it seemed that it’s another virus (the paed suspected Roseola since there were a few patients having this now). Maybe she got it from the hospital because we took her along when we brought Sze Yi to see the doctor.

Why, oh why? Now I felt embarrassed to tell people that I’m actually breastfeeding my children. I was always given the puzzled look – why are you still so adamant in breastfeeding and yet your children kept falling sick? Ah, maybe because I didn’t fully breastfeed Sze Yi? But hubby pointed out that it could be due to other reasons - like her sleeping habit (most likely the late night sleeps), her food intake, lifestyle, etc, etc? Or, can I just blame this all on the parents’ genes? Me & hubby, of course! Arrgghhh… I don’t know. No one could give me an answer, I’m sure. Maybe it’s a combination of all. Or maybe it’s due to my diet - I eat outside food a lot.

No time to ponder over this now – there’re still so many things to attend to. And more hospital trips to make. For now, I would try to think positive as how my mom put it, "Maybe it could be worse if you didn't breastfeed them in the first place?" I just hope this will end soon, and things will be very much better.

My Long Awaited Ring Sling

Finally my DIY ring sling is ready - just right before CNY. It took me nearly 2 months! Thanks to shooi who provided me the instructions, I finally could make my own DIY ring sling. Ah, but it's a bit too late coz initially I was thinking that this could be quite handy when it comes to doing housework while carrying my baby around. Now, she's big enough to 'help' me with the housework too, so I have to be very careful in case she put out her hands and caused accidents.

It started when I took my MIL to Kamdar to buy cloths. I quickly called shooi to ask about the measurements that I should get. Ah, it's very easy - just need to get two pieces of 2.5m long cloth since I wanted to do a reversible sling. I think the standard cloth's width is ~45 inch, so I would have to cut that to 30 inch when I sew the 2 pieces together. I finally found the design that I can accept (it's very limited since I was looking for 100% cotton cloth). Green was not really what I have in mind actually, but I couldn't find other matching designs that I like. I got these two different designs, 2.5m each.

How to sew them together? I didn't know how to sew. I decided to ask my MIL's tailor for help. MIL could sew for me, but she didn't have a sewing machine and was afraid that the thread will give way when carrying a heavy load, so she advised me to get her tailor's help. That's why it took sooooo looong to complete. Coz her tailor was really busy with all the CNY orders from her clients and I didn't feel nice to 'chase' after her. Another friend of mine was really nice to borrow me her Moms in Mind ring sling to try it on.

That time I haven't learn how to use it, so the way I tied it could be wrong. And that time also happened to be the same time when I was to take my MIL to her tailor, so I showed her tailor what I wanted since she had not made a sling before. I passed her my rings as well, which I ordered online from PeekarooBABY in Malaysia. It's slightly more expensive than a US site, but since there was a possibility of the rings being lost in the shipping, I was advised by shooi to order from Malaysia instead. I decided to have the rings sewn in so that it would be a better support to hold the baby. Here's how it look like...

A breastfeeding colleague showed me how to use it. Here's how it's supposed to be put together.

Pulling one of the sides can adjust the inner layer while pulling at the other side would adjust the outer layer while carrying the baby. It's so cool... and the sling can be adjusted to suit each individual's height accordingly. More details on how to use it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPoa1DoCilQ

The bigger picture...

Hubby couldn't understand why I wanted such thing - he said I look like a maid (LOL!) . Ah, but the kids love it! Sze Yi has been asking me to carry her in it (she's 14kg, luckily the ring can take up to 15kg). And Sze Juin has enjoyed sleeping in it while I did my shopping. I had to cover the rings with the long tail because Sze Juin just loved to bite it.

See, even someone who doesn't know how to sew could make her own DIY ring sling. I did it for fun, and saved about 30% compared to if I buy one.

War with the Mossies

I’ve been an easy target of mosquitoes since small. Every time I got bitten, it’s just me who got it even though there were other people with me. Is my blood sweeter than the rest? Some said it could be due to what I eat – if I eat more meat, then that could attract mosquitoes. But how true is that, I didn’t know. I personally eat more vegetables than meat since small – well, except for now when I’m breastfeeding. I need to have a bigger portion of meat to satisfy my hunger pangs.

Then, when Sze Yi came along, the mosquitoes changed their target. Yes, she would get all the bites, even though we’re sleeping on the same bed. In school, her teacher also told me – “well, only she alone got it”. Sigh…. I wonder what grudge do these little mossie have on us?

So during this dengue outbreak, I finally declare war on them. I used to have the electrical mosquito coils in both my bedroom and the kids’. But that is not effective enough. I need to use this together with the mosquito repellent patch which I stick to my daughters’ pajamas before they sleep. So, when a colleague introduced this photo catalyst based mosquito trap to me, I quickly jumped at it. Furthermore, his friend was selling at a lower price than what was published on the website. How does it work? Well, it’s based on 2 principles:

i. Mosquitoes can easily locate a person by sensing the carbon dioxide & temperature that he/she sheds.
ii. They are very sensitive to near ultraviolet rays.

The heat & near ultraviolet rays produced by the fluorescent lamps installed inside, as well as carbon dioxide produced when the near ultraviolet rays are radiated onto the Titanium Dioxide coating help to attrack the mosquitos. The mosquitoes would be captured in the cone-like shape, and prevented from flying out by the strong current of the ventilator.


So, is it effective? Well, I only managed to catch 2-3 mosquitoes during the first 3 days, but after that, I caught 20 the next day, and 7 the day after. I still need to use this mosquitoes patch on my kids, but over time, I find that there were less bites.

My colleagues claimed that they could catch about 10 mosquitoes per day, and it's very effective. Well, either my little abode is not that infested with these mossies, or my technique is not that good enough, I still need more days to figure out. In the meantime, I also tried other tricks to get rid of these little mossies - like applying lotion on my daughters skins, which was claimed effective by one of my breastfeeding gang.

Hopefully, I can finally say goodbye to these little mossies.

An Essential Blogging Tool?

It's a peaceful Sunday afternoon. Both the kids were sleeping, so guess what I was thinking of doing? Yes, blogging! It's been ages since I last blogged, and this seemed to be a very good timing.

While I was engrossed with my blogs, suddenly I heard my little baby crying. Ah, she could never sleep long. Her Jie Jie was still in deep slumberland, but she's up already! I quickly changed her diapers and played with her for awhile. Then, I remembered I just bought this new tool, but haven't let her tried it yet.

I quickly sliced some pear, and put them into it before letting her suck on it. Not long later, I have about 30 minutes of blissful blogging before she started losing her patience! Aha, but that's more than I could ask for :)

I survived!

Yay – I’m back! To the good old days of blogging again. Ok, I guessed I won’t really spend too much time writing about ‘past tense’ stuffs here. If not, I won’t be getting anyway near ‘present tense’. Unless for those things that I felt are really important for my own records.

Ok, I really wanted to blog about this because it will motivate me later, when the going gets tough again – even though it’s a past tense. Ah well, we normally blog about past tense yes? If it has not happened, then how to blog? Ok ok, let me clarify. I have a habit of blogging about really old stuffs and back-dating them. So I will minimize them starting now, in order for me to keep going.

This happened recently – exactly 1 week before CNY. MIL had a fall and can’t walk much after that. Luckily I have a babysitter so I have no worries for Sze Juin. But I’ve stopped Sze Yi from going to school since the beginning of Jan. At first, I’m thinking of starting my CNY leave 1 week earlier, but I’m afraid I might need to take ‘forced leaves’ later due to the bad economy situation. So I called up Sze Yi’s ex-school’s principal and asked her if I can leave Sze Yi there for 1 week – full day. She’s been very nice to say yes. And I even asked her if I can have her dinner packed as well – because I didn’t feel like going home during lunch time to cook (I used to do this when I sent her for full day at school last time). I still have a lot of other last minute stuffs to do this time – and I haven’t done my CNY shopping yet. So I have to fully utilize my time.

Ok, so here’s how I managed to survive – handling the two kids alone. Even though it’s not really a great accomplishment (I know many SAHM or Stay At Home Moms would think that this is just kacang putih job), but I still feel very proud of it because my kids are not trained to be so ‘kuai’ since small. I’ve had people helping me all this while – either MIL or hubby will take care of one while I take care of the other one. That's why they are used to getting full attention most of the time.

After work, I will crawl (yes, the traffic is really bad at such peak hour) all the way to Greenlane to fetch Sze Yi from school. I normally ate my dinner on the way before I fetch her and tapau for hubby. It took about 1 hour for me before I finally reached home. I would quickly took my bath and tried to either feed or bathe Sze Yi before I went to fetch Sze Juin from the babysitter’s place. Normally, I couldn’t accomplish all this in just half-hour’s time, so after I fetched Sze Juin back, I would continue feeding Sze Yi (she takes ages to eat, run here, run there and mess the whole house with her rice, etc). I have to run after her to clean up and coaxed her to quickly finish up. I will leave Sze Juin in the play tent, of course. Sze Yi also went in and out too, in between feeds, so I have to be very careful in case Sze Juin fell out when Sze Yi opened the zipper of the play tent.

Sze Yi enjoying her packed dinner from school so far, I managed to make her sit there for about 10 minutes before she ran around again.

After that, I would proceed to bathe Sze Yi. How? I would wheel Sze Juin in her stroller, positioned her exactly in front of the bathroom so that she could see her sister in full view, and convince Sze Yi that her sister would love to see her taking a bath (it’s really hard to get Sze Yi to bathe, she’ll scream and yell, esp when it comes to washing her hair). So with both girls excited with these ‘new’ experience, I managed to bathe Sze Yi while keeping Sze Juin entertained.

Then, there are the floor to clean (from Sze Yi’s mess during the feed), the dirty piles of laundry to wash, bottles & pump to be washed & sterilized, etc. I would either carry Sze Juin while doing this, or put her in a stroller until she lost her patience. I would also play with them in between when I'm folding the cleaned laundry. Nope - ironing will definitely come later.

So, by the time hubby came home, it’s about time to put them to sleep. My, I think they have never slept so early before. I made them sleep by about 10pm++ the latest, which I considered was my greatest accomplishment. Of course hubby helped after he had his dinner and bath.

I guess we tend to be more alert when we know that we have to do more. Even though I have to wake up earlier to prepare for the day, I still find that it’s not as tiring as I thought. In normal days, I won’t be able to wake up this early. I also felt that I accomplished more than normal days. I managed to prepare nutritious breakfast for hubby, myself and Sze Yi in the mornings, which I hardly did last time. I even managed to slot in some flash card sessions with Sze Yi during her feeds (I hardly read flash cards with her in normal days). But I can’t deny that I’ve neglected Sze Juin a bit – didn’t spend so much time with her, too focused on getting the chores done instead. But in a way, I’ve trained her to be more independent – can play on her own which I think is very important for her own development as well.

Well, I guess when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. I can now pat myself on the shoulder and say Bravo Mommy! Just like how Sze Yi would say it :)