Coo... Anggu...

These are baby's first words, when he turned 7 weeks old.

Junior's Eye Development

Baby began to be able to focus and his eyes work together when he was about 6 to 7 weeks old. It's a joy to see him look at us intently and sometimes even smile at us. After several weeks of seeing through us, we're finally getting some response from him. Hooray!

Comfort

Today is the first time I gave junior comfort feeding and I'm surprised. He had never needed comfort feeding in the first 6 weeks of his life. He had his last feed for the day at 12am. However, he didn't go to sleep like he usually would but continued crying for no apparent reason. Diaper - checked. Hunger - checked. Cuddling - checked. I decided to carry him in bed and get to sleep with him in my laps when he started rooting. It was a struggle for me as I've just started working on my bm supply and nipples were getting sore. Grudgingly allowed him to suck for a few minutes till he unlatched by himself. Observed a little. He went to sleep in my bed without me carrying him. Boy, was I glad! Put him in his little sleeper in between Berry and me. He struggled a little but eventually went to sleep. Thank God!

Teary Baby

Junior left eye has been teary on and off since last Thur. His left eyelid had a little, red bump on Thur which went off on Fri morn. Today, his left eye went teary again, but with no red bump. Wonder if this is normal. I've never seen him tear before, despite so much crying.

Sleep Terror

Of late, baby seems to be refusing to sleep in his cot. He'll howl and cry when he realises it's time to sleep when he's put in the cot. After his last feed for the night, we'd clean his face, change his diaper, sometimes read to him, before saying good night to him.

That's when the horror begins. We'd switch off the light and the noises start, culminating into loud cries.

We resolve this by giving him the pacifier. However, I'm really worried about how to wean him off the pacifier at night. My friend said, "Think about it when the time comes." When will it come??

[BB is still like that till now, in his 10th week. Sigh...]

Yellow Bear Play Mat and My Son

Don't they blend well together? We got the play mat cheap at a Motherhood exhibition because this was the display set. What does it matter. Good as new. Lovely.

On Your Tummy, Get Set, Go

I read that it's good to put baby on his tummy from the second week onward to allow him to practise supporting his head with his neck, to strengthen his neck muscles. Junior had his first practice in week 4.

Brain Food

All important sleep, everyone needs. A miracle happened today. After enduring night feeds that occur around 3am everyday, junior slept through the night from 11plus pm through to 6plus am. That's a whopping 7 hours after 5 weeks of junior's arrival!

Read that from the 6th week onward, newborns will start to sleep longer. How true. Junior's development is on track. Ha.

Feeding Woes

I never thought breastfeeding could be so difficult. At least the books and internet info did not prepare me for the trauma I'm experiencing -- sore nipples, bleeding, infection, pain... It was ever-so-frequently reiterated that if the latch-on is correct, the mother should not feel any pain. I did not understand this because it is always painful.

For the 1st week of breastfeeding, my nipples started to bleed, get sore and very painful. I was in a dilemma whether to let baby drink blood-stained breast milk. I spent $100 getting a lactation consultant (LC) to make a home visit. Some useful advice were given and I thought things were getting better. I also started to express the milk. However, LC's advice was not to feed from the bottle lest he doesn't latch on properly anymore. Use spoon or cup feeding. It was really difficult because baby has only known suckling all his 1st week of life. It was a struggle.

On the 2nd week, we visited the PD for baby's wheezing and found that he wasn't gaining enough weight -- only 100g in a week when the norm is 200g. PD suggested supplementing with formula milk. I was thrown into a greater dilemma. FM became the easy way out when I was too tired. Naturally, the bm supply was affected.

And so, it has been like that since. The fm quantity per feed kept increasing while my bm amount expressed remained more or less stagnant with one major regression when I first introduced fm to baby. I was depressed over this. When he was in my womb, my placenta couldn't supply enough for a while. Now that he's out, my bm supply isn't enough to sustain him that I've to resort to fm. How in the world can I get the bm to increase so I can proudly say I'm doing full breastfeeding to my son???

Till now, I'm still trying to express bm hoping (against all hope, perhaps) the supply would come. I bought lactation milk powder for nursing mums, fenugreek capsules (known to help increase bm), drinking lots of low fat milk, and lots of soup and other fluids. No great improvement yet. I suspect the biggest factor is my lack of sleep. Bm cannot be 'manufactured' adequately. I heard it gets manufactured while the mum is sleeping. So I'm working on this. Tough (because of all the chores to be done for baby), but I'm hanging on.

Jaundice

Junior developed jaundice when he was about 3 days old. I was alerted to this by the lactation consultant when I asked her to visit to advise on breastfeeding. She advised to continue breastfeeding bb as breastmilk helps alleviate the condition. Hopefully the condition doesn't turn worse, else the paediatrician might send him for phototherapy, ie, be hospitalised. Thank God I started out bfeeding bb. As it turned out, it wasn't a serious case for him and when we visited the next day, the paediatrician told us to sunbathe bb for about 10mins between 8 and 9 am in the morning and that'd suffice.

It was fun and tiring at the same time to have to wake up early, bathe junior and catch the 8-9am indirect sunlight to get rid of the jaundice. But it was all worth the effort.

Baby's jaundice condition finally went away almost 1 month after his birth. Thank God.