Thanks Mum

Upon reflection, I've realised how misinformed I was about motherhood before I became a mother. I know that I've always wanted to have kids and be a mother, but I really had to idea what it entailed. I now have a deeper and greater understanding of a mother's heart and this has made me appreciate my Mum a lot more.

The past few weeks has really taught me a lot about myself. I'm a real control freak and even when things are beyond your control at work, its always manageable. Handling a baby really teaches you about helplesness. The kind of helplesness that drives you to your wits end and you have no choice but to say "help me Lord" - and really mean it! This has really humbled me and taught me the true meaning of dependence. I've never really had to depend on God till now and its truly a day by day dependence for everything. I'm in constant conversation with God, although most times the conversation sounds like "please make him sleep Lord!" or "please help him burp Lord"! I'm the sort of person that wants answers - but I've learnt that sometimes, there is no answer and perhaps God doesn't want me to have the answer - at least not just yet! This is tough for a control freak, but perhaps there's no other way for me to learn these lessons unless I become a mother!

After Aunty Mei Lan left, Mum and Dad came to stay with us. Chores were split up between everyone in the house. Dad was in charge of sterilising all the bottles and feeding equipment, laundry, general hygiene and all the other "hardware" sort of things around the house. Doesn't sound like much but I guarantee you that its kept him busy enough! There's lots of laundry for a baby even if we don't use cloth nappies. Mum did everything else - the cooking, the marketing, helping me to bottle feed Marc when I'm too pooped, bathe him when I'm totally exhausted, pat him to sleep, change his diapers, etc. Handling a baby day in and day out can wear anyone's patience thin and if not for Mum, I think Marc would have been left at the local orphanage by now! She has tirelessly volunteered to help and even wakes up at night when he cries for his feeds. Thankfully, I've never made her feed him at night as yet!

Mum is a very ambitious, assertive and business-savvy type of woman. I knew she took care of me but I didn't really know what that meant till now. She never gives up on Marc, even when he's really cranky and cried for the 200th time that day. She's always willing to help and patiently plays with him and entertains him. The best part is that she's really easygoing and doesn't insist that we handle Marc in HER way, but allows us to make our own decisions as parents. I'm thankful for the many mornings that she's taken over feeding and burping Marc when I'm too tired from countless night feeds.

Both Mum and Dad return to the US on Monday and we will miss them lots!! Thanks Mum for all that you've done for me, a lot of which I haven't really understood till now. And thanks for all the help you've rendered to us in the past few weeks. Thanks for being so encouraging and telling me that I can do it as long as I've set my mind to it, which means a lot to me during moments of helplesness. Thanks for giving up the chance to eat a proper meal to take care of Marc so that I can have a proper meal. Thanks for patiently "grooming" Marc and painstakingly giving him "facials" to remove his cradle cap. Thanks for babysitting so that we can have some time alone. The fact that you and Dad managed to take care of me in my infant days without any hired help is encouragement enough for me to know that it can be done! I will miss not just the help around the house but having an adult around the house to share a decent conversation with during the day! Now we're on our own and another chapter of lessons await us in the months ahead.

Marc is growing fast and learning new things each day. He's able to army-crawl on his belly, which is amazing for a 6 week old. His arms and legs are really strong and he can flip out of your hands if your grip is not firm enough. I've dropped him several times, which didn't result in him actually hitting the ground but being suspended in mid air with whatever part of his body I still have left in my hands! His reflexes are fast and his ears are sharp, so much so that he startles at the slightest sound. He's recently started trying to converse with us and smiles lots - as long as he's full! He's still got an appetite of a monster and feels heavier each day - partly due to weight gain and partly due to arm fatigue! We're slowly getting the hang of parenthood - there's so much to learn, not just for Marc but for us!

An Unwell Baby - the next greatest challenge

Whoever said that maternity leave is a 3 month holiday is obviously a man with no kids. No mother who takes care of her kids herself would ever agree with that statement.

Baby Marc is generally good natured and easygoing...I started him on a routine recommended by Gina Ford, author of the "New Contended Baby Book". http://www.contentedbaby.com/
It advocates putting babies into a routine so that there are set sleep, feed and playtimes. I was amazed that Marc actually woke and fed naturally in accordance with the recommended times, and managed to sleep for a 4 hour stretch at night. That was until Sunday.

He got over tired and didn't manage to nap during his afternoon nap which meant that he got super cranky in the evening. This resulted in lots of crying, which may or may not have led to lots of wind in the tummy. He was inconsolable from Sunday till today and between Mum, Dad, the Husband and me, we've been taking turns to console him and put him to sleep. We've also been using colic drops to ease his discomfort. Its heart wrenching to see your baby in obvious pain and screaming his head off, with nothing much you can do to calm him.

Still we are positive and praying that he will recover soon. Apparently they outgrow this phase when their digestive system is more mature.

Since the confinement nanny left, my free time is now a luxury. My days are a blur of feeds, small snatches of times for meals, going to the loo and showering when someone else is tending to him. Still, its important to see the positive side of things. Motherhood trains you to be patient, humble and totally dependent on God. For those husbands out there reading this - your support is absolutely essential to your wife's sanity. Don't think that looking after the baby is "her job" - its a 24 hour job with no lunch breaks, no smoke breaks and no job scope! You must offer to help so that she can take a nap or even pee during the day.

Here are some gift ideas for those of you thinking of buying your friend who is a new Mum something (disclaimer - only applies of the Mum is looking after baby herself, otherwise some items will be redundant).

1) A Waterproof Apron - very useful for baths. Baby normally pees on Mummy just before or just after entering his bath. This will save Mummy less of a laundry hassle.

2) A Massager that can be operated single handedly and without the help of another human being - sore necks and backs are a norm for mum's, whether breastfeeding or not. Imagine holding baby, 6-8 times a day for 30minutes at a stretch, with neck craned downwards towards baby while he feeds. This is a SUPER gift. Don't bother getting a spa voucher, she wouldn't have time to go out anyway.

3) A Breastfeeding pillow - a MUST for breastfeeding mums.

4) A voucher for Nursing clothes - a MUST for breastfeeding mums so that she can feed baby easily in public

5) An IPOD - I discovered its use recently. Good gift for breastfeeding Mums as listening to music whilst looking at babies pictures encourages letdown when expressing milk. To read more about letdown, go to:
http://www.babyworld.co.uk/information/baby/breastfeeding/breastfeeding_early_days.asp#Let-down

The day Aunty Mei Lan went home was a sad day for me. I had a short spell of feeling very depressed cos she has been such a great help. I think she grew attached to Marc as well and gave him an angpow before she left. I admit there was a twinge of envy as I thought to myself - she gets to sleep for 8 hours tonight. But that was quickly replaced with the depression again. My first concern was - what do I do with night feeds? I have been expressing breast milk at 3 hour intervals at night and leaving them in the fridge for her to bottle feed Marc so that I can get some rest. How does waking up at 3 hour intervals equate to more rest you say? Well, feeding time is usually an hour - by the time he's finished drinking and burping. Expressing milk can be as fast as 15 minutes - that's a whole 45 minutes more sleep, which equates to A LOT!

That's when I decided - Marc really needs a routine because I can't be waking up to feed him based on a demand feeding schedule. That's 1 hour feeding time plus additional time to express milk - I might as well not sleep at night! The other great push factor for getting him into a routine is our ability continue to have a life! I can't see how being held hostage by his feeding demands as something healthy, especially if we want to be able to continue serving in Church and for me to go back to work after maternity leave. Plus we never really know what's wrong when he cries, is he hungry, is he tired, is he unwell? With a routine, its easy to tell because you know exactly how much sleep he needs and whether he's had enough and how much milk he needs and whether he's still hungry. It also means we can actually tell people when is a good time to drop by for a visit, or when we can come out to meet them for a meal, etc.

I may not be able to update my blog so regularly now that the confinement nanny has gone home...but I will still try so stay tuned for more updates!

Motherhood 101

Nothing you read or hear ever prepares you for motherhood, so I'm going to come up with my own Motherhood 101, in the hope that it will help first time Mums out there. These are the things they never told you in prenatal class and the book "What to Expect When You're Expecting." Now that I'm hitting the one month mark, I kind of feel qualified to give advice on motherhood!! This is what I've learnt in the past 4 weeks.

1) When they say you will be tired in the first few weeks, they mean you will be so tired, you will hit the tired barrier, after which you will be running on adrenaline and sheer willpower alone. The tiredness never goes away, you just get used to it.

2) You will get some form of the blues so make sure your partner is prepared for it. Recognise it for what it is, have a good cry, speak up about how you feel and realise that it will get better.

3) EVERYONE has an opinion and view on how baby should be taken care of and they are absolutely certain that their view is the only right view. Be prepared for it and don't let it affect you. It will usually make your blues worse if you take it to heart. Learn how to discern and sift through all advice wisely.

4) When you walk on the street with your baby, many strange aunties will come up to you and tell you that you are either carrying your baby the wrong way or not dressing him up with sufficient clothes, even in the 34degree Singapore heat.

5) You are not a bad mother, just a new one. (Courtesy of the Husband who has given me tons of assurance)

6) Don't feel bad about outsourcing - if there are people willing to care for your baby so that you can take a break, accept it!

7) The best way to increase your milk supply is to do something you like and stop focusing on the supply. For me, it involved getting out of the house with the Husband and leaving baby with the confinement nanny for a few hours.

8) The malay jamu wraps really work! Get a good and skilled therapist, the full body massage helps ease those aches and pains from 2 hourly breastfeeding sessions and from constantly straining your next to look downwards at your baby.

9) Babies cry all the time, don't freak out.

10) Talk to your friends to vent and don't be afraid to ask for help and advice from other Mums. It helped keep me sane.

Breastfeeding - the greatest challenge

I am one of those people who was bent on exclusive breastfeeding for my baby before he was born. I read up a lot, spoke to many breastfeeding mums and psychoed myself into being a milk machine. When Marc was born, I breastfed him in the labour ward, even though a second dose of the anasthetic was given to me through my epidural and I felt like throwing up, along with getting the shivers cos the silly nurse overdosed me. Marc is a good sucker - to put it crudely - he latched on pretty quickly and had no problems sucking.

I told the nurses in the hospital that I wanted to breastfeed, so during my 2 night stay in the hospital, baby Marc was wheeled into the room in his plastic tub every 3 hours for a feed. I read that at that stage, I don't actually have any milk, but the body produces colostrum, which is high in antibodies and nutrients needed by the baby. These regular feeds are necessary to stimulate milk production, but it also meant that I got zero sleep, coupled with the flood of visitors during the daytime.

By the time I arrived home, I was already running on adrenaline - the sheer exhaustion is indescribable. The closest thing to it was when I didn't sleep in a 48 hour period during my Year 12 Maths Method project. Even that is peanuts compared to the early days of breastfeeding.

When we arrived home, Marc just wouldn't settle - I would let him suck till my nipples started blistering, then bleeding. All my pro-breastfeeding friends told me this was normal and to just bear with the pain till my nipples toughened up. The Husband was getting worried as he remembered pictures from our antenatal class where an overzealous mum let her baby suck for so long that she got such sore nipples that were infected and she could no longer breastfeed. Still I persisted.

On the first night back Marc's lips started to peel and he just wouldn't sleep at all. We were getting worried and he wouldn't stop crying - a good friend who's a second time Mum and successful breastfeeder told me to just supplement him with a little formula milk. The key is to get him to suck so that milk production is stimulated, but to stop after 15 minutes on each breast and just top up with a little formula. That did the trick and he finally slept.

Still I persisted and told the confinement nanny to bring him to me at nights whenever he cries. She told me outright that I would be totally exhausted by the second week but I insisted and said that I need to do this in order for my milk supply to come in.

And it came in all of a sudden on the Saturday after I came home from hospital in the form of breast engorgement. The pain is terrible - feels like giving birth through your nipples cos the pain is like muscle cramps all over your chest. My entire chest was rock hard and I couldn't even sleep properly! This didn't help things because baby Marc couldn't get any milk out due to the engorgement. I tried massage, cold compress, warm compress, but they helped minimally. This was until my Malay massage lady arrived on Monday morning for my slimming massage and wrap. She massaged my breasts and it was excruciating - but she managed to clear all the lumps and milk started to flow! What a relief! I also learn the proper massage technique which really helped.

Still baby Marc would suck for AGES - sometimes up to an hour and still end up screaming afterwards from hunger, so we would supplement. The first 2 weeks was an emotional roller coaster. I was so bent on breastfeeding, I felt so awful everytime I had to supplement him to stop his screaming. The Husband kept telling me that if I don't get any rest, I won't have enough milk anyway. Supportive friends told me to the same thing, relax, don't worry about the supply and make sure I get enough rest. Others said to stop giving him formula totally otherwise my supply will never catch up.

Herein lies the irony - if I don't supplement, he will scream his head off, which ends ups stressing everyone out, which means getting him to latch on again after 1 hour of sucking, which means he will be sucking continously, which means I won't get any rest, which means my supply will decrease. But if I supplement, he will sleep more and suck less, which means my breasts will not receive sufficient stimulation, which means my supply will also not be enough.

I ended up pumping extra to stimulate milk production so that I would have more milk for him. I took herbal remedies like fenugreek to get more milk, ate fish every meal every day, drank green papaya and fish bone soup and became totally obsessed with my milk supply.

Then I found out that baby Marc was no ordinary baby - at 2 weeks, he was drinking enough milk for a 1 month old! I was actually producing enough milk, for a normal baby his age, but not enough for this little monster! And the strange thing is that he's not a big baby by any standards. I kept thinking that I should still be able to produce enough milk for him so I kept pumping more milk at 2 hour intervals to stimulate production, which also meant less sleep at night. I'm now paying the price of my greediness - I have a miniature version of me!! When he wants his food, he makes it very clear and screams his head off and will give everyone hell until he's satisfied. And he takes his food VERY seriously, when he drinks, he zeroes in on the nipple, gobbles it up like a crocodile and covers his face with both his tiny little hands whilst he sucks voraciously. He even gulps his milk down loudly. Its like a war - he growls and grimaces as he tries to swallow every precious drop and sighs in between when he's tired from sucking. He makes such a racket when he's feeding that everyone can hear this tiny infant at my breast!

He recently went through a growth spurt in Week 3 and everything went haywire again. We weighed him today at the doctor's and he's put on 1kg in less than 3 weeks. We realised he was fussy and upset a lot because he wasn't drinking enough milk, so we topped up with more milk and he's gone back to his 3 hourly cycle again.

The Husband has been very supportive and put up with my obsessive compulsive streak with breastfeeding - he keeps telling me that 1) milk cometh not from the east or from the west but from the Lord and 2) breast milk is better, not best. In fact if I were to stop breastfeeding he would have no qualms after seeing how much I have tried and suffered sleepless nights.

Right now I'm at the stage where I've accepted the fact that I may never have enough milk for Marc and I may have to supplement as he grows, but I've stopped feeling guilty about it. I still get up at 3-4hourly intervals at night to pump but I've also learn to let go, rest as much as I can and not stress about the supply. After trying just about everything, I'm resigned to the fact that if God wants to multiply my milk supply, He will and He can, no matter what I do using my human efforts!