YY stretches her body and then.....

My 3 weeks old baby can really moves her body that much? Check out the below picture. Originally, she was placed on the white kain lampin. The next thing I knew, she was already just an inch away from me! I know that newborn tend to stretch their body very often, so does YY. But due to that, she has actually moved her body from 1 place to another O_O This is amazing lah. But this only happen when she sleeps on my bed. If she sleeps on the baby cot or on the sofa in day time, she hardly moves an inch. When QQ was a newborn, she stretched her body a lot but has never been able to move her body like YY. 

I wonder how she did it....I can't be staying up late night to record her movement :P

Sorry for this gloomy picture, as it was taken before 7am

QQ loves her mei mei very much

So far, QQ has been playing her role as big jie jie pretty well. She sayang her mei mei very much, giving her lots of hugs and kisses till I behtahan! Sometimes overly "yit cheng" O_O Hahaha. Whenever YY makes noises or cry (crocodile tears!!) QQ will rush to YY and say "yes yes..jie jie is here, don't cry". Muahahahaha! As if YY can't live without her jie jie huh :P  Lately she even attempted to carry YY and that really scare me off! 

QQ has been assigned to monitor/detect her mei mei's poo poo action too. Each time YY passes out wind, QQ will quickly go near YY and snif snif her buttock, see got any poo smell or not :P She does it happily though :P 

1 thing which QQ surprised me was she didn't get jealous or angry when friends and relatives came to visit YY with a mini Disney baby hamper as a gift. QQ loves pressie very much. When I open the hampers, she was excited and showed the baby clothings to YY and said " mei mei you see, you got new clothes. yeah!!". Wow....I couldn't believe it. She's indeed a big jie jie already.

But there were times where QQ will merajuk a bit, especially when I was breast feeding YY. Luckily not everytime she merajuk, just once in a while only. 

QQ enjoy herself very much during this school holiday break with us. Too happy and too much of free time until she wanna experience/touch every single thing at home. Despite to our numerous warning/scolding, she happily goes up and down the staircase as she likes,  frequently sneaks into the bathroom to wash hand (play water lah tu), digging drawers and cupboards, and so many other blood boiling activities. Gosh....she really gets into our nerves everyday. After so much of scoldings, she is still repeating things that we don't allow her to do. I really behtahan her already. Sometimes I almost want to smack her. But I end up jentik her fingers instead. Whenever I say "show me your hand" or " do you want me to jentik you?", she seems to be scare of me and quickly stop her disastrous act.  

Here's what she likes to do most of the time.... cam-whoring and self-tattooing =) 

Funny faces which I adore very much

And here's something better she does, i.e. to let her play with MS Words, Paintings and some games on my net book occasionally. After she tried on it a few times, she can control the mouse very well, even manage to move the cursor pointing to some very small icon on the screen efficiently. Good eh =) QQ is a fast learner!

Her joyful holiday will end very soon, coz school will re-open in 1 week +.  My last day of confinement is on 24th Dec 2010, and coincidentally it is  also YY's fullmoon day as well as my sista's birthday! Wowee!! 3-in-1 happy day!! I've ordered Baskin Robbins ice cream cake to celebrate together. This Xmas Eve day is the most happening lah! Can't wait for de day to come.... ;)

Bepanthen ointment is good

 YY poo poo a lot, that's normal for a newborn. She'll poo while having milk too =) In and out at the same time :P But due to this, her bottom turns red....got nappy rash already. She's on kain lampin during day time, and on disposable at night. Her bottom gets rather more serious since yesterday. As soon as I notice the development of nappy rash, I've already start applying cream on her bottoms. Initially I use Drapolene Cream.

But yesterday as I was blog hopping, I read a blog about night diapering and nappy rash problem. Somebody commented that Bepanthen Ointment works so much better than Drapolene Cream. Without much hesitation, I immediately SMS HubB to get a tube for YY from the nearest pharmacy. 

It does work well!!! CL and I started to use Bepanthen Ointment on YY's bottom since yesterday night. And now, we can see the improvement on YY's bottom. Nappy rash has subsided so much. In fact, this ointment can also help to heal sore/cracked nipples, dry, chapped and cracked skin and other minor skin injuries too. 

Bepanthen Ointment is free from colourant, fragrance and preservative. Just nice for baby's delicate skin!

YY is a "happy spitter"?

As compare to QQ, YY spits the most. As of todate, YY spitted 4 times after feeding. Twice when bottle fed her, and another 2 times after I have breast fed her directly. But I would say she vomitted instead of spitting, coz all her meal came out, not a little bit. CL and I will burp her after each feeding. When bottle feed, CL burps her at least twice before she empties the bottle.  After I witnessed her 2nd vomiting, I've decided not to bottle feed her anymore. As mentioned  in my earlier post, CL loves to feed her a lot of milk. Thus her initial vomiting might due to overfeeding. She still vomits if I direct breast feed her though +_+ Really don't know what went wrong. There were once she kentut quite a lot...must be due to gassy stomach. 

My lil happy YY  

Honestly, I was quite worried when I first saw her vomitting. So I googled about infant vomitting and after I've read about it, I felt more relieved. It says that if after the baby has vomitted and she's still Ok - not fussy, not arching her back, didn't cry non stop, no breathing problem...then mommy doesn't have to be so worry. So if she meets the above, she's a "happy spitter". YY is about 3 weeks old now, and I'm not too sure whether she has gain any weight since birth. If despite to her vomitting and she's still gaining weight, then she's fine. Will see her performance next week, as she's due for her first check up upon reaching 1 month old. Yay!!! That means I'm gonna be free from confinement period next week!! I just can't wait to end this coz confinement is quite torturing for me - can only wash my hair every 5 days once (eeewww!!!), can only drink hot water (red dates wate/ginger rice water) and this make me sweat all day long!! Those rice wine chicken, urrgghh.....anything with wine/alcohol is a big no no for me. Counting down my out-of-jail day =)

Something new for my confinement

3 years ago,  I get my confinement herbal bath raw material from my uncle who stays in Bentong, Pahang. He harvested those special leaves which he planted behind his house and dried them up under the sun. Those special dried leaves will be used for each of my bathing time for the entire 1 month of confinement period. My CL will prepare the herbal bath for me, just dump in some dried leaves into a big pot and bring to boil for an hour. I really love the aromatic smell of this herbal bath. It smells exactly like 1 of the Chinese herbal tea call "pak zhi chou".  But it was quite mah fan when CL poured everything into a big pail  for me to use. CL gotto filtered out the leaves before I can use it for my shower. Messy...messy.

But this round, my herbal bath is so much more easier to prepare and hassle-less. Actually ar, I have forgotten to prepare those special dried leaves for myself. During my early pregnancy, MIL already had those dried leaves in stock. And I thought that those were for me. When I was back home from hospital, CL was asking for those dried leaves and I pointed to her the big black plastic bag. Silly me, those dried leaves were not meant for me! MIL said " eh, these are for baby's shower lah, not for you". Oooh uuhh...communication break down :P I've made the wrong assumption. CL said "don't worry, now you can get it from the kedai ubat cina, all pre-packed nicely. very convenient". So my mom went to get it for me. This special dried leaves are call "dai foong ngaai". See the nice packaging on the right side? It costs RM1.70/pack. 

This is how it looks like. Remove it from the transparent plactic bag and put it into the pot, boil for about an hour. With this packaging, CL doesn't need to filter the dried leaves anymore. But there were times where the whole pack koyak while boiling...don't know why.

Another MUST DO thing is to drink red dates water as substitute for plain water. According to CL, drinking plain water will cause gassy stomach wor O_O Really?? But last time I took hot plain water also, coz I had gastric after taken the red dates water for 2 weeks. And this round, I had the same problem too. So my CL prepares ginger rice water for me instead. She'll stir fry (just heat the wok and fry without oil/water) the plain white rice and sliced ginger separately. To prepare the drink, just take a few spoon of both and pour hot boiling water into a vacuum flask. It can be served 15min later. Once I started to take this drink on alternate day with the red dates water, my gastric stopped =) The taste...not bad though. Mild ginger rice flavor.

Ginger rice water. 

All in 1 crock pot = red dates + black dates + kei zhi + dong sam + pak khei + longan + sao woo 

This drink is nice actually! but stomach can't tolerate that much +_+

My kilograms and bulging tummy - gone with the wind!

Before I give birth to YY, my last weight record was 55kg. 10days after my delivery, my weight was 45kg. Dropped 10kg already? I want those KGs desperately!!! 45kg is my ideal weight, and I don't think I can maintain it. It's in my gene, I can't gain weight normally :P I'm pretty sure by Jan 2011, I'll be back to my same old underweight reading i.e. 40kg  :( I know there are mommies out there who wanted to shed off those extra kilos soonest possible, but here I am now, recalling back my "blood sweat fats". 

But that's not all. The most amazing part was, my little bulging tummy has gone too!!! This is really out of my expectation. I remember that during QQ's time, I still can't fit into my old clothes during her full moon party due to my little bulging tummy (and not forgetting my 2 milky assets :P), which was then more like 5 month pregnant. But this round, my post natal 5mth-pregnant-tummy has vanished in such a short period of time =) Yay!! I have not even contacted my urut kakak. Save my $$$!!

My milky way life

I'm happy and blessed with abundant of BM supply for YY.  Breast feeding YY directly throughout the day and night has definitely increases my BM supply very much. But it is equally vital to invest in a good dual breast pump too.

Here's my personal review for my brand new Ardo Calypso Dual Breast Pump.

My first time using it was not really a pleasant experience, in fact I was pretty disappointed with it too. Firstly, I have never used a dual pump before, thus to handle 2 breast shields at the same time was rather mah fan, I felt. In order not to hold both breast shields for 15min, I've bought Pumpin' Pal  hands-free breast pumping strap, as recommended by my SIL. Though it is meant to ease mommy during each milk pumping activity, I still need time to get used to it coz initially I find it very troublesome. When my BM supply came, I had engorgement on the day after. I happily assembled all the gadgets to start using my breast pump right away. After using it for less than 10min, suddenly my breast pump stopped operating! The LED light was also blinking, flashing green and orange light, as indicated in the below far right picture. 

Manual book

Oooh uuhhh....something not right. I switched it off and start all over again. 10min later, the same thing happened. Duhhh....baru start using it and already malfunction?? +_+ I quickly called Mr. Tan, the 1 and only after sales service guy, for help. After explaining to him what I've experienced with the breast pump, he has advised me to bring it over to his shop so that he could inspect the breast pump motor. If it can be repaired, it will be done on the same day on the spot. HubB went over to his place in the afternoon and he came back with a brand new breast pump. Mr. Tan has replaced a new 1 for me. Honestly, I've loose my confidence on this brand

WAIT!! Maybe I've made my conclusion rather too early.  The replacement unit worked well. After using it for about 3-4 times (and till todate), my perception over this dual pump has changed, and I started to love it! The Individual Phase feature is really good.

Firstly, I will adjust the cylce speed to the max (full bar on right side) and the comfortable vacuum suction as shown in the left side. The higher the cycle, the more rapid suction I will get, just like how rapid a baby sucks the moment baby is latch on. The rapid suction will promote milk let down. In about 1min++ I will have let down feeling on both breast. 

Step 1

Once I have let down feeling, I will then change the vacuum suction and cycle as per below picture. Cycle has been reduced so that it'll be a deep suction to remove milk from breast effectively. This is the same like how a baby sucks deeply too when there's let down.

Step 2

During let down, milk will be oozing out fast. Once my milk flow starts to drip again, I will repeat Step 1 . Amazingly, I will experience another let down too! That is why I love the the Individual Phase feature on this breast pump. More let down means can collect more BM =)

I have tried all the different sizes of breast shields provided in this breast pump package, and what suits me best is the large size shield which fits with the silicon OptiFlow massage insert. 

Breast shield with OptiFlow massage insert

Initial output of my EBM using a dual breast pump

As I continue to directly BF my baby and express out my BM an hour after feeding (not for every feeding, depending how full my breasts are), my BM supply has increased dramatically. Once I've emptied both breast thru the dual breast pump, my breast will be full again within 45min later. That's fast! 

As of today, I can get this much per session (average of 6-8oz of EBM) an hour after BF my baby.
Most of the time YY only takes 1 breast. 

Best to use this type of masking tape to label your bottle of EBM.
Do not use the pre-cut sticker as it's hard to remove.

Now, I have more than 35 bottles of 3oz frozen EBM in my freezer =) Very happy with so much of frozen EBM stock!! Keep buying more and more bottles for freezing purpose, also bought some pre-sterilized BM storage bags too. I've chosen Jingle Jungle brand BM storage bag. It has double zipper lock feature.  For storage bag, I will store 6oz of EBM on each bag.

Btw, I still need to express my BM at least once (max twice) in the mid night as YY can only take from 1 breast. Thus I have to remove milk from the other breast otherwise I will not be able to sleep with the engorgement. Normally I will BF her around 9pm, then CL will bring her to our bedroom at 10pm. YY might need milk again at around 11pm-12am. Most of the time, the next feeding will be at 3.30am - 4am, subsequent feeding at 6am-7am. Thereafter, CL will take over. She'll carry YY downstairs to bath her and then bottle feed her. I will normally get up from sleep at around 9am, and I'll take over the entire feeding, depending on YY's cue.

Breast feeding VS Confinement Lady

This topic is not something new for a mommy who's in the confinement period, together with the newly hired confinement lady (CL) for a period of 1 month. It's not easy to get a CL who's well verse with facts about breast feeding. And I have to deal with 1 now.

My CL is from Ipoh and she's a good cook. She handles my baby with love and care. But when comes to feeding, she's yet another typical CL who just loves to sumbat newborn with lots and LOTS OF MILK!! This is my only complaint of her lah.

Not that she doesn't support me breast feeding YY. She will ensure me to have enough fluid throughout the day coz I will express my breast milk and also breast feed (BF) my baby whenever needed, round the clock. She prepares papaya soup for me to boost my supply. She even encourages me to let my baby sucks more often otherwise baby might reject my boobies if she's on bottle too much. Impressive!! HOWEVER, she made few statements and even materialize it and that really drives me up the wall.

"Oh, baby is hiccuping. MUST feed water"

Before my breast milk supply came, YY was on formula milk. And at that point of time, I did allow her to feed YY a little bit of water. But as soon as YY on full breast milk, I have reminded her not to feed any water, which she fully agreed too. But when YY hiccups a bit, I caught her feeding YY with some plain water. I gently reminded her again not to do so. I told her that all I did was just putting her in sitting position and stroke her back for a while. Within seconds, no more hiccup! So no need water! If hiccup persists, I will just BF her a littl while and it's over.

" She's still wide awake after taking 2oz of BM thru bottle feeding. Must be STILL HUNGRY lah. MUST add more to satisfy her hunger".

Neh....this is the point which boils me to the max. YY is not even a week old, and my CL already tempted to feed her more than 2 oz of BM per feeding. Gosh, I've already talked to her earlier that newborn stomach is very very VERY SMALL. It's better and safer to feed her less, but more frequent rather than sekali gus sumbat her with 3 oz of BM at every feeding. She's just a few days old lah. Why want to pump her with so much of milk at this early stage?? That's very bad! Then my CL will keep saying "yes yes newborn stomach is small, BUT after she wee wee twice, ma empty liao lor". I mau pengsan lah. She doesn't seem to understand me. I use alien language ka?? Sigh.......

The worst case happened 3 days ago. YY used to sleep with CL, but when feeding time CL will let me know so that I can BF my baby in her room. The reason why I didn't co-sleep with YY is due to QQ, as she will be awaken by YY's cry (she doesn't really cry out loud, just 1 or 2 "OooNgar" noise only) in the midnight. When YY cry for milk, QQ will also cry! Kecoh...kecoh. So on that particular night, CL bottle fed YY with 2 oz of EBM at around 12am. I told her that after this feeding, please wake me up for next feeding as I want to direct BF her instead of expressing my BM. She nodded. At 4.30am, I woke up due to engorgement. I was puzzled why my CL didn't wake me up to feed YY. I went into her room and saw 2 empty bottles on the table. I thought that she might have bottle fed her twice separately . Then YY started to make some noise, an indication to feed her lah. While I BF her, I've asked CL why are there 2 empty bottles and now YY still wants milk? Guess what??!! CL said "oh, that was for the 1st feeding actually. At 12am, after I've fed her with 2oz of BM, she was still wide awake and make some noise for about 30mins. She must be still hungry lah, so I gave her another 2oz of BM lor". OMG!! My tiny little YY has been fed with a total of 4oz of BM in 1.5hour!!! How disastrous!!! Again, I repeated to her what I've told her earlier. 4oz of BM is way too much lah aunty!! From then onwards, I've decided to let YY sleep in my room, in a baby cot. I've advised QQ many times not to wake up and join the noisy band whenever YY does so. I said " little mei mei cries a bit coz she doesn't know how to speak yet. Whereas you are a big jie jie and can speak well so you don't have to cry". Ok, she got it! So far so good, she didn't really wake up whenever YY made some noises in the midnight for feeding. Good jie jie =)

Anyhow, my CL is still a nice lady lah. She's not the calculative type of person. She'll cook for my sister and dad whenever they drop by to visit me and YY in the weekend. If you are looking for a CL, I would like to recommend her to you too. Just ensure that you take charge of your newborn when come to feeding, other stuff just leave it to your CL will do.

My baby was delivered on Thanks Giving Day!

Double joy on year 2010 Thanks Giving Day as my 2nd child was delivered on this special day, 25th November 2010, Thursday @ 10.17pm =)

It all begun on that morning, around 9am I started to have some minor contraction every 8-12min. After 1hour monitoring the pain, it stopped. Nothing after that. So.....it was a false alarm. Then at 7pm when I was about to have my dinner at home, I had the contraction pain again. This round, it was a bit more intense compared to the morning session. I really don't feel good at all, and can't even finish my dinner too. Thus by 7.30pm HubB brought me to see Dr. Tan and grabbed my hospital bag + Cryocord Kit along as well. I had the feeling that I will give birth on the same night.

As Dr. Tan checked my dilation progress, he said " Ok, it's about 6cm already! You may be warded now and give birth tonight". WOW!! 6cm already??? It was only 3cm 2 days ago! That means my EDD has been brought forward 8days earlier.

By 8.30pm, I had those heart beat detector patches on my tummy to monitor Lil BB's heart beat and my contraction as well, hand kena pocked with needle for dripping cum induce and water bag broken. The wet feeling with amniotic fluid leaking out slowly....Eeewww....felt so geli and dirty lah :P

At 9pm, I had my contraction pain every 5min. The pain was still bearable, thus I can still smile for the camera and chat with HubB and Dr. Tan as well. Dr. Tan kept reminding me that once I have the urge to berak, that would be the right time to push.

Tik tok tik tok.....an hour has gone and my contraction pain has only increased a bit only, about every 3min once. Still can smile though =) Then Dr. Tan decided to help me out a bit +_+ Gosh, when I heard him said that, I had goose bump leh @_@ It was truly painful when he stretched my cervix so that I can dilate faster. Just after that torturous moment, my cervix has opened up to 8cm and contraction pain has turned greater, up to every 2min once. All I could do was to breath in and out during each pain. This round I had sworn in for No Epidural, and I did it. Not even any local painkiller too. Ahem, a bit proud of myself lah, for being able to go thru the pain without any painkiller aid. But the pain was really indescribable. At 1 moment, I even asked myself why am I going thru this pain again?? Looking for own trouble izzit?? Haha Yeah, I asked for it!

At 10.10pm, behtahan liao.....and I finally felt the urge to berak so I quickly tell the nurses " I think she's coming out!!". Waaa....I can really feel the baby's head at the exit. Dr. Tan immediately put on his gloves and get ready to deliver my baby. I followed Dr. Tan's instruction not to scream my lung out, just use my full force energy to push the baby out. Screaming will drain out my energy. Ok, I had to keep my mouth shut throughout the pushing activity. So hard to keep quiet lah. It took me 2 long push to get her out. My first push was a failure, and I wondered why was it harder that before? Last scan showed that Lil Bb was only around 2.7kg

2nd attempt succeeded and once Lil BB was out, they put her on my arms immediately! I wasn't prepare for it actually! Coz I didn't had the chance to carry Smellybutt the moment I delivered her. So here she is....my Lil BB fresh from my oven, with the faufu-fa look :P

Lucky me as I've managed to get myself a private room with a queen size bed for HubB. Only 1 room left coz there were quite a number of patients there. Mostly already given birth a day before and 1 mommy was in the labour ward next to mine. It was a nice spacious room, cost RM180/night. Pricey? Never mind, it'll be covered in my RM2,500 allowance for maternity =)

Here's my Thanks Giving girl after cleaned-up, nicely wrapped in a fleece blanket like a sushi roll :P To my surprise, her weight at birth was 3.17kg. I've never expect her to reach 3kg. No wonder so hard to push out her head lah....Her size is considered big for me, coz Smellybutt was only weighing 2.3kg at birth! See the difference ka?

My best shot!

I've tried to breast feed her while in hospital but unfortunately, the same old history repeated i.e. my milk team has yet to check in! During Smellybutt time, my breast milk supply only came on day 4 after delivery. Sad....so sad....Anyhow, I still let her suck hoping that she can 'bring in' the supply earlier. But aiyah....true enough that I can only breast feed her on day 4.

So here's the picture of my satisfied consumer :P Btw, she accidentally scratched her tiny nose while in the hospital, quite a deep scar actually. But now subsided a lot already.

"Life is great...." =)

Before I was discharged from the hospital, a Pediatrician has examined her and gave us the green light to bring her back home. Due to my speedy delivery, we don't have to worry about the GBS infection affecting her. He has also guided me to monitor baby's jaundice which might be noticed on day 4. If only her face looks yellowish, it is alright. But if her chest has turn yellowish too, we have to bring her back to hospital for jaundice treatment. Luckily she only had very minor yellowish face on day 4 - 7, thereafter ok liao.

Lil BB has been named as Yi Ying. In Cantonese, the word "Ying" means translucent, shining. We kinda like the meaning of this name. Hope that this name may bring out her inner shine in future! As for Smellybutt, her name is Yi Qing. "Qing" means clear, bright sky. Hmm...from now onwards, I have 2 little Smellybutts!! Maybe I should start referring both of them as QQ and YY here =)

YY's umbilical cord has dried up and dropped off exactly 1 week after birth. That was very fast! During QQ's time, the confinement lady was very rough on her (while cleaning her umbilical cord) thus caused some bleeding =( Poor QQ, it took her another week before it finally drop off.

That's all for my delivery news. It was a quick and smooth delivery and we really thanks Dr. Tan for his great job!

Next post, I'd like to share the beginning of my breast feeding journey together with my brand new Ardo Calypso Dual Breast Pump. And not forgetting my confession towards my confinement lady!! Urrgggghhh!!! +_+