Zara always have pretty regular bowel movement, once a day is the norm, and occasionally alternate days.

I wasn’t alarmed when there was no bowel movement during the weekend, as I thought there may be too much excitement at home (with me looking after her) which caused her to forget to poo. I started worrying when she didn’t have any motion passed by the end of Monday.

On Monday evening, I started helping her.

I helped her by repeating “Mmm Mmmm” “Mmm Mmmm” while with her. When she’s ready, she would stand up from her sitting position, hold on to the table or me, and work on her stomach muscle to try to pass her motion. We could see her face turning red, her clutches getting stronger, and she’s really trying hard. When her facial muscle relaxed, I checked her diaper, no sign of the poo. We tried again, I massaged her tummy, told her she’s a good girl, and she would have to help herself, then the cycle repeated. She would do it for 4, 5 times, trying very hard, complaining after each time by kicking her feet in agitation and then fretted, sometimes, she even have tears in her eyes.

She only managed to successfully release 3 grape size hard stools in total for the whole 5 days; each of her poo attempt more difficult and painful (based on her fretfulness and the amount of tears shed) than the earlier.

Yesterday, when she was asleep, I applied some Yuyi Oil on her tummy, and tried to massage her abdomen, and I found out I could actually feel her bulging colon, all hard and stuffed.

This morning, I quickly brought her to see her PD.

In the waiting room, she was all excited, so many babies and kids around, it’s like she’s in happy land. When it was her turn, she was in good spirit as well, smiling at the Dr and trying to play with the toys on his desk.

After asking a few questions like has her diet changed (which is Yes, since she turned 10mth old, she started having porridge instead of pureed fruits and vegetables for dinner, so she’s short of 1 fruit/vege serving per day now), any blood in the stool, the Dr asked me to lay her down to have her examined.

Zara was cooperative, laid down quietly, looking at the Dr. The Dr could also feel the bulging colon when he pressed on her abdomen. He then proceeded to probe a finger into Zara. This was when Zara started getting upset. She looked at me, asking for help, tears welling in her eyes. I had to just hold her hands and told her she’s a good girl, and the Dr will be finished in a while.

It was found that there’s already very hard stool very close to the anus, so an enema has to be administered. Zara didn’t like it at all, when the Dr stuffed the tablet into her, she started crying. Poor girl, mummy can only hug and kiss and sayang her after Dr was done. He also prescribed some laxative.

When we were back out in the waiting room, the enema started working. Zara’s face turned red, trying force the stool out, she whined and cried all the time. Then I could smell something rotten and knew she succeeded. We took her to the changing room to change her diaper, found lumps of hard stools on the soiled diaper. This can’t be 5 days waste, there must be more inside. Ugh!

Anyway, this is the end of this episode.

From now onwards, we’ll have to make sure she has enough greens and fruits in her diet. I can’t bear to see her kook-si/kek-sai (what’s the equivalent word in English? Just ‘shit’?) like this.

Next few days, there’s still the laxative to feed her, it won’t be fun! L

Since we were at the PD, her weight and height was taken. She’s actually 73.5cm tall, and weighs 7.44Kg. Light for her height and age (almost below lowest percentile curves). Another thing I need to look into.

Here’s a typical bed time routine Zara has:

9:00pm – wiped her hands and her feet, changed her into pajamas, some struggling on her side, not wanting to have the pajamas top and diaper on.
9:05pm – nursed her in bed
9:25pm – finished nursing
she sat up, not wanting to sleep and pointed a stack of books, said “boo! boo!”
Read the book Miss Spider’s Tea Party to her, put the book aside once done
9:28pm – she took the book, and sat back on my lap (indicating she wants more).
Read the book Miss Spider’s Tea Party to her again, put the book aside once done
9:30pm – she took the book, and sat back on my lap again.
Read the book Miss Spider’s Tea Party to her yet again (this time just read the text, no explanation done), she rubbed her eyes midway
9:32pm – laid her down in bed
Daddy walked in.
She sat up again; “Aah!” greeting daddy.
I asked him to tuck her to sleep, while I have my shower.
9:35pm – From the shower, I could hear Zara whining outside, the whining became more and more audible.
Toilet door opened, heard Daddy said, “See, mummy is still around, mummy is taking shower.” He slid open the shower screen, Zara’s little head peeked in.
“Hello, Little girl, what is it now?” I asked, water running down my face.
She gave me a big smile.
“Go, go and sleep” I told her.
Daddy carried her out, and I could hear her whining again.
9:45pm – Finished shower.
Daddy and her sitting on the bed, reading Miss Spider’s Tea Party (!!!)
“I just read that to her like 3 times!” I said
“Oh, I didn’t know” Daddy said. Obviously, he must have just picked up the first available book on the bed to read to her.
Little girl looked at me grinning, 4 teeth showing.
9:50pm – I finished changing.
Took over daddy’s shift, laid in bed with Zara, gave her a breast pad and said “go to sleep now.”
One hand holding the breast pad, thumb in the mouth, she tried to sleep.
I stroke her head and sang some lullaby to her.
9:55pm – She fell asleep.
10:00pm – moved her to her cot, gave her a peck on the cheek, said “good night, mummy loves you”.
She opened her eyes groggily for a second, and then drifted off to slumber land.

Question: Why is it so difficult for daddies to tuck their kids to sleep? Or is it just Zara’s daddy?

My friend told me if I’m worried that Zara may fall from bed, I might as well teach her how to get down, so she won’t fall any more. I took the advice and for the last 1 week plus, have been teaching Zara how to get down from the bed and sofa.

I had always warned her to ‘stop’ when she reached the edge of the bed, so that part was easy. I then have to tell her to turn her body when she’s reached almost the edge, and guided her body at the same time. Then I told her to go down ‘bum bum first’, held her bottom, and guided it, until her feet reached the ground.

A training session will go something like this :
Put her on the bed
“Zara come down, come to mummy”
She’ll start crawling towards me.
When she’s about to reach the edge, “Stop! Be careful”
She’ll stop
“Now turn your body” guide her body to turn
“Good girl, now bum bum first” guide her buttocks and legs
“Now slowly slide down, be careful”
When her feet reached the floor, I clapped and cheered for her “Clever girl! Hip Hip Hooray!”

A lot of guidance and few close accidents later, she surprised us by perfecting this over the weekend.

Here is a video of her doing this.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOOuVMsHRc] 

As for climbing up the bed, I never taught her, but fueled by her own interest, she did it anyway.

Mummy’s birthday yesterday.
Ah Kong, Ah Kim, Samantha che-che, Alicia che-che, Teresa Yi-Yi, Uncle Misai Tan, Daddy, Kakak and I;
We all had dinner with her.

Funny dinner these big people had.
Ate in restaurant, but had to cook their own food
I can see them throwing balls, cubes, vege, green strings into this big pot of boiling water.
Then they sat back and waited.
When a lot of smoke came out from the pot, they used this spoon with net to take out the food, and dipped them into a bowl of something red before putting in their mouth.

I don’t know what those balls, green strings or the red thing in the bowl were .
Because mummy only gave me my porridge
And sometimes she scooped out some cubes of bean curd for me.
My food must be better, because every time mummy put a spoon of porridge in my mouth, she said “Yum Yum”

She let me play with the spoon with net for a while.
Before I could drop it on the floor to see how far the spoon will bounce or what noise it could make
Daddy quickly took away from me and said, “Don’t let her play with that”.

Since I had nothing to play with, I stood up on my chair to see what I can do standing up.
Daddy’s mouth gasped, mummy shouted “No No! Sit down! Sit down!”
Aw, these adults are such party poopers.
They can stand up to play with the big pot of boiling water, but I can’t stand up!

So I decided to scream and shout, and tried to squeeze some tears out from my tear glands.
It must have been a good performance, because people at other tables looked at me in awe
And threw glances at our table

And to reward me, kakak took me outside the restaurant for a walk
After that Teresa Yi Yi took me
And then Daddy’s turn.
Mummy said “You ‘yai yai’ ah!”.
Did she like my performance or not?
My doubts were clear, as mummy later hugged and kissed me and said she loves me.

Happy Birthday Mummy.
Next year when I can walk around, I will perform even better.

PS. By the way, Daddy didn’t wish mummy Happy Birthday, I heard him whispered to mummy some blood very expensive after he saw the bill. I wonder if they had blood just now.

We had dinner tonight with some friends at a Thai Restaurant with Zara.

Zara had her home cooked porridge, while we indulged in the chili laden fare. When dessert was served (water chestnut in coconut milk), one of our friends was carrying Zara on his lap. Our friend just spooned some ice cold coconut milk into Zara’s mouth, and Daddy cautioned his friend, “she can’t take any of THAT!”.

Our friend, looking innocently, asked, “What’s wrong with this?”. Daddy proceeded in telling his friend that Zara is still young, and should not be given unboiled coconut milk (not to mentioned the sugar content in the coconut milk). His friend said we are just too careful, and declared that his girl friend’s nephew is already having Secret Recipe Cheesecake, and he’s one month younger than Zara.

Cheesecake at 9months old? The sugar content in the cake, the possibility of uncooked egg in the cake, what about additive and colouring? Nah, I won’t think of giving such thing to Zara at this age. Of course I didn’t say this out loud, but just said “We have to be careful of what she eats, just in case she may be allergic to certain food and may get tummy upset”.

His friend proceeded to tell us that the boy ate 1/2 a slice of the cheesecake and he is ok. I could only add to say that different people have different parenting style, and for us, this is not ok.

It’s true, different people have their own way of caring for their child, and they have their own Dos and Don’ts in terms of what the child can eat and cannot. For us, in terms of caring for Zara, we follow our child care books, Baby Centre etc etc, which is more of a Western approach. It may not be the best way, but this is the way we know how to care for her, and the method is not baseless.

Before Zara was born, I was set to breastfeed her as long as I could. She is coming to 10months old next week, and I’m glad my commitment has not deterred despite the problems I faced from different sources.

I have very good support from the hospital I delivered Zara. The mid wife helped me to latched her on immediately after she was born (right after the mucus has been sucked out from her mouth and nose). Zara was hungrily sucking away. I have to say it was pure bliss, after the hard labour, holding her in my arms, and seeing her suckling.

The first 2 days was tough. After 10hours of labour, all I wanted was to rest, but the little fella had another agenda. She was hungry most of the time, if she’s not sleeping, she would be crying and the nurse would bring her to me to be fed. Being a first time mum, not knowing how to position her or handle her, added to the difficulty. Normally the nurse would helped me position, and I would then hold Zara in that same position, not daring to move, afraid she might be uncomfortable or unlatch and then I wouldn’t know how to position her back. She would be nursing at 2am, 4am, 6am, 8am, imagine. I was at the brink of giving up, to ask for formula supplement, but I reminded myself about the importance of nursing in the first few moments (to ensure my milk supply is established), the nipple confusion, all the benefit of breast feeding (endless..), and I persisted.

When we were discharged, I was faced with another challenge, the confinement lady we have. Oh, she was so discouraging. First, she asked us to move the cot back to our room (from hers) if I wanted to breastfeed. “It’s for your good, you have quicker access to the baby if she needed a feed.” she said. Yeah right, it’s more for her (to sleep uninterrupted by the cries) than me.

I have very little milk and Zara was hungry and crying all the time. Instead of boiling me soup or advising me what to take to increase milk supply, she summoned Daddy to get a tin of formula to supplement my feed (we did sneak out to get a tin of formula JUST IN CASE). We told her no, no supplement, I wanted to breast feed exclusively. The confinement lady was wailing all the time when Zara was crying for her feed and couldn’t get enough. “Oh, poor girl girl, mummy naughty, mummy no milk, my girl girl have to get hungry”. “Oh poor girl girl, mummy don’t want to give you supplement” Oh, how I wish I could give her a slap and asked her to shut up! How can she be so discouraging and so ?? (sampat – closes I could translate to is cuckoo)??!!

Because of all the other nuisance she’s causing (well, that would be another story), we fired our confinement lady the 2nd day. I continued to breast feed Zara, even though it was still tough (fatigue, sore nipple), and she was still crying most of the time because of hunger, at least I fed her in peace now.

We got the hospital to send us a nurse to teach me how to care for Zara, as well as provide support for breast feeding. This was great. Nurse Chee was very supportive. She told me not to give up even though it’s very tiring, and it can only get better. She taught me how to feed Zara lying down, that will give me time to rest or nap while Zara nursed.

My milk supply was established after a few days and Zara was starting to have a routine, feeding every 3hourly. Daddy too helped out by doing the midnight feeds using expressed milk so I got to rest 6hours in a stretch. I was beginning to be more confident about breastfeeding.

Zara stopped waking up middle of the night for feeds when she was 6 weeks old. Daddy still helped me with the early morning feed, allowing me even longer rest time. Things really got better (and another advantage is I returned to my pre-pregnancy weight after 2months).

After 3 months of staying home to care for her, my next problem cropped up. Zara was refusing the bottle, and I had to go back to work. People were offering advice to ask me to switch to formula; she might not take the bottle of breast milk, but she may take formula milk; 3 months of breast feeding is more than enough, I should start formula now; blah blah. Well, I’d gone this far, I won’t quit now.

While at work, I continued to express milk. Zara cried, and screamed every time the bottle appeared, we tried spoon feeding her, cup feeding her but she only took a few sips, then repeated her crying bout. She took very little milk while I was at work. When I got back home, she, like an addict, would latch on, and spent an hour or more on the breast, practically sucking me dry.

Then the crying lessened and the drinking (from bottle) increased, eventually, she has this same excited look every time she’s hungry and saw the bottle coming. After 1 month, she finally accepted the bottle as another source of nourishment. We crossed another hurdle.

She has a taste of formula when I was away for business trip, and I didn’t have enough stocked up for her 1 week feed. I was so worried she’ll refuse my milk when I returned. Well, when she saw me, the first thing she wanted to was to have her fix and she took her own sweet time enjoying the breast.

KL is not a very friendly place for nursing mums. Only a few shopping malls have facilities. I try not to go to those places without when I have Zara with me. I am not shy to feed her in the presence of my family, or my female in-laws. Sometimes in public, I have to do it as well, although I try to be as discreet as possible (well, if you asked me why I don’t wear nursing clothes, you should come and have a look at what KL has to offer, all the clothes are just so ‘aunty’ looking). I feel proud, being able to be the source of nourishment to my baby.

I am glad the office has nursing rooms for mums and I have a very supportive manager who will not send me on business trips longer than 1 week (as I’d told him I’ll have ‘stock’ issue). Daddy is also all out to support me.

I feel very contented every time Zara is in my arms nursing, I like stroking her soft hair, kissing her small hands. I like the feel of her head resting on the nook of my elbow. Sometimes she rewards me with a satisfied pouting of her lips or, when she knew how to, a smile after a feed. All these, and a healthy her, makes me want to continue nursing her.

Some people were shocked that at this age, she’s still not on any formula milk, and commented good heartedly that I should start switching to make my life easier, but I always tell them breast is best.

This whole week Zara has started going back to Jenny Ah Kim’s house. So she’s back to her old routine, below is the time she spent with me around :

5:30- 6:30am : She stands on her cot and shouts for me (and it goes louder if I tried to ignore it). I will bring her to our bed, place her in between us, nurse her, and we both go back to sleep (daddy seldom wakes up with all these shuffling or shouting).
7:30- 8:00am : Wakes up by the noise we make to prepare ourselves to work. I will be expressing milk while she sits on her high chair to play with things on the dining table.
8:00- 8:30am : Takes her shower either with me or daddy, and either one of us (the one who didn’t shower her) will change her
8:45- 9:00am : She leaves the house together with me and Tuyam. On the journey, she’ll go back to sleep, or she’ll play with some toys or just entertains herself.
9:15- 9:30am : Arrives at Jenny’s place. I hug her and give her a kiss, and go to work.

(time she spends in Jenny’s place under the care of Tuyam)

7:00- 7:30pm : I arrive at Jenny’s place. Pick her up, and ask her about her day (she’ll just smile and sometimes gives me a hug).
7:3o – 8:30pm : I will have my dinner while either Litha (my bro’s maid) or Tuyam looks after her. After dinner, I’ll play with her a bit.
8:30 – 9:00pm : Leaves for home. Most of the time, she would have doze of on the 30mins journey
9:00 – 10:00pm : Daddy will come to carry her out from the car when we arrive. While daddy has his packed dinner, I will play with her or read a book to her. Then daddy will help me give her a wipe, change her to pajamas. Sometimes if she’s still very energetic, we’ll spend more time playing in the room, but most of the time, she would be asking for her last feed.
I will nurse her (while daddy goes back down to do whatever he needs to do), and quite often, she’ll doze off after her feed.
Sometimes, she may still want to play, but I’ll turn off all the lights, and lie in bed with her. She will toss and turn, and do all kinds of acrobatic movements on the bed, but I’ll just ignore her. Most of the time I’ll doze off before she does.
Once she’s asleep, and I wake up from my ‘nap’, I’ll put her in her cot, tuck her in, and then the rest of the time will be mine.

Zara is finding some interest in self feeding these days. She tries to reach for the spoon every time I feed her (which is only during the w/end). I give her the spoon topped with her mushy food and let her feed herself occasionally (when I was in the mood and didn’t mind cleaning up the mess). She is quite good at aiming and putting the spoon into her mouth, although it always ends up at the corner of the mounth. She just bites on the spoon, and releases it with still a lot of food on the curve of the spoon.

I have to remind myself that it’s ok for her to mess things up sometimes, and let her have more practice with feeding herself, so that she can actually get to feed herself sooner.

Every time when I need to shower in the morning, and nobody is around to take care of Zara, I’ll put her in her tub at one corner of the bathroom, so I can keep an eye on her while I shower. These few days, to save some time, I placed her naked in the tub, and when I’m done with my shower, I’ll carry her and do a quick rinse for her (instead of filling up her tub and bathing her when we have more time).

To make things interesting for her, I tell her she will wait in her ‘boat’. I don’t believe she understands what boat is yet, but having a few toys to play with in the tub, and the occasional splattering of water on her, while I sing Row Row Row Your Boat in the shower, does keep her occupied and happy.

This time, she froze after playing with her stacking cups for a while, and her face turned red.

“Zara are you poo-poo-ing?” I asked while rinsing the shampoo off my hair. Too late, I could see her done with her business, and continued banging her stacking cups like nothing happened.

She did it, she pooed in her tub. This is the first time she did her business without her diaper on. I must say it’s easier to clean than a soil diaper.

While folding the day’s laundry, I kept Zara occupied by giving her smaller pieces of clothing to play with.

She was busy pulling pieces of her own clothing out from the laundry basket, checking it, flapping it (to see what sound it can make). When she’s done with one piece, she reached into the basket for another. This went on for a while, until she got hold of my breast pad in the basket. The minute she held it in her hand, she started sucking her thumb, a natural reflex, as this is her favourite comfort object.

She has this look in her face like she’s ‘high’ on something, like the Cantonese saying, “吹鴉片“ (taking opium) which depicts the addiction of a baby to the bottle, breast and in this case thumb/breast pad.