First Family Cold

Picture from: toniyammine.posterous.com

Today, marks the last day of the first family cold in the Wozniak family.

Or I’d like to think so.

Last week, with CC as patient zero in this family, we all got sick. None of our symptoms are completely alike, but the misery was mutual. In addition to the aches and sneezes and coughs, Papa Woz and Mama Woz also had to be up every hour to care for Baby Woz. It was miserable.

It’s the fastest we’ve ever consumed saline, Kleenex, and hot ginger tea.

So, today, as the last day of Chinese Tiger year, we would like to get rid of all these nasty bugs. And start the wonderful Rabbit year with sound and healthy body!

It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

“It takes a village to raise a child.” Something I’ve heard ever since I before I was pregnant.

While you’re the one with the child, someone else always have some suggestion or advice for you. Sometimes they are your parents, sometimes they are your friends, sometimes they are non-parents themselves. They mean well, and they really do, but inevitable judgments are passed on along with the well intentions.

It is especially apparent now CC is sick with his first cold.

People blamed the daycare…and I do too. But while blaming the daycare, they also are criticizing my decision in sending him to daycare. Do I have a choice? Yes I do. You always have a choice in life. But it’s a matter of it’s a reasonable choice.

I don’t want to coup him up at home with a nanny, because I do want him to be socialized as early as possible, given he is most likely going to be an only child. I also don’t trust any one single person to tend to him without any other watchful eyes. I mean, I don’t even trust myself alone with him!

I don’t want to be a stay-at-home Mom. I know, it’s again, choice. But being home for the 3 months during maternity leave made me realize I am very ill-suited for such a life. For the sanity of everyone in the family, this is not an option.

I do wish I can have my village here to raise this child for me. But my “village” is either in Kamloops, Canada, or Taipei, Taiwan. If there were any “one” person I would trust to care for CC alone, that’ll be my Mom, my aunts, and my sister-in-law. But, it’s all wishful thinking.

My last option is to send him to a daycare. Yes, I hate it. As a person who was an extremely timid and shy child, I would cry and cry and cry when going to a new school. So it pains me to say good-bye to CC every morning, especially when he is starting to have stranger and separation anxiety. I also hate it because it took me months to train him to take the bottle in preparation for daycare, and even then he’s not drinking much, and it pains me to see my child hungry. And then I hate it because he can hardly nap at daycare, being so sensitive to noises. And then I hate it because 3 days into daycare, he is now down with his first cold.

I hate it. There are times in this past week when I’m alone, at the verge of tears, wishing for my own Mom.

In this modern Western society, we are lucky to have doctors who aren’t filling us with chemicals, but told us, “No medicine needed, he’ll work it out himself.” But between the puking due to snot in throat and 101F fever, I wished I could give him something to make it all better, even if it’s me taking over all the discomfort. Wishful thinking did come true and now I’m down with it as well, making me the anti-viral factory to make him better faster. But it doesn’t remove the suffering from him completely. Every time I saline-drop him and using the nose-suction device on him, he is always screaming and fighting but looking so tiny and helpless at the same time. Even Twilight couldn’t stand it and comes by for moral support. Yet immediately afterwards, he would cling to me as if he has already forgotten I am the devil with the mean nose-sucking apparatus, sobbing and whimpering but finally with a cleared nasal passage. He forgives me instantly and is even grateful.

Talk about being brave, and talk about breaking your heart.

So we are here, 4 days into this nasty cold, our little village of 3 people and 1 dog, stayed brave and keep plugging along.

Fourth Month as a Mom

Battle of the Bottles
[3M6D] OMG! CC took bottle from me, the original milk vending machine! Yoohoo Horray! Lately we’ve been heading out a lot, so in the absence of bottle or myself when he’s in carseat, we give him his monkey binky, which shaped very similar to the bottle nipple. Maybe that helped him identify with the bottle nipple, he is now definitely happier with the bottle! :) We’ve also tried hard to keep up the habit over the Christmas holiday so our nanny won’t have to re-do the work all over again.

[3M2W1D] Another OMG moment! CC took the bottle from Mara this time without even as much as a whimper! As part of the new year resolution for  both myself and CC, we have decided to make bottle drinking as one of the item. And on first day of the year, he started to do so! It did take a lot of experimenting to get here though. We tried different bottles, different nipples, different apparatus, different positions, different background music/TV shows, different milk temperatures…You name it, we’ve tried it. Finally, we went back to the very first bottle we used, and it worked! So you can imagine how proud Mommy must feel to see it all come together! 2.5 months of stress and hard work has finally come to fruition. I must say, it’s better than any work recognition!
Although somehow I think CC was motivated by my promise of, “The sooner you take the bottle nicely, the sooner you’ll get to have all sorts of different yummies!” ;)

Sleep
[3M4D] Wow, did that just happen? On the night of Christmas Day, CC slept for 6 hours straight! A Christmas miracle!

[3M1W1D] Okay, I don’t want to jinx it, but this is the third day in the same week that CC has slept for close to 5-hr stretch! In fact, last night, he slept for a 5.5-hr session (9-230am), then another 5-hr session (3-8am)! And he didn’t even put up a fight during the night feeding! He just ate, burped, ate again, and sleep! Yay! We’re definitely going to strengthen his day routine and hopefully that’ll transfer to his night sleep pattern too.

[3M2W1D] Oh I probably jinxed it. He’s back to feeding every 2.5 hours at night! Although it could also be he’s cold, he peed, he has gas pain, or all of the above.

Sleeping Arrangement
[3M1W1D] We are trying to finalize the sleeping arrangement with CC. From the very beginning, we know it’s not realistic to do family bed. Simply because we already have a family bed situation going on with Twilight. And baby + puppy + two adults on the same bed, albeit king size bed, is just not a good idea. So we have had CC sleep in his own crib in our room during night time, and portable crib in livingroom during the day time for the first month.

By the second month, we’ve noticed even though everyone tells you to let baby sleep in noisy, well-lit room during the day to establish his day/night pattern, it is just not working for the very sensitive CC! He wakes at every little noise or light, so we found ourselves tiptoeing like thieves in the house. And he is not getting good sleeps, which makes him more cranky at night! At which point, we moved him into the new spare room and sleep on the futon. At night, we also took down one side of his crib and side-cart it to our bed, so it’s easier on me after night feedings.

By the third month, we realized the side-carting is difficult on our backs to put him back to his crib, and it’s not really saving me any effort at night. So we put his crib back to how it was, but left it in our room still.

This month, we finally had all our guests gone, so now officially turning the guest room into CC’s nursery. We’ve moved the portable crib, as well as all his clothes and supplies into the room. We’re waiting for when his sleep pattern strengthens a bit more, then we will move his full-size crib down and have him sleep in his own room at night too. Hopefully that will happen by next month.

There’s an App for that
[3M1W1D] Yes, there is an iPhone App for just about anything. I keep track of CC’s feeding pattern for a good two months on Excel spreadsheet on a laptop on the night-stand. It got too tiring after a while and I have given up since. However, now we know he has an solid feeding pattern, we are actually more curious about his sleeping pattern. And with the lack of sleep at night, Woz and I sometimes wake up wondering, “Did he wake up at X time last night?” Well, there is an App for that! A friend we met at the baby play date told us about Baby Connect, which not only tracks baby’s eating, sleeping, and pooping/peeing pattern, it also tracks things such as vaccination, growth, medication!

What’s more, instead of having to graph out the growth curve ourselves, it does all the computation and graphing for us, and we can even see things online! Seriously baby data mining we have going on here! And the best part is, all for $4.99!

No more laptop by the bed emitting radiation to my brain while I sleep!

Back to Work
[3M2W] At exactly 3.5 months, Mommy went back to work for the first time. Leaving not-so-solid-bottle-drinker CC with the nanny for 6.5 hours. Although nanny said I can call to check on him, I was too nervous that I would hear baby screaming his guts out and therefore worry for the rest of the day.
So I didn’t. I looked at his pictures, I showed off his pictures, I talked about him, I tried to catch up with work…anything but worry about him. And I went home to a slightly struggled but happy baby. Absolutely love my little guy!

Life is Fair…Or Is It Unfair?

Picture from: http://www.intomobile.com/2010/09/23/poll-how-do-you-feel-about-tiered-pricing-is-it-fair/

At 3.5 months post partum, I have a body that makes CC proud to wear, “My Mom is out of your league” onesie. Oh correction, it was 2 months post partum. With my 50-lb weight gain during pregnancy, I was very lucky that not much of those 50-lbs landed on me.

But, when you gain some, you lose some…or is it the other way around?

After a relatively easy pregnancy (and I stress the word “relative”) and quick labor (c-section, he was out in 10 minutes), we fought the parenting battle every second of our lives since. It was the jaundice, the acid reflux, the gassiness, the battle of the bottles, and now, the je-ne-sais-quoi.

Really, I don’t know what’s going on.

He wakes easily (just as easily as 3.5 months ago), and then he either goes into a crying fit, or he doesn’t want to sleep. He has absolutely no patience for anything, and again goes into a crying fit. He still has gas problem, and goes into a crying fit for that too. I can think of a million possibilities of how his physical being is affecting him, but I just no longer feel that’s the case.

So why is it so unfair that we get such a fussy little guy? Is it to make up for all the cuteness and the “easy” pregnancy? In that sense, life is fair.

Truth is, I hate to think of myself as a failing mother this early on in my baby’s life. But it is very very hard not to. Especially when I’m such a scientist by training, especially when I believe for every reaction, there must be an action that triggered it. Is his "bad” (and I’m using this term very very loosely) behavior a reaction to anything I did? I thought about all of it so much that I grind my teeth at night and have tight jaw muscles when awake.

It’s hard not to think there is no relevance. It’s even harder to read and hear stories of all these wonderful babies around us, or people say, “He’ll grow out of it.” but you see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Regardless whether life is fair or unfair, I truly love CC, but I also truly wish I know what is going on.

Baby Must-have’s, Nice-to-have’s, and Shouldn’t-have’s (Part 3)

(Last part, and it doesn’t seem like I don’t have any “shouldn’t have” yet…)

Baby swing / bouncer
CC is very different from most babies. He hates the baby swing. We ended up have to return our faulty Fisher-Price Zen Collection swing and got a bouncer. At 3 months, he sometimes like the bouncer, so that’s not exactly that worth the money either.


Verdict: It may work with other baby, but not really necessary with CC.


Baby carrier
We got two Ergo carriers from friends. They do feel quite comfortable when we use them. But, we don’t really go out that much like most parents either, and when we do, at almost 14lb now, we hardly ever wear CC. I have to say though, the few times I do wear him to go to restaurants, it does keep  him calm and warm.

Verdict: Depends on how much you think you’ll wear your baby. I say it’s a nice-to-have.

Music mobile and play gym
At 3 months, we still haven’t really used the music mobile we got for CC. At first it was because it’s in the way when we try to put him down in bed, and he doesn’t seem to be interested at all. Now we just sort of forgot about it. But he does start to take an interest in things hanging from above him now. We received a play gym and he absolutely loves it! We just put the play gym on the livingroom floor, and he can amuse himself for almost 30 minutes!

Verdict: Must have if you think you’ll spend a lot of time on the floor with your newborn. Otherwise, wait until the third month.

Swaddles
Yes, YOU SHALL ALWAYS SWADDLE. Don’t worry if they put up a fight while you are trying to swaddle them. Don’t worry if they look like little dolls in strait jackets. Don’t worry if they still fuss after swaddled. The truth is, they all love it! We learned from the Happiest Baby on the Block about the concept of 4th trimester and we are firm believers of that. So for a while (and still does), we try to create an environment as similar to the womb for CC as possible. Including tightly snuggled in swaddle. It’s magical, but sometimes he somehow get his arm(s) out and that’s when he wakes himself from his sleep! Not kidding.

So back to the swaddles themselves. We tried a few types. There is the square blanket the hospital used and taught you to use; there is the Miracle Blanket, there is the velcro Kiddopotamus, and there is the Halo Sleepsack Swaddle.

The hospital square blanket is great simply because you want to teach yourself to learn how to use it, in case that is all you have at hand. Also, since it’s just a piece of cloth, it’s easier to adjust to different baby sizes by folding them. Much more economical. But let’s be honest, who wants to be doing the left-in-left-up-right-tug at three in the morning, when they told you  to “keep the lights low so baby won’t think it’s daytime!” Nobody that’s who. So there are the other ready made alternatives.

We were given two Miracle Blankets and have heard people swear by them. They are great because it has additional internal flaps to secure the baby’s arms. However, after securing their arms, you need to wrap the outer flap around the baby twice! Between keeping his arms tugged and lifting him and wrapping him, it’s usually a 2-person task. It does keep their arms in nicely better than the other two, although I have learned a trick on solving that problem too, with the other two options.


So next, the Kiddopotamus. Instead of two internal arm flaps and one outer large flap, you get two flaps that has velcro on them. Simply wrap and velcro, and you’re done! Wonder wonder for night time. Also, it comes in micro-fleece, so it’s great for winter babies. One problem is if you have a Houdini baby who always manages to get his arms out, it’s not as ideal. BUT, I did notice that when you dress them in long sleeves, due to the friction between his clothes and the swaddle, it’s harder for them to get their arms out. Do remember to buy the correct size though. And yes, like any baby clothing, they outgrow them pretty fast.


Last, Halo Sleepsack Swaddle. I don’t know why I never knew of this before. It’s a sleep sack that has a velcro-on flap for the arms only! So when baby is awake, you can keep him in the sleep sack and not have to worry about his feet gets cold. When it’s time for sleep, just put on the velcro arm swaddle flap and you’re ready! The center zipper zips from the top down, so you can open from the bottom and change the baby without even taking them out of the swaddle! Halo’s swaddle part has very large areas for velcro, so it’s more forgiving for baby growth and easier for parents. 

Verdict: Swaddle is a must. I would go for Kiddopotamus or Halo though. And yes, get them before baby arrives and learn to use them.

Bath essentials  and grooming kit
Well, yes and no. At 3 months, we have only used the all-purpose J&J bathing gel with CC. Didn’t even open the shampoo or diaper powder or anything else. We did have to use the baby oil and brush/comb to get his cradle cap out. We now bath CC every night, but only 2-3 times a week do we use bath gel.

As for grooming kit, they need it. Especially nail filer, nail cutter, and brush/comb. Of course, if you have one that has slow growth in nails or have no hair, then don’t worry about it.
Verdict: It’s not something you need to get before baby or even immediately after. Even if you need it, you can always get them at any grocery store, Target, or Amazon.

Parenting books
Yes you can pretty much find everything from the Internet. But with a baby in tow, you can’t possibly always have time or hands to go online. I happen to have Kindle which allows me to read my books on my iPhone. So I bought a few parenting books. In all honesty, they don’t say much other than common sense. But as first-time parents, our parenting common sense just isn’t enough, or we just fear so. Here are a few books I’ve bought. Oh, I would suggest buying them and reading them at least once PRIOR to the baby. Because it’s hard to read when you are sleep deprived. :) You can always reference back later.

Also, please also note I am NOT a supporter of Cry-It-Out method and therefore my opinion on parenting books is very subjective.

• The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer, by Dr Harvey Karp – I tend to like this book the most. It preaches the concept of “4th trimester”, which makes a lot of sense to me. And we have used many of his techniques with our fussy CC and they all worked! One very key point is, you have to recognize sometimes it takes more than one techniques, more than 10-15 minutes with those techniques, to change a baby’s state of fussiness. In short, be patient. Note, this also comes in DVD, which many sleep-deprived parents prefer.
• Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child , by Dr. Marc Weissbluth – This book come highly recommended by our pediatrician, but boy was it difficult to read. I felt like I’m reading JAMA rather than a parenting book! Lots of statistics and experimental details, which I feel parents could be spared of. It puts me to sleep before it puts the baby to sleep! (Maybe I should read this to CC then?!) One key take-away is, have a routine for your baby, but NEVER let your baby/toddler be awake for more than two hours at any given time. I’ve stick to that and sometimes if we get close to or go slightly beyond two hours, we do find CC gets very drowsy and even over-tired and fussy. I wouldn’t recommend buying this unless you are into doing heavy research.
• The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, by Elilzabeth Pantley – It’s a book I think would be better bought in paperback rather than e-book format. Simply because its formatting and style. As for content, I do like her gentle approach of sleep training. No, I don’t believe babies younger than 3 months old (that’s CC’s current age and I can only speak to this based on my current experience) can be manipulative. I also believe when they are old enough to be manipulative, they are old enough to be reasoned with. And therefore, I don’t believe young babies should be left to cry. For one, I don’t have the heart to leave my CC to cry so I get a few more minutes of shut-eye every night. To quote Pantley, "The irrefutable truth is that we cannot change a comfortable, loving-to-sleep (but waking-up-all-night) history to a go-to-sleep-and-stay-asleep-on-your-own routine without one of two things: crying or time. Personally, I choose time."
• What Babies Say Before They Can Talk, by Dr. Paul Holinger and Kalia  Doner – I bought this book but just haven’t had the chance to really start it. Can’t comment on it yet but I think it’s an interesting read.

Verdict: It’s not a matter of must-have or not, it’s a matter of peace of mind for first-time parents. Therefore, just get them!


Baking soda (yes, baking soda)
Oh what a cheap smell-saver! We buy a small box of Arm and Hammer baking soda (don’t make a mistake and buy baking powder!!) and keep it by the diaper pail/changing table. We sprinkle some into the diaper pail at times and it totally keeps the smell from coming out!

Verdict: Must have for your nose sanity

Baby Must-have’s, Nice-to-have’s, and Shouldn’t-have’s (Part 2)

Part 2 is all about the yummies! I will finish up the rest in Part 3.

Nursing pads
I went through a few nursing pads, and honestly still can’t decide on which one(s) works the best. But again, if you are breastfeeding, you’ll need them. Especially if you have over supply like I do!
Here are the three types I’ve tried:

Lansinoh Ultra Soft Disposable Nursing Pad – This is great for travel because it’s individually packed and fairly thin, and it also has adhesive in the back to secure on your bra. But I am small-chested and I find it too large and therefore shifts around in my bra! Also, when it gets wet, the absorbing gel inside tend to leak out. Yuck! I did not purchase a second box.

Johnson’s – Great in size and has back adhesive. However, a bit thick. Great if your clothes or nursing bra is very sheer though.

The First Year – Lanolin Disposable – These pads are great if you have sensitive nipples. It already has lanolin at the center, so it’s soft and easy on your nipples. The size and thickness are also perfect for someone like me. One major drawback is it does not have back adhesive, so they do move around.

Verdict: Must have if you breastfeed. Which brand you prefer is just a personal choice.

Nursing cover
If you plan to breast feeding, you MUST have nursing cover. Bebe au lait is the common brand people go for, since it covers and have a semi-circle wire that allows you to look down at your baby. However, give we have a winter baby, I find it a bit too thin and expensive. So I made my own nursing cover.

Basically just a double-layered rectangular cloth, with semi-circle wire, and a strap to hook over your neck. Even if you don’t go out all that much, if you have visitors at home, this is still a life-saver. And it keeps you nice and warm! :) It very often doubles as CC’s traveling blanket or rain cover also!

Verdict: Must have, if you’re breastfeeding and nursing in person.

Breastfeeding pillow
I used to think it’s absolutely necessary to have nursing pillow. And maybe it is to some mothers. But other than the first month, and even then, I hardly use the nursing pillow. Because it’s not thick enough to rest completely on my lap, so I either have to slouch, or stuff a real pillow under the nursing pillow.

Half the time I look like a toddler with my donut going to the pool; it’s even more ridiculous when baby starts to puke and you run around with the nursing pillow on your waist trying to get towel.

And sometimes I’m downstairs while the nursing pillow is upstairs. I have the baby and now I have to try to put the nursing pillow on, stuff another pillow under it, while holding the baby. Too much work!
Yes, it does put some strain on my wrist/arm without it, but with some practice it’s not so bad at all.

I do have to say a disclaimer though. I have only used “My Breast Friend” nursing pillow, which has a buckle. I’m not sure if Boppy’s nursing pillow would be better.


Bottle warmer
Regardless how you feed, you’ll need this. We’ve got ours from Avent and honestly don’t like it so much. The light flickers on and off while it warms or turn off to keep the water constant. However, it does not keep the content being warmed at constant temperature, neither does it turns itself off when it boils dry (or I dare not try). So we always have to stand by it to watch. I have heard First Year’s is better, since it tells you how much water to put in, and when the water boils dry it turns off and the bottle/food is ready. But since we already have the Avent warmer and we don’t even bottle feed that much, we continue to stand by the warmer and wait…

Verdict: It’s a must have, starting around birth if you formula feed, 3 weeks if you breastfeed. But I’m not sure the one we have is the best choice.


Bottle drying rack
I guess you can dry the bottle on any drying rack. But it does get out of hand at times, if you are cleaning multiple bottles. So we bought the Boon Grass Coutertop Drying Rack and use it only for CC’s everything. It’s quite decorative and works with things from bottle to nipples to medicine syringe.

Verdict: Not a must have, since you can be creative and do without. But a nice-to-have.


Pacifier
Oh we tried so many and CC seems to only take the one we tried first, the Wubbanub Infant Plush Toy Pacifier. Yah, it’s ridiculous expensive for a pacifier but it’s ridiculously cute when he’s sucking on it! Also makes it easy for us to fish it out of diaper bag or purse. I guess CC likes it because the nipple shape is similar to those of his bottles. Not that he likes either one all that much, but when he’s fussy in the carseat and car is moving, I can sometimes calm him temporarily using this soothie.

We have also bought a few more, but I don’t quite remember the names and he dislike them anyhow. They are, however, much cheaper than this.

Verdict: Not a must have. CC likes his little knuckle more than any soothie.

When You Think You Can’t Do It Anymore…

Yes, I am still talking about parenthood. The sad brutal reality is, it is the one thing in this world that there is just no (easy) way out.

At three months old, CC again resist the bottle. Not sure what we are doing wrong, but “dislike” is an understatement. With his first day at daycare looming in exactly one month away, I find myself losing the already very little sleep over it, yet again.

In addition, we are hearing left and right how easy so-and-so’s baby is/was to raise. It makes me wonder, “What are we doing wrong?”

Again, losing even more of the little sleep I get. (And I swear, I was never a worry-wart!)

I shared my worries with our nanny. I also was very honest about our choice of daycare and not her is simply due to cost. Her replies comforted me greatly; and if I ever were religious like she, I would say she is a God-sent.

She told me if daycare doesn’t work out, she could also do sharecare for us and some other family to reduce the cost. In addition, her sharecare price has practically no increase to if she were to care for CC alone! I asked her why so low in price, “I just want to help.” was her simple reply.

So when you think you just can’t do it anymore, you should consider yourself lucky to have others opening doors and windows for you.

Merry Christmas.