WW: Would you like some sweeties?

Never stop crawling anymore ;-)

Lately, Timmy becomes very active since he knows how to crawl forward and stand up (need support). Whenever he is awake, he will start crawling everywhere that he thinks he has the support to stand up. We really have to keep an eye on him. We are thinking to buy the carpet (those foam puzzles for kids), so that Timmy can crawl on the floor without hurting himself and explore more things.

Well...when he is so active, he never wants to stay quiet to be fed the solid food. :-( I always have to think of so many ideas to make him stop crawling and open his mouth. Singing to him, making different strange sounds and expressions, this might stop him and makes him curious, smiling or laughing. But this still can't stop his curiosity to explore more things, i need more ideas to make him finish the food. *LOL*

Turning on the music is also a good choice to hold him back from crawling around. Just now i turned on the Christmas baby music for him. It's so fun to see his reactions. He starts looking around and wants to find the source where the music is coming from.
I think he did not know it's from the laptop ;-) During this time, he was quiet and it's time for me to continue feeding ;-) , surprisingly, he finished the rice cereal XD. That's great because he seldom finished the rice cereal. I will see next time if this works again or not.

MM: Evolution of a Wedding Dance

This is a funny and amazing new Wedding Dance, be patient and enjoy the new dancing style which this couple will present you (if you are not that patient start at 1:20 ;) )

Part 2: Forward crawling

In the last week, when Timmy was about 6 months and 3 weeks old, he made the forward crawling. It was amazing to see that from him.

At that time, i was preparing for my exam, so there would be some notes left on the bed. Perhaps it's new for Timmy, he was really interested in my papers! He wanted to grab my papers, but at first he had to get to the place where the papers were. So.......he made it!! ;-) There was no longer backward crawling but forward crawling. We were so happy that Timmy had already achieved this milestone.

Once Timmy knows how to crawl forward, oooo....he becomes super active now. He wants to crawl all over the bed and grab whatever he wants. He is especially interested in my books and papers XD Therefore, we cannot leave him alone now, even when he is sleeping. We do not know when he will wake up and start crawling.

Timmy likes to crawl over our bodies and use our bodies to support him to stand up. He now wants to stand up! He always wants to push himself up when he knows there are things to support him (like high pillows, table, our bodies, bed headboard). Yesterday i tried to hold him in my hand, and he pushed himself up in order to stand. I was really afraid...his legs could not support him...and afraid he would have o-shape legs in the future.

I think the next milestone that Timmy wants to achieve is standing up. We look forward to it. :-)

Part 1: Introducing solid food for Timmy in the last week

Finally, i have finished my mid-term exam. And now i have the "mood" to update the milestones of Timmy ;-) I was just too stressed during the exam week. But now i am relaxed and feeling good.

In the past few days, i have introduced Timmy apple. And just like what i thought, he loved it XD. What i did was, steaming the apple for 10 minutes until tender. Then i mashed the steamed apple by spoon. I have made the apple in different ways, and i found out Timmy loves the steamed apple most. After tasting it, i personally felt that way too ;-)

When i was not at home, my husband fed him the organic rice cereal. For the first time, Timmy did not really like it but soon he realised that he would not get any milk from mommy, then he started eating the rice cereal. But of course it was such a "huge" battle between my hubby and him ;-) When i was back home, i was so "schock" to see Timmy's face full of the rice cereal.

So far, the solid food has been introduced to Timmy are as follow:
1. banana
2. sweet potato
3. rice cereal
4. apple

By looking at these list, i think i have introduced too much sweet food to Timmy, perhaps i should introduce some vegetables to him next week on.

How to increase breast milk supply

Image by NestleCSV via Flickr

Image by NestleCSV via Flickr

Every woman has some uncertainties about the questions concerning breast feeding the baby:

Does my baby get enough breast milk?

Is there a way to increase my breast milk supply naturally?

Which methods are safe for me and my baby for increasing breast milk supply?

Based on our experience in the past seven months, the rule of thumb is to feed whenever the baby wants, so basically, it's just feed...feed, and still feed...XD However, we have come to the following conclusion on how to increase the breast milk supply:

1. In the first week you always produce less "milk" (first milk is called Colostrum) but the first week is essential because there your body produces the Colostrum which is high in Anti-bodies for the babies immune system and a great help in preventing jaundice.
   
   
2. Try to rest and relax when your baby is sleeping (we both slept around 12-14 hours in the first six weeks), look for help from relatives or friends (house chores, shopping). You need to get enough sleep. From my personal experience, i have found that my breasts are engorged after sleeping. This was very obvious in the first few months.
   
   
3. Stress is the biggest enemy of breast milk production.
   
   
4. Feed more often (don't be scheduled on the 2 to 3 hours method which is published in many publications), as soon as the baby is crying (though look out if he/she is hungry or if he/she just needs a hug or a diaper change).
   
   
5. Sometimes the baby cries during nursing because it's not well attached at the breast, try to adjust the baby so that the most of areola and nipple is covered by the mouth.
   
   
6. Find the most comfortable position to nurse your baby. I have adopted craddle position in the first 2 months. However, Timmy suddenly did not like it and cried all the time whenever i nursed him in craddle position. Therefore, i tried the lying position to nurse him, it spent us a week of time to find out the reason why he did not want to be fed. After adopting lying position, the nursing is going very smoothly :-)
   
   
7. Make sure that your baby empties one breast of yours. So that you are sure he drinks the fatty milk, not only the foremilk. After the feeding of one breast, the baby is supposed to be full. If he is still not satisfied, then offer him another breast. After the feeding time, you can pump out the milk from another breast to boost your breastmilk production.
   
   
8. Buy a breast pump and pump after the feeding (wait around 10-15 minutes) this will activate the hormones which produce the breast milk and tell them they have to produce more breast milk because the demand is higher ;)

Happy breastfeeding!!!

Tribute to the victims of 9/11/2001

How fast time went by! Now it's already 8 years ago since the Twin Towers got to a deadly graveyard for thousand of persons.

Hope this kind of event won't come back anymore as there are no real reasons for such kind of actions!

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MM: Piano Version - Guang Liang - Fairy Tale (Tong Hua)

This is one of my favourite songs. But this is on piano version. The original song is in Mandarin. It is a beautiful and sad song. I hope you all enjoy this music. :-)

Food allergy rash????

I have mentioned in the previous post, that we fed Timmy the processed organic green peas. We stopped feeding him two days later. Because Timmy had constipation and also the farting during the night became a sleeping problem.

So, one day without any solid food. This afternoon i made him the mashed sweet potato mixed with breastmilk. He liked it and always wanted to have more.

Well....he took the naps during the day. And each time he woke up, i would find out there were some new red dots appeared on his legs. And just now i found out again another 2 red dots on both his face and stomach.

Actually there were 3 red dots appeared on his thigh on the last day that i fed him mashed banana. There was no sign of allergies appearing on those days. That made me never think of food allergy. But, the 3 small red dots suddenly became very red and swollen on Thursday night. It looks like a mosquito bite or insect bite. The next day Timmy had the regular monthly check in the government clinic, and the doctor said it might be the ant bite.

It's been 3 days now, and dots are still there, just mo more that swollen. But, during these days, i have noticed Timmy had another few red dots, they just seem like the heat rash. And today after the solid food, there are more obvious rash..... I really don't know what they are. Ant bites? Heat rash? Or food allergy rash???

When i recall the memory, Timmy never had any rash before i introduced him the solid food. So it's understandable i would think it's because of the food. I will stop feeding him the solid food first and see whether the rash will go away. If they are gone, i will start feeding him again the same food and see his reaction to make sure it's food allergy.

Milestone of Timmy at 6 months

This is one of my favourite photos of him :-)

Timmy is about 6 months and 2 weeks old. At this stage, he can already turn towards sounds and voices. Therefore, he gets distracted easily during the feeding time. He only will continue drinking the milk without any "interruption".

Besides, he can roll over in both directions very well. Because of this, we always have to take care to make sure he will not fall from the bed again! Although we have a playpen for him, we seldom put him inside. As the playpen is just too small for him. He needs much more space to roll over and move around.

Timmy also can sit without support around some weeks ago, when he was after 5-month-old. From this onwards, Timmy likes to play his toys with sitting position. And now, he even can pass objects from hand to hand. It's really amazing for us to see these developments from him. Sometimes, we put few toys around him and wonder what he will do with these toys. He at first observes the toys and eventually he will drag those objects toward him. He does not need to ask for our help most of the time, he now can try his best to reach the objects that he wants. :-) Or, if you show him the toys in front of him when he is lying down on his back, then he will raise his both hands and want to grab the toys. ;-)

Recently, he starts pushing up his body and try to move with the crawling position. He cannot really crawl yet. But he moves himself backward when the body is up from the "floor". I think he is a backward crawler? And i supposed this is the beginning of crawling :-)

The most interesting development for me is he can now interact with us. When he is in "good mood", he looks at you, making some murmuring sound and trying to "talk" to us ;-) He will just bable and smile all the time.

From his developments, we believe Timmy is ready for solid food at this stage. I have been breastfeeding him for six months and started to give the solid food for him to taste a week ago. So far, he is good with banana and he loves it! These Thursday and Friday, we introduced him the processed organic green peas for him (my parents bought for him), and today-Saturday, his stool was hard and there were only two little ball!!! I cannot believe Timmy has constipation, he has never had the stool like that. We stopped giving him today. We will stop giving him the solid food until he has no more constipation. :-(

If i am not wrong, because of teething, Timmy always mouths objects nowadays. He puts whatever into his mouth from his hands. It's very cute for us!! He is curious at everything, and in the end, he wants to "eat" them! XD However, i think he also wants to ease his pain because of teething.

I look forward to more developments of him :-D It's a very interesting journey in our life.

Photo update*