At the Dining Table

Soph joins Mama for breakfast!

Giving Up Breastfeeding

On Sunday, I was a friend's place for a gathering. She also had a baby who was one week older than Soph but was soon moving to San Diego. Since I won't be seeing them for a while, we took the one hour drive there to meet up and say our goodbyes.
Somehow we were on the topic of breastfeeding and she told me how her baby had problems latching on but she visited a great lactation consultant who gave her baby therapy and improved things a lot. I told her I always had to supplement on formula because of my
physical issues. She offered me peanuts and asked me to go to her lactation consultant, the best in the bay area. I declined and tried to explain my situation. But she found it hard to believe how any woman cannot produce enough milk. It's true that some women have a low supply because of mishandling breastfeeding. But there is the also 5% of us who just cannot. She tried to make me feel guilty by saying "Well, mom's milk is the best after all." Ya, and why shouldn't I know that. I didn't really want to explain further.
Deep down, I know that I have been trying my best for the past four and a half months - eating all the herbs and food that boost milk supply, pumping pumping pumping. I still wake up in the middle of the night to pump, even though most moms have begun to get more rest as their babies start to sleep through the night. I used the SNS in a bid to make Soph nurse a bit longer. I think I have tried all the methods, some of which I doubt she even knew.
Two weeks ago, I have started to wean off breastfeeding. I didn't want to. I enjoy the closeness and bonding even though I had all the contraptions to make it work. However she was taking as long as an hour or sometimes more to feed even at four months. Sometimes we spent the hour wrestling to make her feed and she would refuse and cry and kept swatting me. I decided that this time should be better spent playing, learning new skills or taking a nap instead of wrestling with her to feed. After all she would be going to daycare in a month's time, and she should start getting used to the bottle. Now Soph is pretty proficient with the bottle, and she gets more play time and nap time which makes more sense to me. But giving up breastfeeding doesn't mean giving up offering breast milk. I will still pump eight times a day and squeeze out what I've got!

Rolling from back to front

Yesterday evening, S seems to have recalled the good old feeling of rolling from back to front and she kept practising it. And after she was on her front, she kept kicking her legs and wriggling her butt as though she was trying to crawl. (but still no attempts to roll from front to back yet) She was so excited about it that she couldn't go to sleep at night and kept screaming, and when we went in to check on her, she was on her front. This morning, she returned to practising her new trick again.

Looks like Calilou

I saw this new toy character at Toys'r'us the other day and thought she really looked like S. Haha.

Dimples!?!

Crib to Sleep

I left S to play in the crib with her mobile while I was preparing dinner. After I was done and came back to pick her up, she had already left for dreamland without me. Wow. If only everyday was like this.

Fingers or Pacifier?

I resisted giving S the pacifier initially because I think these artificial rubbery things would spoil her baby palette. Later on, I succumbed to it in a bid to preserve my sanity. I even used it quite a bit on the long two hour car ride back from Monterey. However she resisted her feeds after, refusing breast, SNS and bottle. She only gained one ounce that week. So I refused to give her any pacifier after that (to dd's dismay) even if it made cr rides so unbearable.

Nowadays she has mastered the art of sucking her fingers. It kind of coincided with the time we tried the Ferber method on her, so she sucks her fingers to sleep now. S doesn't have any favourite fingers, she just randomly stuffs them into her mouth, which I think it's cute actually. But some people warn that it might be difficult to wean her off finger sucking later on so they use pacifier. But some people say they have to wean off the pacifier later on as well. Well, can't please everyone of course. For now, I'm sticking to the finger sucking because when a baby needs to suck, she needs to suck! It saves us the trouble of always having to remember to pack the pacifier too.

Yoga For Moms

Today I joined a yoga class for moms for the first time after S is born - now at four months. The poses are new and different from prenatal yoga. There was more cardio and movement involved. And why can't I feel my stomach and pelvic muscles?!

The teacher corrected me quite a few times on my poses and even asked me how I was. I said it was tiring, so embarrassing. She even replaced one standing exercise to a sitting one because there were a few new students including me. I must have looked like I was struggling!
But I think I would like to go again if time allows. I want to feel my muscles again!

Summer Arms

The weather is hot. S has more fats now. So she's wearing something sleeveless for once.

She doesn't scream after baths too because it's no longer so cold for her anymore. Time to start stocking up on bath toys.