How to potty train your child – the FUN & stress-free way!

My daughter just turned 4 in March, and I think it’s time to really get down to business and potty train her for real. I have tried training her before shortly after her 2^nd & 3^rd birthdays, but both attempts failed miserably. She just could not get it. It completely stressed her out; she would wail and whine and scream while squatting/sitting on the potty I bought for her, crying her heart out “I can’t pee, mama”, “There’s nothing coming out”, “Why is this taking so long?” and many other heart wrenching pleas that I can’t remember.

There are plenty of books and plenty of articles out there saying how you can potty train your child in one day, one week or whatever. I read a lot of those articles on parenting and children websites saying that your child should be potty trained by 18 months old or 2 years old the latest, or your child could be behind on her development milestone. What I think is – if there’s no major physical limitation e.g. the child still can’t walk by the age of 3 – you can forget all those psychological bullshit. You are the mother of the child; you should know what’s best for your child and work around that principle.

So that’s what I thought. If she’s not ready, then she’s not ready. There’s no use pushing her until she screams her head off, both of us getting all stressed and achieving nothing in the end. I do have friends and relatives that comment that she’s too old to be wearing diapers anymore and how their child/grandchild/niece/nephew was potty trained before the age of 3. (This seems to be the gold standard. Any later that this means your child is a slacker.)

So I’m gonna do this my way.

Also, I’ve found out that the No 1, ultimate, essential tool in potty training.  

Not a very state-of-the-art potty, but very cute nonetheless.

A state-of-the-art potty trainer? It helps, but it’s not necessary. When your child is good and ready, she won’t even need a potty anymore.

The answer is:   Patience. Lots and lots of patience.

The process of potty training my daughter took about 1 ½ months, which is quite long compared to the “normal” toilet training as recommended by the parenting experts.

However, after the first two failed attempts at potty training, I abandoned all the knowledge I’ve gained from the parenting websites, magazines and books and asked my mother and my mother-in-law for tips. Both of them said the same thing; start by taking the child to the toilet every few hours. Okay, very logical. In fact I have tried this before, resulting in the heart wrenching screams.

How to push her to succeed without pushing

What I need is to do is motivate her without putting too much stress and pressure on her. It has to be fun, visual and seem to be a like game. And it can’t be chocolates, sweets or ice cream, all her favourite things.

The obvious solution is: Stickers. Kids LOVE stickers. And not just ordinary stickers. Special, squishy and glittery stickers, awarded only upon successful potty usage.

At first I bought a roll of colourful, smiley-face stickers that has motivation phrases on them, such as ‘Good Job!’, ‘Well Done!’ and ‘You’re a Star!’ on them. But they all look pretty much the same, and after a while, doesn’t seem so special anymore. So I bought other stickers in random shapes.

I searched for free potty training charts in the internet and printed 2 copies, one for my daughter and one for her younger brother. I didn’t want him to feel left out, so I let him play along too.

Then I thought of another visual motivational goal – a photo of my kids actually on the potty. So I printed out 2 copies of a child on the potty and superimposed their head shots on the child’s body.

The early days - my son wasn't actually potty training, but I had to give him some stickers too to avoid any hard feelings. :)

I also bought a packet of pull-up pants diapers for my daughter to get used to wearing. I pasted the two charts on the wall in their play room with the superimposed head shots above each chart.

Purpose? (Get her toilet trained.) Check.

Motivation? (The special stickers) Check.

Visual goal? (The chart & the super-imposed photo) Check.

Then I explained to my daughter how it works.

How it works

In the beginning, she will start wearing the pull-up pants. Every time she wants to pee, she needs to tell me or the maid that she needs to go, so either of us can help her take off her pants and sit her down on her potty. I also reminded my maid to ask her every two to three hours whether she wants to go to the toilet. Then I showed my daughter the ‘special’ stickers, telling her that I will keep them for her, so every time she succeeded using the potty, I’ll give her a sticker and she could paste it on her chart. 

To start the engines running, I gave her a first sticker for ‘free’. (I had to give one to my son too, because he was there listening. He’ll throw a fit if he sees his sister getting a sticker and he doesn’t.)

You should have seen how their little faces light up when they see the stickers! I didn’t have to wait long for results; she told me the next day that she succeeded going to the toilet. She was literally skipping and smiling to let me know she did it. Going to the toilet became such a fun thing to do! I praised her repeatedly for her achievements, with kisses, hugs and high-fives. 

 

At first, success came only once a day, then it increased to twice a day, and three times a day, and about 2 weeks later, her diaper stayed dry all day. So I decided that it was the ripe time to start losing the diaper.

Progress 1 – Losing the diaper

All carpets were rolled up and stashed away, just in case of any potty accidents. I put on a diaper on my daughter only when she took her afternoon nap. It went pretty well except for 2 accidents, both happened at home, when she was too engrossed playing and she totally forgot to go to the toilet. It’s really hard to stay calm when such accidents happened, especially when you just get home from work, all grumpy and tired, or when you’ve just finished cleaning up the house, as one friend told me. Remember that no 1 tool? Patience, patience – and if you feel like screaming at the top of your lungs – more patience.

Progress 2 – Losing the diaper while travelling

When my daughter stayed dry at home and was accident free, the next step was to not wear diapers when travelling outside the house. I kept asking her every hour if she needed to pee, and she kept saying no in a really confident way. She also had to learn to make do with any toilet available, whether we were in shopping malls or a relative’s house. At first she felt a little icky of shopping malls’ toilets which were, admittedly, less-than-spotlessly-clean, but after a few times, she didn’t just care anymore.

Progress 2 – Losing the diaper during afternoon naps & moving on to the “big” job

Her bladder control is getting better, as I began to notice that she did not pee at all during her afternoon naps. So I decided to try not diapering her while she napped. I’m happy to report that no accidents occurred other than the first two I mentioned previously. 

Even better, she has even started to poop in the toilet. Previously whenever she wants to poop, she would ask to put on her diaper pants and poop in it. So whenever she did successfully poop in the toilet, I would give her extra stickers. I’d say this is a great achievement for my daughter, since she used to have bouts of constipation that left her traumatic to even sit on the toilet.

So many stickers that the chart can't fit them all! I didn't show my son's chart as there wasn't much change, anyway. 

All in all – a learning experience

My daughter still wears her night diaper and I haven’t started on the night toilet training yet, which would be another challenge. But it was such a fun and relaxing method, I didn’t mind the slowness of progress at all. Rather than setting my standards on my daughter i.e. you must be toilet trained in 3 days, I let her set her own learning pace, even at 4 years of age.

It was an educational journey, for both my daughter and me. Of course she learned how to go to the toilet on her own and all that, but the most important lesson here is independence. She also learned that to get the reward, she needs to earn it. She learns to appreciate the reward, because she has achieved it on her own. The chart is a visual proof which shows her achievements and encourages her to improve, without putting on any pressure.

I feel that I got to know my daughter’s personality better during this process. Her emotions are quite volatile, in the sense that when she’s happy, she chatters endlessly and sings all day long. But at a moment’s notice, that could flip right into a screaming fest of emotional outbursts. I’ve learned when to back off and chill when it’s not working and accept the fact that my daughter will not be able to toilet train in 3 days, and that doesn’t make her, or myself, a failure.

Breathe, stay calm and try again another day.

If you’re getting all stressed up & hot and bothered at how your child just can’t get the hang of using the potty just yet, relax and take heart. I promise you she won’t go to college in diapers.

Pneumonia again; and stitches in the head

My daughter came down with pneumonia again in November and was admitted to the hospital for 4 days.  She had had pneumonia for 4 times now since she was born, and she’s only 3 ½ years old. Poor thing. I’ve never been admitted to a hospital in my life until I gave birth to her. 

It started innocently enough; she developed a mild cough, so did her little brother. But as her brother recovers, hers got worse to the point that she started wheezing. The night before she was admitted, she couldn’t sleep (neither could I) because she had trouble breathing and she was already burning up in a fever.  Both my husband and I are well versed in pneumonia attacks - as she’s had it 3 times previously – we were pretty sure she’ll have to be admitted. 

Aliah getting the nebulizer treatment in the emergency room

So when the doctor confirmed that she needed to be admitted, no one was surprised – except maybe my daughter herself. Luckily we left her brother at day care before coming to the hospital. This time was a little more complicated than before; all previous pneumonia attacks happened before her brother was born, meaning she was still the only child. Now we had to think of who could take care of her brother, as I couldn’t watch both a sick child and monitor a healthy child. My husband could not take additional leave days; his job was pretty crazy at the moment. Lucky for us, his parents had just retired a few months ago, so they volunteered to care for the little guy. But as my son is still breastfeeding at night, so my husband would have to pick him up after he leaves work at night. So all four of us camped out at the hospital for 3 nights; me and my daughter on the bed, and my husband and my son on a small, travel mattress on the floor. The first night we had to stay in a four-bedded children’s ward as all single bed wards were full. 

My husband left for work around 6.30am, so I have to bath both kids, dress them and feed them breakfast while waiting for my in-laws to pick up my son for the day. Not an easy feat when one of them is a healthy child. Luckily all the other beds were empty (all of them got transferred to other wards during the previous night) so we had the ward to ourselves. He managed to spill orange juice, spill a container of cornflakes on the bed and on the floor, pressed the nurse button several times (I had to apologize embarrassingly to the nurse) and almost tipped over the IV drip stand; all in the stretch of a couple of hours. At the same time, I had to coax my daughter to take her oral medication and her nebulizer treatment, which she had to take every 4-5 hours.

We got to transfer to a single bedded ward on the second day, around 8pm. So the remaining 2 nights we slept more fitfully, as we got an extra bed; the travel mattress was left in the bag. On the third day, a fruit basket with a Smurfette arrived for my daughter; my office sends fruit baskets to all employees that got hospitalized. The cheerful faces were like a ray of sunshine in a rainstorm; both kids were tearing up the plastic covering like crazy. I was smiling to watch them whooping in delight, until my son started playing soccer using the persimmon as a ball. Lucky the persimmon didn’t crush into pulp under his little feet. 

so happy!

All in all, I think kids and hospital just can’t go together, especially when the kid had to be strapped to an IV drip. The bed was pretty confining and TV got boring after a while; I had to let her watch the Disney Channel to keep her occupied, which kept playing Mr. Bean cartoons again and again. Whenever the IV drip was taken off, she begged to go to the playground at the children’s ward entrance or the small shop downstairs. I spent some money buying magazines, small toys and various biscuits for her, to keep us both from going insane. At first she doesn’t mind the nebulizer treatments, but later she started acting up and refused to take it. I had to make it an entertainment for her; sometimes I carried her and we danced around the bed where the IV line permitted; sometimes I took a few turns at the nebulizer myself, to be ‘fair’ to her. What a mom wouldn’t do to get her child healthy again. So on the fourth day when the doctor proclaimed that my daughter is good to go home, we left as soon as possible, hoping not to come back to the hospital until next year, at least.

My hopes were short-lived.

It was almost 3 weeks after my daughter left the hospital. I was doing a full medical checkup at that same hospital. My employer covers a full medical checkup for all employees once in every three years, and this was my first time. I was waiting for the ultrasound when my maid called. She was new and had just worked with us 2 days after my daughter left the hospital; she doesn’t understand our language very well, so there were some communication problems in the beginning, but she was getting better. She told me that she was washing up my daughter (she just pooped) when my son came running into the bathroom, slipped and fell down, hitting the back of his head on the door ledge. I didn’t hear my son crying, so I didn’t worry too much about it. 

I immediately called my husband, asking him to get home and check on our son. He was at a car workshop, luckily nearby our home. My son seemed perfectly fine despite cutting his head open; he was already playing with his sister as usual, he wasn’t even crying anymore. My husband took one look, called me and said “I think he’ll need stitches.” I was like “What???” I thought it was like a graze when you fall down on your knees. Since I was already at the hospital, my husband packed up the kids, hailed a taxi (our car was left at the workshop) and came to the hospital to meet me.

I had to cut short my medical checkup and postpone to a later date, and went to the emergency room to meet them. It was already noon, so naturally the kids were getting a little cranky for their naps. I was a little freaked out to see my boy’s little head cut like that. The blood was just oozing slightly out of the cut, without any spills. He doesn’t seem to be aware of the pain too much; he remembered the pain when somebody touched his head, or when he lied down on my lap to nurse. Even when the doctor first looked at him, he said “He doesn’t seem to be in any pain at all.” But he did cry when the doctor cleaned his wound and bandaged his head. We had to wait for the general surgeon for about an hour, to come to stitch him up. While waiting, he jumped around on the sofas, ate some chocolate biscuits and pulled off the head bandage three times. A nurse commented to me, “Weren’t you here a few weeks ago…” I was like, “Yeah yeah, that was my daughter getting pneumonia, now my son cut his head.” 

Aliff in his head bandage

Then the surgeon arrived, looked at his wound, and asked us whether we would prefer for our son to take the general anesthesia or the local anesthesia. To take general anesthesia, he would have to be admitted, not eat anything for 6 hours and stay at the hospital at least for one night. I had had enough of hospital wards, so we decided to take the local anesthesia. I didn’t have the heart to watch my son’s head being stitched up, so my husband stayed with him during the procedure. My daughter was already asleep in the stroller outside in the waiting room, so I stayed with her. 

But that didn’t stop me from hearing my son’s cries, which was pretty distressing for me, imagining what he was going through. I braved myself enough to peek through the door, and I saw him lying face down on the table, my husband soothing him while holding him down with a nurse, the doctor on his left side, stitching away. My son was whining and crying a little, definitely uncomfortable. I was glad that my husband stayed with him; this was totally different than holding down my daughter while she was being pricked in the hand for an IV line. 

Half an hour passed and my husband came out, holding the little boy in his arms. He immediately reached out for me, crying. It was the combination of discomfort, pain, weariness, disorientation and the after effect of the local anesthesia. He doesn’t want to be put down on his feet, but when he does stand on his own feet, he seemed to sway a little on the spot. I tried showing him my phone to distract him but then he took my husband’s phone and matched them, saying “same.. same..” Truth be told, it was rather funny. After getting his meds, we hailed a taxi and scrambled back home. I breastfed my son, and he was asleep within 10 minutes. 

Sleeping on his tummy, like I said.

For the first 3 days, he was still feeling the pain, so he remembered to sleep on his tummy or on his side at night. He was even scared to lie down to nurse or to put on his diapers, so we had to hold his head or put a small bolster pillow underneath his neck to support him. On the 4^th day he could already lie down with his head supported with a soft pillow. Now he’s already forgotten the pain and could put his head down like normal. Every time he jumps on the sofa or on the bed, we’ll remind him that he might fall down and hurt his head again. He’ll remember the pain for 5 seconds, touch his head and continue jumping. Ahh, the blissful ignorance of childhood.

The 2-year mark – Success is Sweet

That's my little boy. He's reading A Time to Kill - John Grisham.

My little boy turned 2 years old a few weeks ago. With that, it’s finally official – I have successfully achieved my goal to breastfeed him exclusively for 2 years. And let me tell you; success is sweet. 

                It was difficult, at least in the beginning. Breastfeeding did not come naturally to me, like it is for some lucky moms. It was hard, painful work – in the literal sense of word. I was diagnosed with breast abscess when my son was barely two months old, and I had incision and drainage (I&D) done, which means my breast was cut about 4 inches long to drain out the pus, and was not stitched up, but patched with  dressing to let the incision heal from inside out (whatever that means). 

                Oh, there were a couple other obstacles as well, such as the fridge breaking down, so I had to throw out 50 bags of frozen milk, and the doctor advising me to take medication to stop my milk flow as to let my incision heal. Nothing serious, nothing death-defying. 

                But you know what? What doesn’t kill you, can only make you stronger. The hardships I went through made the success even sweeter. You can only appreciate your success properly when you know how hard it was to get there. After all, you can’t make a rainbow without any rain, right? 

                In a way, breastfeeding an older infant i.e. more than 1 year old is more satisfying and rewarding. By this time, the bond between the mom and the baby would have been cemented that your baby wants to be with you all the time and mom became the ultimate comfort, which can be very flattering to the point of annoyance. (Again?? You just fed like, 10 minutes ago!) But believe me, this phase will pass. The time will come when you’ll be the one chasing your kid around, calling out “Hey (put your child’s name here), you want mommy’s milk now?” while he’s busy playing ball or building a bricks castle. 

                The convenience is nice. When travelling, I just need to bring bottles and formula for my older daughter, no milk bottles needed for my son, therefore less space taken up in diaper bags and less time washing up bottles. When he wants milk, I just sit down somewhere comfortable, keep us properly discreet and there we go. I have breastfed in zoos – on the tram and during animal shows, during corporate family days, in the middle of the living room surrounded by relatives during festive seasons, even in the middle of a futsal tournament, soaking wet and sweating profusely. I should have asked my husband to take a photo of us that time, but my face was all red and puffy, it would be too embarrassing even for me to look at it. Heh. 

                I’ve stopped pumping at work now, and supplementing with some fresh milk, as he still won’t take formula. He doesn’t drink too much milk, but I’m not too worried as he’s a big eater for such a little guy – you’ll be surprised how much food can go into that tiny body – he gets his calcium dose from other sources such as cheese and broccoli, his favourite vegetable. But as soon as I get home, he’ll run after me, asking to be picked up, and wants his milk immediately, hands patting my breasts. Sometimes I had to let dinner start without me. I keep asking my boy to stop for a while, and we’ll continue ‘milk’ right after I eat. But he’ll mumble and shake his head, and put up his little hand, telling me to wait. Huh.      

         

                People are telling me to stop, now that my son is already 2 years old. He’s getting bigger, taller and heavier for me to hold on my lap. As he feeds, his legs dangled around and his hands would sometimes rub my nose, play with my hair strands, and pat my chin. Sometimes he smiles as I tickle him, showing his little dimple. And I realized how much I love breastfeeding him, and how much I treasure this bonding time with him, and I just can’t bring myself to wean him off, at least not yet. Despite the many times he wakes up at night to feed, and despite the clinginess that I have to sometimes cook while holding him in my other arm, I really LOVE breastfeeding. Needless to say, I’m hooked. And I’ll stay hooked until the day he pushes me away and grows up. Sob.

Tips on how to boost your breastmilk - my breastfeeding journey

Before I had my own child, I often thought that breastfeeding is something that comes naturally and easily as breathing. Well, now I know that it is natural, but it is definitely not easy! I thought that the milk would always be there like a water pipe; the baby wants milk, just turn on the faucet, it’ll come out. The baby doesn’t want milk, turn it off and it’s gone. Just like magic. How naïve of me!

My baby boy has turned 14 months old and he’s a fully breastfed baby, despite my contracting breast abscess when he was just 1 month old. I’ve a lot of friends and relatives, even strangers, asking me, “How are you able to produce so much milk?” FYI, I don’t actually get 12 oz at each pumping session. I used to be able to pump about 6 to 8 oz of milk every session, 6 times a day, before my baby turned 6 months old. That means the total milk I produced for the day would be about 36 oz, give or take (this doesn’t include night feedings).

I guess it’s kind of a no-brainer when I tell you, that the best way to boost your breastmilk is by increasing the number of times you pump or breastfeed. The best time to do this is during your maternity leave days when your baby is still young.

I’m telling you this because I’ve learned it the hard way – during my breastfeeding my eldest daughter. She was 14 months old when I decided to wean her off altogether as I was already pregnant with our son. My first breastfeeding journey with my daughter was far from easy. I had started mixing her feedings with formula right from the start. It was a combination of not having enough knowledge plus the influences of the more experienced group – our mothers. My mother, specifically. I had cracked and bleeding nipples right from the start; latch on seemed so difficult!

Breastfeeding was so traumatic that I did not even dare to try breastfeed while lying down at night. I figured that I couldn’t even relax in broad daylight, let alone in the dark at night. So for night feeds, I would get up and prepare formula milk in a bottle for my daughter, only pumping in the morning when I wake up. Nevertheless, my breastmilk dwindled quickly as none were coming out at night for at least 7 or 8 hours.

But I wouldn’t give up entirely. I keep on working on latch on during daytime. When I returned to work after my maternity leave ended, I was pumping 3 to 4 times a day, getting only 2 or 3 oz each time. At times I felt like a total failure, not being able to breastfeed my firstborn child properly. Then sometime during the fourth month, I decided to wing it and give night feeds a go. One night, when my daughter started to cry, I pulled her close while lying on my side and nursed her, just focusing on keeping both of us comfortable. She seemed okay, nursing until she nods off to sleep. From that time onwards, I never woke up to prepare formula again (until I weaned her off, of course).

So when my son was born, I don’t have too much trouble with breastfeeding him. Because the first time with my daughter seemed like torture, at least at first, the second time I breezed through it smoothly. I nursed him for the first time about an hour after the birth, and I had him roomed in with me at the hospital after he was born. The lactation counselor even called me the “expert” breastfeeding mom when I told her that I breastfed my firstborn until she turned a year plus. Yeah, right. She didn’t know how hard it was for me to become that “expert” mom!

But then, this “expert” mom contracted breast abscess. Not very expert of her, huh? The breast abscess itself was a tremendously emotional and physically painful, long story. I’ve already poured my heart and soul on this subject; you could read all about it here.

Like I mentioned before, the single thing you absolutely must do to boost your breast milk is to pump or breastfeed more frequently during your maternity leave. This is the most ideal time, as you have, hopefully, more time to waste on pumping and more time to spend bonding while breastfeeding. The focus at the time would be for you to recover, take care of yourself and the baby, so nobody expects you to do much else.

You need to offer the baby your breast at least every two hours, or every time your baby gives out hunger cues such as crying, turning her head towards you to search for your nipple or any type of restlessness. Don’t limit the suckling time; it’s her food after all! How would you like it if someone takes away your plate while you were eating? Wait until she lets go, or until she’s sound asleep, then break off the latch gently by inserting your little finger into the corner of her mouth. If she normally takes a long time suckling and falling asleep at your breast, lie down, relax, close your eyes and take a nap (you deserve it!).

If you’re too agitated to sleep, or you want to watch a favourite movie or tv show, (moms are nothing if not multi-taskers) first of all, make yourself comfortable. I used to prep myself on a comfortable sofa with lots of pillows with a laptop in front of me so I can surf the Net while nursing. My trick was I nursed my baby using the football hold so I have my hands free to do other things. The football hold was my favourite position in those early days, because it was the easiest latch method for my baby. If I want to watch tv, I would settle myself and the baby in an armchair, with lots of pillows and the remote.

Right after nursing, pump until no more milk comes out. This is what stimulates your breast to produce more milk. Think of this metaphor; imagine you’re at a restaurant eating dinner, and you drink half of your glass of orange juice. The waiter will come and fill up your half empty (or half full, whichever you prefer) glass, right? If you finished the whole glass off, the waiter would fill up the whole glass. The point is, you need to finish off the whole glass, so you can get the waiter to refill up more. So the faster you finish up your glass of orange juice, the faster the waiter refills it for you (this waiter is a very efficient worker).

This is exactly what you’re trying to get your body to do; you need to empty your breasts completely and faster so they can ‘refill’ it back quickly. To summarize this

Source: www.kellymom.com

Here’s the rationale - During the early weeks of the baby’s life, your breasts will usually produce more milk than the baby’s needs. This is the time of engorgement, breast fullness and leaking breasts as they are adjusting their milk production according to your baby’s (or babies, if you have twins or more) actual needs. This is the best time to set the high bar for your milk production. Pump or breastfeed until your breasts are completely empty every 2 hours for the first 2 to 3 months of your baby’s life, and you’ll never have to worry about your milk supply.

Around the 3rd month, your breasts will have regulated their milk production up to the 6th month, and there’ll be another slight dip in your milk output as your baby starts eating solid food.

If you read about my breast abscess experience, you’ll know that my affected breast was producing about 1 oz due to the leak the incision made. You’ll also find out that my mom’s fridge broke down, destroying about 50 bags of my frozen milk stash. It was definitely not an easy time for me.

There are also proven research that shows milk volume or quantity is normally higher in the morning, and the quantity lessens as the day progresses. So it is imperative that you empty your breasts the first thing in the morning. What I do is, I would breastfeed my baby right before I wake up. Then after taking a shower and getting dressed for work, I would pump another 10 to 15 minutes, right before leaving for work. I won’t get much milk as one breast would be almost empty, but the purpose here is to empty both breasts.

When you get to my stage, (my baby is 14 months old now) you’ll be heartbroken to dump 2 to 3 bottles of breastmilk everyday, as you are still producing more than your baby’s needs. I’m used to this, so I no longer get heartbroken. My baby is currently a reverse cycler; he drinks just one bottle of milk during the day and nurses like crazy when I get home from work.

Even though he’s a little small for his age, but he’s eating well and he’s very active, so I’m not too worried (He’s even began to play ball with daddy, a soccer star in the making. I hope). A few weeks back, I threw out about 50 bags of frozen milk, some dating back to 5 months ago. I can actually get by without taking out the frozen stash, but it’s always comforting to know that backup milk is there if and when I need it.

So there it is, the proven method to boost your breastmilk. Pump often in the early days, and you’ll reap the benefits later. So don’t be lazy, get out that pump and get moving!

Reference: www.kellymom.com

The 1-Year Mark - Breastfeeding beyond the First Year

My baby boy has just turned one year old on November 6. This means, that I have been fully breastfeeding him for a whole year, yeay! Despite my breast abscess, I did it, double yeay!!
Read about my breast abscess challenges here, here and here.

My breast milk was not as abundant as before, but still more than enough for my little boy’s needs. In addition to the breast abscess, I also survived a sudden two-week nursing strike when he just 6 months old. It was heart-wrenching to see your baby refusing and yelling at your breast, and when you pop in a bottle, he began to suck like there’s no tomorrow. But that’s another story for another day.

Here’s a sneak peek of Aliff’s first birthday party.


That’s Thomas the Tank Engine on top of a 2.5 kg of chocolate moist cake, from Howzat’s Creation. Simply ravishing!

Here’s the birthday boy, accompanied by his lovely mom (ahem).


Ermmm… I’m digressing here.

So, one more year of breastfeeding and pumping to go. More or less. I was thinking to stop pumping when he turns two and just breastfeeding through the nights and weekends only. But then again, one year is a long time, so we’ll see how it goes.

I found this video of breastfeeding moms, which I think is very sweet. It shows of how moms nursing anytime, anywhere, from the Eiffel tower, to the beach, to the Brooklyn bridge, even on top of a mountain! I wish my breastfeeding adventures were as exotic, but I prefer to be a little discreet when nursing. To me, nursing my baby is a private affair so I don’t show it off. Plus, I’m terrified that some skin might show! No way Jose!

This is the only photo of me breastfeeding in a somewhat public place. I was in the car, on the charter ferry in Penang, Malaysia. Our car windows are tinted darker, so the image clarity isn’t too good. But if you strain your eyes just a little bit, you can see me nursing my boy in the passenger seat.

How about you? Come and share your breastfeeding experiences, and link up here. There’ll be an exciting giveaway for everyone who links up, something fun to do with your child. I’ll tell more about this giveaway in my next post, but I’ll give just one clue: Alphabets!

Considering cloth diapers?

Photo courtesy of www.swapmamas.com

Let’s face it, raising a child is expensive, let alone two, three, four children. I’m sure for most parents, the bulk of spending for children would go to formula and diapers. The next bulk of spending would go to others such as childcare, clothing, toys and food.

So wouldn’t you like to save some cents anywhere, so you can spend it on yourself? (Or more clothes or toys for your kids, it’s your choice, really.) But like other methods of saving money, there is always a need of some effort on your side. Trying to save on food and meals? Buy groceries and cook at home. Of course, food preparation and the cleaning afterwards is a pain, but it saves more money than eating out. If you’re tired of the endless mountain of laundry i.e. washing, hanging, drying, folding and ironing, you could always send them straight to a laundry shop. Just pay them, and you’re done. But do this every week for the family’s whole dirty laundry including kids’ clothes, you’ll be broke within the month. Summary: convenience costs money. And it isn’t always the best choice.

So let’s talk about cloth diapers. So what’s good about them?

ComfortPhoto courtesy of www.jardinediapers.com

Cloth diapers are made from natural, breathable fabrics, such as velour, bamboo, microfleece and cotton knits. Did you notice that most kids’ clothing is made from cotton? Why? Because it’s the most comfortable, that’s why! Even disposable diapers are trying to imitate this cloth softness by saying in their adverts, “Cotton-like softness”. And while we’re talking about diapers, what kind of underwear do you wear daily? (Please exclude the late night romps where you wear silk and satin.) Cloth undies, not paper or plastic. ‘Nuff said.

Wallet friendly

A good investment may need an expensive initial cash outlay, but in the long run, is more economical. Cloth diapers may be used again and again, until it basically tears whereas disposables, as the name suggest, is a single-use item. Below is a cost comparison between a cloth diaper, an average price disposable diaper and an expensive disposable diaper, using the assumption for 1 child per family, going through 6 diaper changes in one day for 3 years, the average age where a child is fully toilet trained.

Environmental friendly

Disposable diapers make up the third largest group of waste after newspapers and food & beverage containers, and they take around 200-500 years to decompose. Also, did you notice some small printed instructions at the bottom of the disposable diapers packaging for parents to dump solid waste into the toilet and flush it? I didn’t know it myself, until my first born child was around 7 or 8 months old, informed to me by my mom! (I apologize to you, Mother Earth for my blissful ignorance.) Bearing that in mind, the human poop is thrown into our landfills where it can leach into the groundwater and possibly, spread disease. (Now I’m feeling really guilty. Can you see my face turning red? I could’ve started an epidemic! Oh my God!)

Healthier baby

Back in the days when everyone wears cloth diapers, babies hardly ever gets diaper rash. My mom told me that the diaper rash creams don’t even exist. Like I mentioned earlier, cloth is breathable and keeps a baby cooler. Disposables contain chemicals such as sodium polyacrylate to absorb moisture. As cloth diapers do not have these chemicals, they naturally absorb less. This would mean more diaper change, which is more work for us. But this is a good thing, because of this, babies in cloth diapers are cleaner compared to babies in disposables who end up sitting in their pee longer. Good, right?

Cloth diaper is easier than it used to be

The traditional white cloth “napkin” as my mom used to call them, has to be changed every time the baby pees, as the cloth gets soaking wet. So you can imagine how many cloths does a baby use up every day, around 10 to 20, I guess.

Photo courtesy of www.scientificamerican.com

But the modern cloth diaper has transformed far much better than its predecessor. In defense of cloth diapers, they are softer, cuter and works just like a disposable. They are very easy to use and to care for. You don’t even have to use a clothes brush. Just pour some baby clothes detergent and some water, rub them together or knead on them like you’re kneading bread dough until it’s clean, rinse it and you’re done! If you’re even lazier, just rinse of all the pee and poop under running water, put them in a laundry net (so that your diapers last longer) and wash them in a washing machine like you wash normal clothes.

And most of them are one size diaper now – meaning the cloth diaper is adjustable when the baby grows. Some of them use snap buttons, more are using Velcro for ease of use.

You don’t have to abandon disposable diapers totally. You could still use them in situations where you absolutely do not have the time to wash cloth diapers and where water is not readily accessible such as:

• Disaster – floods, earthquakes and such
• Emergency – in case of premature birth, accidents etc
• Hospital stays – especially if the mom is being hospitalized. I don’t think most dads would want to do any diaper washing. (No offense, dads.)
• Vacation or travels – I personally use disposables when travelling because I don’t want to bring dirty diapers around with me, and then needing to wash them when I just got back home, all tired.

I wish I have a nicely organized collection like this.

Photo courtesy of www.clothdiapermalaysia.com

Mine is more like this.
And this.

These are the inserts. A few more were still hanging to dry.

I’ve been using them daily for about 8 months now for both my children, so they were yellowing a little bit. They need a good stripping, and they’ll look as good as new.

I forgot to take photos of my kids wearing cloth diapers. I just have one of my boy wearing it. He was playing with Daddy.

Please excuse the mess at the back. It was a lazy Saturday morning, so cleaning up comes much later.

I bought mine from a good friend from her blog http://simpledimplestore.blogspot.com/. A very good deal indeed. I needed about 30 diapers to go round for 2 kids, so I was just looking for average priced ones. There were a lot more cuter designs at a slightly higher price, go and have a look!

All in all, the cloth diapers have saved me a whole lot of money. As I use disposables only when we go out and travelling, usually on weekends, I buy them about a large pack for each my daughter and my son every 4 or 5 months. But I still use disposables for night use, as I can’t wake up every 2 or 3 hours to check on wet cloth diapers. I’m already lacking sleep. Do that, and I won’t be able to wake up in the morning. Or I can wake up, but I’ll be cranky as hell. And nobody likes a cranky mom.

Sources:

www.diapernet.org

www.zany-zebra.com

www.wisegeek.com

Food fights

Courtesy of www.veer.com

I sometimes dread weekends when I have stay home with my daughter, like the last one when my husband worked all weekend so I was stuck at home alone with her. It’s not like I don’t like spending time with her, I do, really. My only free time would be when she takes her naps in the morning, which is when I’ll cook the day’s lunch cum dinner, and the afternoon nap, which is when I’ll take a shower, perform my prayers, and finally, take a breather and take a nap myself, or watch a movie as I fold the laundry.

As my daughter just despises being alone, it’s quite difficult to do some housework with her tailing me around and wailing for something she wants to put in her mouth but I won’t let her i.e. talcum powder, my J.Lo sample body lotion, pens, wet wipes, pieces of biscuits she ate this morning, coins if we weren’t careful. The thing is, she knew we wouldn’t let her put stuff in her mouth. Sometimes I catch her in the act and quickly she hides behind the laundry basket, as if I couldn’t see her. And when I take it away from her, she’ll yell herself hoarse like I just tortured her, the baddest mom on the planet. Oooh… this daughter of mine is quite a handful, I tell you.

And that’s not even the main reason why I dread weekends alone with my precious little one. The number one reason is that I simply don’t know what to feed her! No, let me rephrase that. I don’t know WHAT she likes to eat. Every Saturday morning, I’ll flip through the pages of recipe books and magazines that feature food for toddlers and kids to find something that I think she’ll like, but then she’ll eat about three or four spoonfuls, and then pronouncing loudly with a affirmative headshake, “Nanak” which I think means “No thanks, mom, I think I’ve had enough now.” I think I’ve cooked up a pretty decent meal, which in the beginning, she wants to eat so enthusiastically, I would literally hold my breath to see how much she would eat. Not much, it turned out to be. It’s weird how she really likes some food for one day, and then totally hates it the next day. I mean, if you like chicken, you won’t mind eating it often, don’t you?

Then I start to wonder, is my cooking really THAT bad? My husband and brother find them eatable, so what’s the problem here? Her caregivers at her nursery keeps saying that she eats a lot, drinks a lot of milk, pooping twice, sometimes 3 times a day. Every time I pick her up from her nursery, I could really feel her weight from all that food she ate, her little round tummy protruding her t-shirts comfortably well. Then it hit me; she likes company. She always wants a bite of what we’re eating, be it curry, fish, spicy fried chicken or fruits, and she seems to eat more when we’re eating together. So now I try to feed her whatever we eat, as long as it’s not too spicy and not too oily. But her wacky eating behaviours still drive me crazy sometimes. Especially when she purposely drops her food onto the floor (after I just vacuumed the house) or she puts her tongue out and lets her food drip down her chin.

Then of course, I read up some info about toddler nutrition and fussy eaters from the Master of All Sources of Information, the Internet. To my relief, it seems my daughter’s eating habits are perfectly normal for toddlers around the world. The main thing to do for moms is, to stay calm and relax. Easier said than done. Okay, here’s a summary of main points to remember:

Courtesy of www.goodhousekeeping.com

• Refusing foods is actually an important sign of growing up, as it is the first ways of how toddlers assert their independence. So even though it may drive you up the wall, it’s a healthy developmental milestone for your child.
• If your child is old enough, try to involve him in food decisions. Provide him with a healthy range of options of foods. Chances are, he’ll be more likely to eat food that he chose for himself.
• Whenever possible, try to eat together as a family to encourage your child to eat, which is the case with my daughter. She loves company! This is why, I think, she eats more at her nursery. The more, the merrier.
• Prepare some finger foods so your child can eat some food by themselves, such as pieces of fruit, vegetables, fish, chicken or potatoes, crackers with cheese or little sausages. Mix them up in a variety of colours to make the meal interesting like, carrots, peas, fish, potatoes and pieces of papaya on a yellow plate. But be ready to brace yourself if your child flips it over to the floor.
• If they spit out their food or protest, don’t punish or yell, but try to smile and take away their food and wait for the next mealtime. This is a real challenge for me, especially when she purposely throws her food onto the floor. But I’ll try and paste a smile on my face next time.
• Try, try and try again. Just like my daughter’s whims, children’s likes and dislikes change all the time. She might not like it the first time, but she might like them the 15th time. So don’t lose heart too quickly.
• Just like us adults, there some things that children just do not want to eat. I don’t eat seafood, bean sprouts and tofu, despite my husband’s saying they are delicious, so who am I to complain? So give in gracefully, and nobody’s left in tears.

If all else fails, just take her plate and chow down the food yourself. At least it doesn’t go to waste.