Learning

In the past few weeks, I have been secretly grateful that Eve has turned out to be the all-efficacious mum. Each day, when she updates me with her SMSes on how Faith is doing at home, I think about how lucky I am to have someone like her at home with Faith. As much as Eve sometimes tells me about how misbehaved Faith is, I know deep down, mummy loves her dear daughter so much that her bark is simply worse than her bite.

This week alone, Eve has been noticing Faith's small gestures much more now. She is getting better at interpreting Faith's whimpers, "growls" and cries. She was even telling me how which one will suceed another when Faith is really hungry. Eve has also been a natural when it comes to bathing Faith and changing her - something I am quite hopeless at. (Aunty had very quickly given me a "Fail" when bathing Faith, and Eve received a "Pass" on her first attempt). I think Eve was quite shocked when she saw me attempting to change Faith (I had tried to contort her hand out of her sleeve). I had asked Eve if she had received training on all this during Home Economics - you see, I can be quite a sore loser. Add to that, I am still quite bad at changing Faith's diapers (though I can assure you that I am improving). I never fail to soil my hands each time. I will do my best to avoid that in my next try.

Can fathers be better at doing all the above than mothers? I sometimes wonder. I think I am more suited for playing (roughly) with her, rocking her and singing to her. Perhaps it is because I have been so used to singing to her when she was still in mummy's belly. Now I try to sing to her hoping to see some response - that she will remember this voice that sung to her from even before she was born. And frankly, I think she does. But when it comes to tending to her real needs - feeding her, bathing her, changing her diapers, changing her clothes etc, Eve is definitely still the more competent between the two of us. In other couples, though, I know that's not always the case. Sometimes, it very much depends on the kid. Affinity, one would say, plays a large role in this I believe.

For now, this Father is trying his utmost best to balance work and this new family life. Having a kid changes the dimension of family life tremendously, it is true. It isn't just two people having to cope with one new person in our lives, but also, having to adapt to each other as we fit into our new roles. I am just thankful that we have had this opportunity to learn together and that so far, even with a few "tuition fees" in the form of pespiration (when I bathe her) and tears (when Faith doesn't feed well), we really couldn't have asked for more.

Practice makes perfect

In anticipation [read trepidation for us] of her departure, Aunty wanted to instruct Louis and me with some of the basic care for Faith, which heretofore, have been done by her for the 1-month duration. Louis has "mastered" the technique for holding and feeding Faith with a bottle. The next challenge that these 2 fumbling parents will have to face is bathing a squirming little thing *GASP*!!!

Louis was the first to have to bath Faith as it was the last weekend that Aunty is around. As for me, I get to do it from Mon-Wed while Louis is at work. Hmmm... the experience was rather hilarious for us but according to Aunty, stressful and a wee bit frightening for Faith.

There's a methodical process to prepare the bathtub, undress Faith, bath her and dress her again that Aunty went through with us.

Firstly, the water temperature has got to be correct. Beforehand, we need to also set aside cottonballs (for wiping eyes), cottonpads (for wiping face) and showergel by the tub, alongside the washcloth that would be used to bath her. There's a whole ritual to undressing her (without spraining her limbs) and bundling her up in a towel before we head off for her bath, followed by another set of procedure to wipe her face, ears and neck, before we wash her head and body. A firm and steady hand is needed in holding Faith at all times to ensure that she doesn't slip in the tub or be traumatised by the entire experience. Finally, we need to quickly haul her from the tub into the waiting towel, wrap her up tightly and dress her again.

By the end of the entire ritual, Louis was perspiring from all the effort. Needless to say, Aunty commented that there were many areas for improvements not only in bathing Faith (which we thought was the most challenging portion) but also in preparing the bath (we eagerly went into the bathroom without bringing along the little washcloth) and undressing/dressing her. As for me, I'm faithfully memorising all the steps and little boo-boos that Louis made just so that I won't repeat them myself. Hahaha... it would be downright embarassing if the mom is even more inept than the dad ;)

That night, we convinced Aunty to go out for dinner together with Louis' family since we have both not gone out for the usual weekend family dinner since Faith's arrival. Dinner was at Silkroad at Amara Hotel, one of our favourite places which serves excellent handmade noodles.

I think Faith enjoys going out becos she behaved beautifully. She slept well from the time of the car trip to the early part of dinner before waking up around 7.30 pm for her feed. Thereafter, she was wide awake and enthralled the grandparents and cousins with her coos, as well as other not so elegant animal-like noises. Oh well... I'm sure all in the family will get use to it since its the start of more family dinners to come.

Faith says thanks!

Today is Faith's 1 month celebration. My mom was really excited about her first grandchild's 1-month celebration. In fact, Louis and I were pleasantly surprised by two of my mom's gestures, displaying hidden talents that I never knew my mom was capable off. The first was when she arrived the day before the celebration with a basket of roses that she arranged herself at the temple, along with a well-wishing card that she got the monk to write.

On the day itself, she even helped to make, mould and steam vegetarian "Ang Ku Kwehs" early in the morning before carting them over to my MIL's place where the celebration was held. The good thing was that most people liked the Ang Ku Kwehs and they were devoured by all the guests, with some requesting to bring home some extras as they liked it so much.

In keeping with various rituals (of which I was none the wiser without the guidance of our confinement lady), both Faith and I bathed with flowered water. I was told that bathing with flower water frequently would make women more appealing and beautiful. Hmmm... if one is hankering to hook a guy or have a romantic night with your better-halves, you could try this yeah :)

In events like this, the invariable question or responses from people who have seen Faith would be to comment on whether she looks like Louis or me. The responses to date have been mixed with an equal amount of people saying that she looks like either or a little of both of us. My mom was insistent that Faith looks like Louis.

Thankfully, Faith was on a somewhat good behaviour that day :) She drank when she was hungry and didn't make too much noise when she was passed around from arms to arms. She even deigned to open her eyes and look around a little, delighting the few who managed to see her with her eyes opened.

It feels like a significant milestone has been reached with her one-month. In truth, babies grow so fast and each of their developments feel like a milestone to me. Personally, I think I would be embarking on a few milestones of my own with Aunty's departure next week. The first of which would be managing Faith all on my own 24x7 and learning to cope with the usual stuff like getting my own meals fixed, minor household chores done. After which, the next milestone would be learning to bring her out on occasions, either to meet with friends, run errands or just to take a breather from being cooped up in the house.

Before I round off today's blog, Louis, Faith and I would like to thank all our relatives, friends and colleagues who have shown their love and concern for our little family unit since Faith's arrival. Thanks too for many of the great and generous gifts and presents too!

Cutting some and adding some

Finally! I've cut my long tresses after keeping it for more than a year. Do I feel sentimental about it? Not in the least. Simply becos the Apr heat and weather has been sapping me of all my energy and having long hair isn't that great a deal when you're sweating like a pig doing nothing at home. Besides, now that I've got a baby on hand, everything needs to be done quickly. With short hair, I figured that I'll spend lesser time washing it daily and waiting for it to dry ;)


Today, Faith's stroller arrived, thanks to the generousity of colleagues and friends who have given us gift vouchers for us to buy whatever we like for Faith. We've bought a McClaren stroller after checking out a few other brands. Personally, I feel its a little heavy and cumbersome for me to manuever on my own if I go out. But the pros is that it feels sturdy and if we travel overseas with it, the stroller is fitted with suspension that wouldn't rattle Faith's teeth (or gums for now) on uneven or cobble stone surfaces. We've put Faith in her new stroller and she seemed to be intrigued by it for now.

With a baby, it seems like we're forever contemplating or buying an endless list of items that we think might be useful to either Faith or ourselves. Like yesterday night, we were contemplating buying a cot becos the current bassinet that she sleeps in is a little low. I'm told that its a strain for my back to constantly bend over the bassinet when I change her diapers, clothes or trying to put her to sleep.

As she grows, we've been advised by some friends to contemplate buying a baby carrier that we can use to carry her either in front or piggyback style. This would come in useful for when we are travelling overseas and when the stroller is a little too cumbersome for us to bring.

All I know is that our once minimalistic house is slowly accumulating a number of items, related to use for or with Faith. Thank goodness we have a part-time maid who does the cleaning these days. I know it will drive me crazy to have to clean around all those items in the house. Next thing that we will have to do is to tidy up our storeroom. Currently, its a junkyard for things that we want to keep out of site and rather unkempt. With more things that we need to store, we do need to make space in our storeroom. I know it seems delusional, but at least it allows us to continue to keep/junk non-frequently used items as I hope to maintain minimum items strewn around the house. Hahaha....


On the flip side, we are thankful that one thing we haven't really had to buy is clothes for Faith. With all the gifts that visiting folks have given to us, we have a number of clothes and toys that we are quickly trying to use, especially the newborn clothes.

Hitting the 1 month mark... soon

Faith is nearly coming to a month old. Sometimes, it feels like time has flown. Other times, it feels as if it has been a long journey to reach this one month. As with Chinese customs, we would be celebrating her first month this weekend.

With the coming of her one-month, it also means that the confinement lady would be taking her leave and we would have to be independent to manage Faith all on our own, day and night. Till now, we've only been concerned with feeding and playing with Faith. A lot of the day-to-day care such as night feeds, nappy changes, bathing, cooking of food, laundry etc has been taken charge by Aunty. Even when Faith is cranky, Aunty is the source that we look to to affirm or confirm the reasons for her cries and moods. Hence, Louis and I will have to start to learn the ropes of taking care of her :)


It has been satisfying to see Faith put on weight with feeding. When she was born, her limbs were so thin and scrawny becos she was a low birth-weight baby. After nearly a month of breastfeeding, Louis and I are proud to note that her limbs are more fleshy. While it wouldn't be any fleshy as a normal weight baby, nonetheless, at least we know that she's eating well and putting on weight. I hope she will catch up with her weight soon.


Here's another nice picture of Faith with her father that I like. I've been lamenting to Louis that I don't have a nice picture of myself and Faith so far. Its rather unfair that most of the pictures that I have together with her have either been me looking fat or dowdy. Sigh... I hope to be able to find a chance to take a nice picture of the both of us.

A father's view after close to three weeks

Like Eve, I think my only concern now is whether Eve and I would be able to cope after Aunty's departure. Frankly though, I think we've done quite well so far, mostly because we've benefited from the kindness of others. As Eve mentioned, Aunty had recommended us a good part-time maid and I think that saves us a bit of headache now that we know we don't really need to do housework if we don't want to.

Three things that we will need to pay attention to after Aunty's departure are 1) Food for Eve; 2) Feedings for Faith at night and 3) Putting Faith to sleep . To deal with the first, we have been contemplating the possibility of getting "tingkat" so that Eve will get to eat proper home-cooked food complete with soup. If anyone of you has a good recommendation for "Tingkats", pls pass them to us - that'd save us a lot of time in trial and error :)

As for the second and third, well, we haven't really worked a schedule or anything resembling close to that - yet. Maybe because sometimes, it is best to let things flow and for us to deal with it when it comes. Because after all, there is really no use in worrying about the latter two things now. Again, if any of you have any hints of how to do it without over-tiring the parents out, do let us know. We are all ears :)

My thoughts on parenthood

There's just so many things to parenthood that personally, I feel no amount of textbooks or reference material would be able to perfectly help me cope with the new experience. The reason is simple. Each kid has a different temperament and so too the parents. Unless you can find one that describes clearly your child's different and unique temperament to match with that of the parent, otherwise, these books only serve as a guide.

Which is why I am very grateful to have the confinement lady on hand during the 1st month. Aunty is very experienced and has offered many nuggets of information, advice and encouragement over the last 2 1/2 weeks which I have found to be invaluable. Sometimes, I'm fearful of the time when she would leave at the end of the 1 month because its reassuring to have someone so experienced on hand to guide and help look after Faith. Then again, I know that even if we are both willing to keep Aunty on hand for another month or two, there will come a time when I will have to cope with motherhood on my own. Its a matter of biting the bullet and learning all the job, as with all things.

Even though the last 2 1/2 weeks felt like a long time, it only serves to point out so many things about parenthood that no amount of reading will ever teach you or explain the rationale for why babies sometimes behave certain ways at certain stage of development.

For example, Faith's sleeping and feeding habits have been off the last few days. Some days, she feeds well. But others, she gets agitated and wouldn't nurse properly. Just last night, I was nursing her from 7-ish in the evening till nearly midnight. I was tired out but she seemed hungry for more milk and her eyes were wide open even at midnight.

This was what Aunty termed the "difficult 3rd week" and she felt that it was important to take extra care and give more attention to Faith during this time for a few reasons. Firstly, Faith's body temperature is higher this week as an after-effect of the BCG injection she had at birth. True enough, we could see a red spot on her left butt, indicating that the injection was taking effect. Of course, it hurts to touch that spot and since Faith could not pinpoint and localise the source of her discomfort, it was good that Aunty pointed it out to us and explain that she could be rather cranky as a result of the pain. Secondly, the 3rd week coincides with the time that her gastro-intestine (I think its this becos Aunty explains it in Mandarin which I don't know the term for) starts to act up. Which means that Faith is prone to having wind in her stomach and again, she might cry for no apparent reason (to new parents at least) nor would she be able to sleep well at night. Thus, Aunty has resorted to picking her up and carrying her, sometimes for hours as she didn't want Faith to cry too much and gulp in further air into her stomach, worsening the already uncomfortable situation. Aunty stressed that its important to help tide the kids over this period and you can't spoil a child during this critical period by picking her/him up and responding to him/her. Once the difficult period is over, it is unlikely that the baby would be plagued by wind in the stomach for the next 3 months.

The other thing I learnt from her was the reason why infants, especially those that are breast-fed, should not be given water before they start eating solids. The American Academy of Paediatric (AAP) recommended that breast-fed babies should not be given water as there is sufficient water content in breast milk. But plough as I did through this and the book on breast-feeding by La Leche League International, I couldn't find the reason why. It was only through another book by Tracy Hogg, titled "Baby Whisper Solves All Your Problems" that a better explanation was given, coupled with what I have gleaned from Aunty. Breast milk actually consists of 3 parts. In the first 5-10 mins that Baby feeds from the breast, there is more water content to quench the thirst. Thereafter, the next 5-10 minutes (fore milk) consists of proteins and nutrients that would help to develop Baby's bones and brain. Finally, the last part (hind milk) consists of a thicker, fat-based, creamier consistency, which is what will fill Baby's hunger.

Hence, Tracy Hogg advocates that its better to nurse each feed on one breast and emptying it so that Baby will receive all the 3 important components versus what is commonly advocated by many books, which was to nurse and alternate the breast at each feed. So, given that the first part of breast milk has high water content, there's really no need to give Babies any water becos you are more likely to fill their stomachs with water that he/she wouldn't be able to drink the breast milk or to get all the 3 important components at each feeding. Similarly for formula-fed babies, its better to use a higher water to powder ratio than to give water as there are key enzymes in Babies' intestines that might be washed away/diluted by water if one was to give water to Babies too. Now, which parent would have known about that?

Then, its also a common practice for parents to want to give water to babies that hiccup. But in fact, the AAP also said that hiccups don't bother Babies at all. In fact, its often the adults or parents that are bothered by the child's hiccups that they would give some water in a bid to stop the hiccups. But what I did learn from Aunty was that after every bout of hiccup, Faith would be hungry and she would be most amenable to latching on. For a mother who is obsessed about her low birth-weight child, I actually look forward to each hiccup session becos it means that I would be able to feed her and at the same time, she always latches on better. Doesn't that sound strange? Oh well...

There's also been a lot of well-meaning advise given on breast-feeding by friends since its widely acknowledged that breast-feeding is best for babies. In reality, there's a lot of grieve, tears and patience needed to be able to successfully breastfeed and that's something that all the books glossed over. I can now fully appreciate why many a moms have given up and its not for a lack of trying. But simply that without help, its really difficult to persevere with it on your own. It takes a whole lot of determination and grit in the face of not knowing whether what you are doing is right or wrong, nor guidance in how to avoid the many pitfalls.

Personally, the best piece of advise on breast feeding I felt was by a few friends who told me not to worry. If there's enough breast milk, give it to your baby. If not, there's always formula milk. I'm sure many would frown on such advice or feel that its a quitter's attitude. To me, there's been some self-imposed pressure that since many have done it successfully and a high proportion of them continue to do it while they work, I should be able to do it since I'm going to be a Stay-at-home (SAH) mom. And I've certainly been quite obsessed with it for the first 2 weeks.

What I've come to realised from many nights of talking to Louis and the confinement lady is really, feeding only constitutes one part of parenthood and there are other aspects of parenting such as playing with the baby, understanding their unique temperaments, enjoying their growth etc that is equally important. If I'm so obsessed with breastfeeding, its all I care about and as a result, I wouldn't be able to relax to appreciate and enjoy this new little addition to the family. I wouldn't be able to take time to appreciate the experience of motherhood nor would I find it as enriching and fulfilling that Louis seemed to feel.

Hence, I've come to appreciate the few friends who have given me the advice to not worry too much about breastfeeding becos it releases me from the guilt and current societal pressure that I need to breastfed in order to be a good mom. No doubt, breastfeeding is important and beneficial to Faith. But if I'm so obsessed about it that it dominates most of my thoughts and waking moments, I'm doing her and myself an injustice.

I will still try my best to breastfeed Faith or provide her breast milk in a bottle, depending on what works best for the both of us. However, if that fails and I would have to supplement it with formula, there's really no shame in that. In fact, there are other aspects of parenthood that I fully intend to embrace and discover together with Louis as Faith grows and is more aware of the world around her. To me, that's what parenthood is about.