I'm inspired by a mommy's blog where she posted a video of her daughter saying prayers at the age of 2 years! After that I showed it to Ivan and he was impressed as well. So that night itself, I thought why not start praying with Valerie?
I taught her to put her hands together when I say 'Pray Pray', and then I said a simple prayer like 'Thank you God for nen nen (milk), Amen!'. Valerie quickly catch on and say 'MaMen!!'. As she said it, she will also nod her head. Haha.. so cute.
Then I said 'Praise God'... and she said 'Pis God'. Ah well.. almost close. So now, after the night feed and before going to bed, I will say 'Pray Pray' and she will put her hands together and after a short prayer, she will say 'MaMen!!!'.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Valerie is Weaned!
You know what most breastfeeding mom fear most? It's when their baby is addicted to the breast and refuse to wean off. I know of one mom whose kid is still refusing to wean after 2 years old. I'm not against moms who prefer to breastfeed longer than 2 years old but personally I felt quite tired of going to the pump room every day to express my milk after 1 year old. And to bump into well meaning people who said 'Oh.. you're still doing it? That's good.. That's good...' Well... it's good if you're enjoying it. It's not when you start to dread it.
So about 17 months, I decided I will stop expressing milk in the daytime. Ivan is not that supportive of it, in fact he always make me feel guilty about stopping, but I'm so determined to ignore him this time :P It's quite a feeling when you know it's your last time to pump. You hold the pump and the bottle and knowing this will be the last. And after that, when you start seeing all your preciously stored bottles disappearing one by one in the fridge... well.. it's kind of sad. But I know it's time to move on.
The suprising thing is, Valerie doesn't seem to miss the breasts at all! For the last 4 months, I have been mixing 3 oz of bm and 3oz of Frisolac Comfort for her afternoon feed. Thankfully she took them without much fuss. Then slowly, I reduce the bm ratio and increasing the formula ratio. So by 17 months, it was like 1 oz of bm and 5 oz of formula. So making 6oz of full formula, she just took them, probably not noticing mommy's milk is no longer in it. :D
Then at night, I was still breastfeeding her, as a consolation to both myself and Ivan. But after 2 week or so, I decided to give her a 5oz formula before sleeping and she gulped it down and still can breastfeed! So I was thinking, have I been starving her all this while? She could actually take it more!
And the amazing thing is, the more doses of Frisolac Comfort I feed her, the more frequent her poo is and softer too. So I start to realise that the formula really does work for constipated baby, it's just that I wasn't feeding her frequent enough. In the end, I also fed her formula in the morning. And I have to tell you, her constipation just disappeared!! Can you imagine that, all the tears and struggles for the last 10 months just gone. No more forcing her to drink more water, or eat more fruits or hi fibre stuff. The problem is solved!
Have I known that earlier, I would have stop breastfeeing at 12 months.. Gosh... So what's remain is the middle of the night nibble. Valerie still likes to wake up every 3-4 hrs to suck and I'm so sure she's not hungry. I'm also getting annoyed that I've not had a sleep through the night that most parents already enjoy by this age.
So at 18 months, this is the final decision. To stop breastfeeding completely since she's waking up out of habit to nibble. The first night she woke up abt 3am, I just pat her, carry her, hold her to sleep. And did she put up a fight! She cried and cried for half an hour, eventually no milk so she went back to sleep. I was prepared it would be worse the next day.
The next night, she woke up about 4.30am, I gave her water, she took it and then she said 'Nen Nen'. So we made her a 3oz bottle and she gulped it down without struggling and went back to sleep. And then things start to get better, she wakes up later and later each day that she wakes up at 6.30am. Now that is what I call sleeping :D :D
For the past few days, things have been good. Valerie has not even woken up at 6.30am for her mini milk feed, she just sleep straight till 8.30am. So we've done it. Yey... Valerie is completely weaned from the breasts, no longer constipated, has gained a lot of weight and is finally, sleeping through the night.
So if you ask me which is better, breast milk or formula? I personally think formula from 12 months onwards... This is saying from experience :P
So about 17 months, I decided I will stop expressing milk in the daytime. Ivan is not that supportive of it, in fact he always make me feel guilty about stopping, but I'm so determined to ignore him this time :P It's quite a feeling when you know it's your last time to pump. You hold the pump and the bottle and knowing this will be the last. And after that, when you start seeing all your preciously stored bottles disappearing one by one in the fridge... well.. it's kind of sad. But I know it's time to move on.
The suprising thing is, Valerie doesn't seem to miss the breasts at all! For the last 4 months, I have been mixing 3 oz of bm and 3oz of Frisolac Comfort for her afternoon feed. Thankfully she took them without much fuss. Then slowly, I reduce the bm ratio and increasing the formula ratio. So by 17 months, it was like 1 oz of bm and 5 oz of formula. So making 6oz of full formula, she just took them, probably not noticing mommy's milk is no longer in it. :D
Then at night, I was still breastfeeding her, as a consolation to both myself and Ivan. But after 2 week or so, I decided to give her a 5oz formula before sleeping and she gulped it down and still can breastfeed! So I was thinking, have I been starving her all this while? She could actually take it more!
And the amazing thing is, the more doses of Frisolac Comfort I feed her, the more frequent her poo is and softer too. So I start to realise that the formula really does work for constipated baby, it's just that I wasn't feeding her frequent enough. In the end, I also fed her formula in the morning. And I have to tell you, her constipation just disappeared!! Can you imagine that, all the tears and struggles for the last 10 months just gone. No more forcing her to drink more water, or eat more fruits or hi fibre stuff. The problem is solved!
Have I known that earlier, I would have stop breastfeeing at 12 months.. Gosh... So what's remain is the middle of the night nibble. Valerie still likes to wake up every 3-4 hrs to suck and I'm so sure she's not hungry. I'm also getting annoyed that I've not had a sleep through the night that most parents already enjoy by this age.
So at 18 months, this is the final decision. To stop breastfeeding completely since she's waking up out of habit to nibble. The first night she woke up abt 3am, I just pat her, carry her, hold her to sleep. And did she put up a fight! She cried and cried for half an hour, eventually no milk so she went back to sleep. I was prepared it would be worse the next day.
The next night, she woke up about 4.30am, I gave her water, she took it and then she said 'Nen Nen'. So we made her a 3oz bottle and she gulped it down without struggling and went back to sleep. And then things start to get better, she wakes up later and later each day that she wakes up at 6.30am. Now that is what I call sleeping :D :D
For the past few days, things have been good. Valerie has not even woken up at 6.30am for her mini milk feed, she just sleep straight till 8.30am. So we've done it. Yey... Valerie is completely weaned from the breasts, no longer constipated, has gained a lot of weight and is finally, sleeping through the night.
So if you ask me which is better, breast milk or formula? I personally think formula from 12 months onwards... This is saying from experience :P
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Heguru Trial
I finally took Valerie to Heguru for a trial. So happened that I was at MV doing my facial on Wed and Heguru was open so I walked up to have a look at the place, saw the CD preview of the programme and signed up for the RM80 trial. What I like about it is that they have a trial class and you only need to commit to the programme on a monthly basis. Unlike Shichida and Tweedlewink, no trial class and they want you to sign up per semester of 3 months. The thing is, how do you sign up for a RM1200 course for 3 months, without trying it in the first place. 3 months is a long commitment, if your baby doesn't like it, it's like paying to suffer.
So we brought her to the class on Father's Day. I forgotten that Sunday was Father's Day. When we reached MV, we only had 50 mins to lunch and I've promised Ivan a Fathers' Day treat. I picked Chinoz at Gardens cause I've always wanted to try it but mainly because the place is not that full and I thought the food will arrive faster :P
But I have to say Chinoz's food is pretty good. We orderd Spaghetti Carbonara and Smoke Salmon Pizza. The pizza is just superbly yummy with lots of smoke salmon on it. After the quick lunch (sorry daddy), we rushed to Heguru. We were 5 mins late. When we walked into the trial room, we could hear one baby crying very loudly. Entered in and we saw it's a 20-months old boy, crying non stop after sensei asked him to introduce himself in front.
Valerie just watched in amazement. Then sensei asked her to stand in front to introduce herself with a big name tag prepared. Valerie just grinned and walked to the front, not knowing what is happening and smiled, while trying to grab the name tag from sensei. There was only 2 babies for this trial, Valerie and the boy. And the boy continued to cry hysterically.
In the end, the sensei had to allow the boy and the parents to leave the room while continue on the lesson. So only Valerie left. We started with a quiet relaxation time. Listening to soft music and we're told to imagine something with our eyes closed. I covered Valerie eyes for a while, before she start pushing my hands away and walked around the room, smiling.
Next is Mandara session, where a picture of geometrical shapes and colours in shown on the screen, we're supposed to watch it for few seconds and then recolour the same thing on the worksheet. Well, errrm.. Valerie obviously doesn't know what is going on but she's having fun picking crayons and drawing lines on the worksheet, while sensei helped mommy to colour the shapes. I'm quite embarassed at how bad my memory is :P
After that, it's a series of very fast flash cards that covered a lot of things like words, numbers, japanese chars, chinese chars. There was also flash cards of famous paintings and musical instruments, words in French, chemistry element and world names. In between the flash cards, there were other sessions where Valerie could get her hands on the exercise. I don't know what they are called. Placing those geometrical shapes according to the picture on the sheet. And then tracing of Japanese char and a chemistry element?! There's singing and dancing too. Oh, and also a guessing game session, where Valerie supposed to pick the card with raining picture, is that to train ESP? Looks more like a 50-50 probability to me.
How does Valerie react to the session? Well, she just enjoyed running round and round the room while I tried to pick her up ocassionaly and ask her to look at sensei. At one point, she even climb up her work table and started turning round and round while the teacher is singing. Certains times she would walk to the front and try to snatch the cards from teacher. Gosh!! What an hyper kid!
Halfway throught the session when sensei open the door a little for the other boy to join the class from outside (he would cry the minute he walks into the room), Valerie took a leap and run straight to the door trying to explore new grounds. Gosh, the kid!! I have to pull her back in to pay attention again.
Then there was craft time, where she's supposed to draw something for Fathers day. Of course she could only draw lines, so I traced her tiny hands on the paper, sensei gave Valerie a few stickers to stick and I wrote 'Happy Father's Day'. Valerie sticked the sticker on the floor, aiyooo.. so sensei put it back onto the paper. The other boy joined in the craft, still crying a little while his parents coaxed him to draw. Valerie then took a few stickers and gave it to him. She said 'Nah....' Very cute right, her own craft not finished but want to kacau 'kor kor'.
At the end of the session, I had a chat with the sensei and asked her a few questions. She told me the younger the easier and better to train the right brain. Of course first session can expect Valerie not to pay attention so well, but she seemed to enjoy the class. She told me I can start seeing results in a year's time. Then, daddy took her to the playroom and she enjoyed climbing the slides (she loves slides, don't know why).
I checked a few more details at the counter and will decide if I want to sign her up. The thing about this right brain development is, I don't expect a 1hr per week to do miracles on her, cause it takes daily practice as well. So if I want to sign up, I have to seriously find out more about this and what I need to do at home to make this effective on her. It's either I go all out or don't start on this at all.
So we brought her to the class on Father's Day. I forgotten that Sunday was Father's Day. When we reached MV, we only had 50 mins to lunch and I've promised Ivan a Fathers' Day treat. I picked Chinoz at Gardens cause I've always wanted to try it but mainly because the place is not that full and I thought the food will arrive faster :P
But I have to say Chinoz's food is pretty good. We orderd Spaghetti Carbonara and Smoke Salmon Pizza. The pizza is just superbly yummy with lots of smoke salmon on it. After the quick lunch (sorry daddy), we rushed to Heguru. We were 5 mins late. When we walked into the trial room, we could hear one baby crying very loudly. Entered in and we saw it's a 20-months old boy, crying non stop after sensei asked him to introduce himself in front.
Valerie just watched in amazement. Then sensei asked her to stand in front to introduce herself with a big name tag prepared. Valerie just grinned and walked to the front, not knowing what is happening and smiled, while trying to grab the name tag from sensei. There was only 2 babies for this trial, Valerie and the boy. And the boy continued to cry hysterically.
In the end, the sensei had to allow the boy and the parents to leave the room while continue on the lesson. So only Valerie left. We started with a quiet relaxation time. Listening to soft music and we're told to imagine something with our eyes closed. I covered Valerie eyes for a while, before she start pushing my hands away and walked around the room, smiling.
Next is Mandara session, where a picture of geometrical shapes and colours in shown on the screen, we're supposed to watch it for few seconds and then recolour the same thing on the worksheet. Well, errrm.. Valerie obviously doesn't know what is going on but she's having fun picking crayons and drawing lines on the worksheet, while sensei helped mommy to colour the shapes. I'm quite embarassed at how bad my memory is :P
After that, it's a series of very fast flash cards that covered a lot of things like words, numbers, japanese chars, chinese chars. There was also flash cards of famous paintings and musical instruments, words in French, chemistry element and world names. In between the flash cards, there were other sessions where Valerie could get her hands on the exercise. I don't know what they are called. Placing those geometrical shapes according to the picture on the sheet. And then tracing of Japanese char and a chemistry element?! There's singing and dancing too. Oh, and also a guessing game session, where Valerie supposed to pick the card with raining picture, is that to train ESP? Looks more like a 50-50 probability to me.
How does Valerie react to the session? Well, she just enjoyed running round and round the room while I tried to pick her up ocassionaly and ask her to look at sensei. At one point, she even climb up her work table and started turning round and round while the teacher is singing. Certains times she would walk to the front and try to snatch the cards from teacher. Gosh!! What an hyper kid!
Halfway throught the session when sensei open the door a little for the other boy to join the class from outside (he would cry the minute he walks into the room), Valerie took a leap and run straight to the door trying to explore new grounds. Gosh, the kid!! I have to pull her back in to pay attention again.
Then there was craft time, where she's supposed to draw something for Fathers day. Of course she could only draw lines, so I traced her tiny hands on the paper, sensei gave Valerie a few stickers to stick and I wrote 'Happy Father's Day'. Valerie sticked the sticker on the floor, aiyooo.. so sensei put it back onto the paper. The other boy joined in the craft, still crying a little while his parents coaxed him to draw. Valerie then took a few stickers and gave it to him. She said 'Nah....' Very cute right, her own craft not finished but want to kacau 'kor kor'.
At the end of the session, I had a chat with the sensei and asked her a few questions. She told me the younger the easier and better to train the right brain. Of course first session can expect Valerie not to pay attention so well, but she seemed to enjoy the class. She told me I can start seeing results in a year's time. Then, daddy took her to the playroom and she enjoyed climbing the slides (she loves slides, don't know why).
I checked a few more details at the counter and will decide if I want to sign her up. The thing about this right brain development is, I don't expect a 1hr per week to do miracles on her, cause it takes daily practice as well. So if I want to sign up, I have to seriously find out more about this and what I need to do at home to make this effective on her. It's either I go all out or don't start on this at all.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Time to go home...
Yesterday Valerie has one of the animated moments. When we arrived at nanny's place to pick her up, I saw her playing with a ball near the house grill. When I got out of the car, I saw her throwing the ball and walked away. Minutes later, she came back with the milk box.
Nanny was laughing hilariously. Apparently, when nanny told her 'Mommy is here', Valerie understood. She threw away her ball and walked to the back to get her milk box (nanny always pass me back the empty expressed milk box every evening). She knew it's time to go home.
We're all stunned how she could relate going home and getting the milk box without being taught. What a cute girl... hehe...
Nanny was laughing hilariously. Apparently, when nanny told her 'Mommy is here', Valerie understood. She threw away her ball and walked to the back to get her milk box (nanny always pass me back the empty expressed milk box every evening). She knew it's time to go home.
We're all stunned how she could relate going home and getting the milk box without being taught. What a cute girl... hehe...
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Daddy comic strip 9
Baby Valerie :Errrmm...What shall I order today..??*tough decision*
Baby Valerie : Ohhh...Mr.Pizza...when are you coming....*slurpss*(Published by Papa Bear Production Ltd)
Monday, February 22, 2010
My Baby Loves to Read
Around the age of 10 months, Valerie started showing interest in books. When I flip through those one-object-one-word baby book, she will look at it, instead of grabbing the book and chew on the corners. So I thought it's a good time to start bed-time reading.
One of my friends highly recommended the Dr. Seuss series. And I started with the 'One Fish, Two Fish...' This book is perfect, cos it basically has a one liner to a picture. So you don't end up reading a very long paragraph with the baby staring at only one picture. She will lose interest that fast, I tell you...
At first, she will pay attention to only like one, two pages and then turn away and start playing with other things. But as I persisted on reading a few more pages every night, I could see her slowly paying more attention.
I also show her the association of real objects with her one-object-one-word book. Like I take her rubber duckie, put it in front of her and point to the book and say 'Duck-ie'. She stares at the toy and then at the book for a few moments, then as she sees the connection between the actual object and the picture book, she has a big smile on her face. It's like a revelation to her.
By about 13 months, when I turn on the night light mode, soft music playing on the background, she know it's bedtime. She will crawl to the stack of baby books, take the Dr Seuss book and put it on my lap to read. That's just so sweet! After reading the Dr Seuss book, we will spend some time going through her one-word book. Her favourite is 'ball.. ball...'. Anything round, is ball ball to her. She will point to the object and say 'ball.. ball...'.
Around 15 months, whenever I start with 'One fish.. two fish..', she will give a very big smile and giggle. I don't know what's so funny with that but she will do the same expression every night. And then when it's time to sleep, she will always whine and quickly grab any baby book and put it on my lap... It's her little protest of 'just one more book, mommy... please...'
So, up to now, she could identify and say a few words:
-Ball ball (obviously),
-Ish (which means fish, can't pronounce the f yet)
-Babble (which is apple)
-Da-ch (duckie)
-Bear bear (this is pretty accurate)
Oh.. we also have this animals book, although she can't speak the words, she can understand a lot more than you think. Say 'cow cow' and she will point to the cow. Say 'chicken leh.. where is chicken' and she will point to the chicken. This is her daddy's favourite time. Up to now, she can spot about 4 animals, cow, chicken, sheep, and horse.
Not bad for at 15 month old, eh?
One of my friends highly recommended the Dr. Seuss series. And I started with the 'One Fish, Two Fish...' This book is perfect, cos it basically has a one liner to a picture. So you don't end up reading a very long paragraph with the baby staring at only one picture. She will lose interest that fast, I tell you...
At first, she will pay attention to only like one, two pages and then turn away and start playing with other things. But as I persisted on reading a few more pages every night, I could see her slowly paying more attention.
I also show her the association of real objects with her one-object-one-word book. Like I take her rubber duckie, put it in front of her and point to the book and say 'Duck-ie'. She stares at the toy and then at the book for a few moments, then as she sees the connection between the actual object and the picture book, she has a big smile on her face. It's like a revelation to her.
By about 13 months, when I turn on the night light mode, soft music playing on the background, she know it's bedtime. She will crawl to the stack of baby books, take the Dr Seuss book and put it on my lap to read. That's just so sweet! After reading the Dr Seuss book, we will spend some time going through her one-word book. Her favourite is 'ball.. ball...'. Anything round, is ball ball to her. She will point to the object and say 'ball.. ball...'.
Around 15 months, whenever I start with 'One fish.. two fish..', she will give a very big smile and giggle. I don't know what's so funny with that but she will do the same expression every night. And then when it's time to sleep, she will always whine and quickly grab any baby book and put it on my lap... It's her little protest of 'just one more book, mommy... please...'
So, up to now, she could identify and say a few words:
-Ball ball (obviously),
-Ish (which means fish, can't pronounce the f yet)
-Babble (which is apple)
-Da-ch (duckie)
-Bear bear (this is pretty accurate)
Oh.. we also have this animals book, although she can't speak the words, she can understand a lot more than you think. Say 'cow cow' and she will point to the cow. Say 'chicken leh.. where is chicken' and she will point to the chicken. This is her daddy's favourite time. Up to now, she can spot about 4 animals, cow, chicken, sheep, and horse.
Not bad for at 15 month old, eh?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Daddy Comic Strip 8
Baby Valerie : Nobody is going INTO the toilet....!!!
Baby Valerie : ....or OUT from the toilet....!!!
Baby Valerie : I mean it .....!!!
(Published by Papa Bear Production Ltd)
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