vacationing with cloth

I thought I would have to resort to sposies for our long weekend vacation. But a little pre-trip phone call to the hotel to ask if they could let me use their laundry room to wash my cloth nappies meant that we could lug along an extra wheelie bag stuffed with dipes (mainly pockets) and doublers/inserts.

The hotel we stayed in was a friendly and quite casual place, so it wasn't a problem for the staff when I rocked up to the housekeeping department with my pail (supplied by the hotel) of dirty nappies asking if I could use their washing machine. The head housekeeper showed me how to operate the machine, and to ensure her continued goodwill I gave her DD to hold while I loaded up the washer. She promptly showed off Leah to her colleagues, exclaiming all the while (in her Chinese dialect), "Isn't she beautiful?"

Later, when I went back to the department to collect the nappies, the housekeeper told me to come by tomorrow if I wanted to wash the nappies again. I held her to that invitation. And as a further example of how nice the staff were, one of them (perhaps the head housekeeper herself) actually brought the washed nappies over to my room and hung them out on the airing rack that was in the porch outside. This was probably because I couldn't get to the laundry room in time as I was feeding Leah. When I was finally able to head out to my surprise I saw the nappies already drying outside.

It thus pays to make enquiries and then be really sweet to the hotel staff --- thankfully they were quite into babies, and DD behaved very well, performing to her admirers.

ditching disposables

It is confirmed: I hate disposable diapers.

For the past 2 weeks we have been completely on cloth nappies, even for nights, as I was tired of suffering blow-out leaks with disposables (aka "sposies") in the morning when I give Leah her wake-up feed. She only poos about 1-3 times a day now: once in the morning and another in the late afternoon, so all that stored poo is usually quite explosive!

I thought that the reason why sposies don't contain leaks well is because they are not tight-fitting enough at the back. So when I found a brand (naffly called Pet Pet) that seemed to have enough gathers I thought it might solve the blow-out problem. However, even these did not work and one afternoon I had the joy of trying to get a poo-caked onesie off Leah without staining her too much.

The other reason why I despise sposies is the smell they give off when full of wee. It is a nasty chemically stink that is much worse than just wee alone.

Anyway, at the moment I use PUL pocket nappies stuffed with a very absorbent hemp-fleece insert. This seems to do OK. I only change DD after she's had her first breakfast course --- waiting sometimes to see if she 'delivers' --- and then continue with the feed.

It is quite liberating to finally be able to stop worrying about blow-out leaks, but now I have to contend with what to do about washing my nappies when vacationing (in Asia there aren't a lot of self-service laundromats around)!

to sleep, perchance to dream...of sleep

DD turned 17 weeks this monday past. I think hitting the 4 month milestone has made a big difference in her demeanour and habits. E.g. she has started vocalising more...this week she found the "B" consonant and is doing lots of baby babbling (literally).

In terms of "sleeping through the night", I have always taken that phrase (the Holy Grail of new parents) with a big pinch of salt. For instance I still tried to make sure that Leah still had some middle of the night nourishment when she reached 3 months. At the time friends asked if she had started sleeping through the night (and what does the phrase mean anyway?) and were surprised when I said she hadn't yet.

I was (and am) on a 3-hour feeding schedule. When she turned 3 months I was still giving her a 1 or 4 am feed, after the "dream feed" at around 10-11pm. But she gradually dropped her middle of the night feeds, or at least, she was spacing apart her night feeds. So that in time she dropped the 1am feed and the 4am feed became 5-5.30, and then that was dropped too. I didn't deliberately not feed her; she just decided not to wake up for those feeds.

After she dropped her middle of the night feeds she began going to sleep at an earlier time. I usually "cluster feed" her after her bath from 7pm onwards. Yes, she gets nursed to sleep! I know she should fall asleep in her own cot (and sometimes we move her there when she's half asleep), but it is so much easier to just let her eat her fill and drift into dreamland. Her dream feed used to be the time when she really slept (waking at around 6-7am), but that time got earlier and earlier. And lately (the past 2 nights) she has been sleeping at around 8.30-9.15pm.

I have also started noticing a trend: the nights when she makes a change are often preceded by a night or two of "regression", when she acts shitty and won't be pacified or go to sleep at her normal time. Then the next night she would fall asleep earlier. Maybe it's her body clock making adjustments. Who knows?! When someone cracks this code, it will be a best-seller: all parents pray for a baby operating manual.

With longer night sleeps, her day naps are quite short now though. They are never more than 45 minutes long (if I am lucky) and are usually between 15-30 minutes. I suppose she makes up for the short day naps with a longer sleep at night, so I don't mind so much. Although it makes doing house chores frantic 'beat the clock' affairs.

While I rejoice at the chance of DH and I getting more sleep at night (or being able to do more in the evenings now, like watch a TV show), there is the side effect of engorgement! But that will be for another post, along with my obsession with DD's poo... :-D

Q1 battles

The subtitle for this post might as well be "How I Survived the Doubters and Self-doubt". As a first-time mom nursing, it's been a challenge fending off unwanted comments and advice. These are usually well-meaning and have the welfare of Leah and me at heart, but they haven't done a lot for my morale.

My aim, especially since I am a stay-at-home-mom, is to breastfeed Leah as long as possible, hopefully 2 years. I love holding her and feeling her warm and safe against me. It is also wonderful knowing that I am giving her something wholesome and good.

It would appear that we in modern Asian society have become estranged from what used to be a very automatic and natural part of Asian life. In the past 30 odd years, there has been a lack of information and understanding of what breastfeeding is all about and in modern Singapore and Malaysia, I have had to endure some strange ideas and comments, such as:

1. You're so thin (with the unspoken query of "Are you sure your milk supply will be enough?")
There is absolutely no need to put on weight in order to breastfeed successfully! As long as I am not on some crazy diet (and I was always on the skinny side), and I eat balanced meals and keep myself sufficiently hydrated everyday, then I should have adequate milk supply, thank you very much.

2. You should think of supplementing now that Leah is so big
While I may have enough milk to allow Leah to double her birth weight in 3 months, the doubters think that now this milk is not enough! But I have no intention of giving Leah any 'supplements' this early.
If I interpret what they mean correctly, supplements probably means "solid food". I think because traditionally Asians (from farmers to city slickers) have introduced solids to babies at a very early stage, with porridge to morsels of adult meals, there is still the notion that breast milk is not enough to meet babies' nutritional needs.
Today, however, paediatricians recommend to exclusively breastfeed up to 6 months, and to keep breastfeeding for as long as possible after that. In baby's first year, breast milk should make up 75% of baby's nutritive needs.
So again, if Leah is healthy and thriving, I don't see why I shouldn't start solids only at 6 months.

3. Only breastfeed up to 80% capacity; don't feed her till she is full or she will become too fat
This is probably the strangest advice I have heard so far. Chubby babies are what invented the term "baby fat"! Babies need the hind milk that long feeds provide to create fat reserves that they will eventually burn off when they start crawling and walking. Besides, not emptying the breast will hurt milk supply because the body will be conditioned to generate only the limited amount that is needed.

The above are just a sample of what external forces rage against the nursing mother. But on my own, I have had to battle my own doubts.

As every first-time nursing mother knows, it is difficult to assess whether one's milk supply is adequate: is baby getting enough is the question that assails. And the only tangible answers are baby's wees, poos and weight gain.

I have thus been a bit obsessed with Leah's poos, constantly wondering why this shade of green, why not pooing so often, why that etc. My consolation has been the weighing scale and each visit of the midwife's or to the paediatrician is always a bit stressful till I find out how heavy she has become and how long she's grown.

In Leah's first 8 weeks I engaged a midwife to make house visits. Her pronouncements have been most welcome in answering my critics and my own inner gremlin: on her last visit when I expressed my doubt about how well Leah was growing, the midwife turned to me surprised and asked rhetorically, "Look at that double chin. Does that tell you she is underweight?"

These days I am a bit more relaxed about my milk supply, seeing the rolls of fat on Leah's thighs and her barrel of a tummy, but I still have other issues to contend: forceful let-down being a prime one.

Because Leah has dropped her middle of the night feed, I have been experiencing terrible engorgement. Leah has consequently not been very happy to find milk spraying her when she breakfasts. Hopefully this will soon pass as my body adjusts to her new routine, but in the meantime I have been trying all the tricks the experts advise: from leaning back to allow gravity to stem the flow, to single side feed her within a 3-4 hour block. All with varying success.

To keep my morale up when things flag I always recall the time I met a Singaporean mother at a nursing station several weeks ago. I had complimented her on having such a bonny son, and she proudly said that he is 14 months and that it is all from breastfeeding. Curious, I asked her how she managed to keep at it for so long, and she said that she only expressed at 6 months, adding the milk to the cereal she gave him when she introduced solids. She then wished me well on my own nursing adventure.

I shall persevere...

*****

For other nursing newbies I have found these sites to be useful and reassuring with their information:
- Breastfeeding Q&A from iVillage
- kellymom: Breastfeeding and Parenting
- Breastfeeding myths