One of the first thing we did once Jojo hit his three month mark was taking him for a swim – well, a float really. Theoritically even newborns can swim, but we clueless parents just didn’t have the guts to take him swimming when his neck wasn’t fully functioning yet. It’s quite scary to hold him with his huge head falling from side to side, let alone drop him in the water. But once he could hold his head up, we put him into a swimming tube and watch him float. We filled the tube in the morning and let it under the sun to warm up the water before Jojo took a dip in the afternoon. First he could only last for about 15 minutes, but gradually he was able to stay longer and longer. He was really a water baby, so in his element while floating! Before long we were able to take him swimming in the normal outdoor swimming pool, and enjoyed each swimming session together.
Jojo was a happy little baby, always smiling and making gurgling sounds. He started to see better, recognized our faces and made more movement with his hands and feet. The loose newborn skin was starting to be filled in with flesh and the spots on his face started to fade away, leaving clean soft chubby cheeks. His hair hasn’t grown at all since we shaved him a month ago, so he still had a bald head with uneven spots of hair which the unprofessional barber aka daddy had failed to shave off.
Nowadays Jojo had quite a regular schedule that consisted of: feeding – bathing – feeding – sleeping – feeding – playing – feeding – sleeping and so on, you get the gist. It’s still nursing on demand, but I was determined to slip in some playtime in between and napping in more or less the same time every day. We can plan a baby routine but don’t count on it as a fixed schedule, being flexible is a must otherwise you go stark mad.
After Jojo turned two months old, his sleeping pattern became regular and he finally understood that nighttime means long, deep sleep starting at 7PM. With hubby’s gorging method (he took it upon himself to feed Jojo each night with expressed breastmilk, as much as Jojo could possibly handle until he conked out from being so full) Jojo only woke up once every night to be fed at around 2AM. He would instantly fell back to sleep and woke up when it’s already morning. This meant mommy and daddy got extra sleep time!
Jojo and I were also coming along nicely in the breastfeeding department. No more night hunger cries like the first two months, because my breasts (nay, udders!) were finally in their full production capacity. Since Jojo slept almost through the night, I had to express the milk once or sometimes twice a night otherwise I’d get breast engorgement or leak the breastmilk all over the sheets. By this time I got about 150ml everytime I expressed the milk, and the freezer had about 4 litres stock. The frozen breastmilk stock was very reassuring for me, because in case I had to go away or I was sick and unable to breastfeed, Jojo would not go hungry or switch to formula.
Since hubby could nurse Jojo while I was away, I went to get my first facial in more than a year. My extra blood and hormones during pregnancy made my skin glowed so much that I didn’t do any skin treatment while I was pregnant. But now my hormones were subsiding to their usual level, leaving pores and dead skin cells more visible than ever. The facial plus the travel, waiting, preparation etc took almost three hours, and by the end of it my breasts were about to burst. It’s as if my body has been switched on to be on full-gear feeding mode. No wonder I was hungry all the time, worse than while pregnant! I got hungry after each breastfeeding session and also after each expressing session, so the fridge and the pantry became my best friends. I also started to cook again, with the help of my maids who prepared the ingredients beforehand and clean up afterwards I managed to spent the least amount of time in the kitchen but still got healthy homecooked meals.
My weight loss has decreased, possibly because I ate like my stomach was a bottomless pit. Breastfeeding women need an extra 500 calories, but I must have been having additional 2,000 calories per day! I couldn’t resist this urge to chomp down food, and moreover I would get gastritis (bloated stomach and nausea) when my stomach got empty for too long. I had to be careful as I had to limit my intake of medicines lest the breastmilk get affected. After a particularly painful bout of gastritis I had to stop wearing corset for a few days, and I never resumed wearing it. Probably it would leave my stomach blobby and out of shape for the rest of my life, but I just couldn’t stand the rashes, the itchiness and the pain when my gastritis acting up again.
Another thing that no one had told me was that handling a baby could damage your muscle if not done correctly. Often I picked up Jojo too fast, had to twist my wrists at a certain angle to accommodate his wriggles, held him incorrectly while breastfeeding – all this resulted in intense pain in both wrists up to the back of the palm area where the thumbs and forefingers are. Sometimes my wrists would get a little swollen, and sometimes I couldn’t bend the wrists at all. I just noticed the pain this month, it might have taken a while for the wrists muscles (or tendons?) to feel the extra hard work, but the pain wasn”t subsiding anytime soon. I just put a lot of muscle relaxant balm (the kind that we use if our muscles are sore after exercising) and be careful whenever I had to maneuver my wrists.
Between nursing, seeping playing with and changing Jojo (I used cloth diapers and he peed nearly every hour), cooking and doing things around the house, I barely had time for anything else. Cutting my nails for example, became an event that needed planning – when to do it, who will hold Jojo while I do it, how long can I do it before he wails. I found how important it was to hand Jojo over to someone else for a while to take a short break and remind myself that I was still a person. My maids doted on Jojo on the border of spoiling him, so they take turns holding him while I attended to myself. Hubby was happy to have some Papa time on weekends so I always looked eagerly towards Saturdays and Sundays. My mom could always fly in whenever I needed her. They said it takes a village to raise a baby, but for me it might as well take a city, or even a country. I’d gladly take up any offer to help, because I knew I wasn’t a supermom.
The Clueless Mommy 