Info: Babywearing

When I was pregnant, I envisioned a baby who lies quietly in his crib, watching the world go by. He would be cooing and smiling at the cute mobile dangling from the crib, entertaining himself while I go about my household chores, run on the treadmill to get rid of the baby fat, cook, eat or watch TV. From time to time I’d look to see how he’s doing, if he’d fallen asleep or if his diapers need changing. He’d only need to be picked up during bathing and feeding time, or when I feel like playing with him. This wasn’t just wishful thinking – this was exactly how my nephew spent his first few months of his life. He’d literally protested when picked up from his bed and preferred to be left alone. When he was bigger, my brother and his wife just put Baby Einstein DVDs on in front of him and left him in the room – he ended up learning his letters as well as hand signals all on his own when he was about two years old.

Unfortunately, the baby I gave birth to had an entirely different idea.

Info – baby swimming (part 1)

We have started to take Jojo swimming since he was around three months old. Once his neck is strong enough to support his head, we took him for a swim using a neck ring. A lot of people seem baffled by the neck ring, and so was I when I first saw it. It’s an inflatable swim ring that is worn around the neck to support baby’s head above water while the rest of his body  move freely in the water. It made sense to me, baby’s head is steady and his arms and legs can do whatever they want while swimming. We tried the arm rings, but only Jojo’s arms floated while the head swayed dangerously to every which way. We also tried the swim ring with seat and leg holes, but Jojo got cold quicker because the upper part of his body is exposed above water,only hips down were immersed. So the neck ring really suited him.
The very first swim session was in Experienced Mom’s swimming pool at her house. We chose to swim at around 3PM when the water’s quite warm after being heated by the sun all morning. Jojo was calm and happy after he took his nap and got fed. We had very little worry as he’s always happy when taking his bath, and true enough he took to water calmly and confidently. He floated happily and was smiling a lot, he wasn’t nervous at all. We made splashes around him and talked to him the whole time. Still, only fifteen minutes later he was already shivering. So we ended the swim, dried him off and had him feed again.

A lot of other new parents I know, particularly Asian ones, were a lot more apprehensive about introducing their infants to the water. They feared the baby would: a) drown, b) get a cold and c) develop infection from the water. In my opinion, these parents were underestimating a baby’s ability and stamina. A baby practically spent 9 months surrounded by water, and at a few months of age a relatively healthy baby still has quite a strong immune system passed on from the mother. As long as we keep a close eye and watch the signs of cold, tiredness and mood, there’s no reason why babies shouldn’t learn to enjoy water as early as possible. In some advanced countries there are even “swim” classes for newborns, where the babies can even dive! But we chose to be cautious and kept Jojo’s head above water at all times during the first swim session, just to keep him in a good mood.

The Fourth Month – the Mommy Cow

As Jojo entered his fourth month, he was morphing into a chubby smiley baby. Babies are supposed to double their birth weight by the fourth month, which means Jojo should reach 7kg. But this month he already weighed a whooping 8kg, above average but still fell within WHO standards. Jojo’s body was compact and firm, his eyes shone brightly, he had high energy and laughed a lot. I really believe that the Lotusbirth method we have chosen, combined with exclusive breastfeeding, are responsible for his robustness and health.

The breastfeeding routine has been established – every time he made the gaspy “agh-agh” sound, which was about every 60-90 minutes, I offered my breast. Seemed like he was always hungry, and he could nurse with the strength of a hoover. I’ve read that a  normal breastfeeding session should be around twenty minutes at each breast, but with Jojo it only took less than ten minutes to completely deflate one breast and often he refused when I offered the other breast because he was already very full. So I became a nursing mom with one breast almost always larger than the other.

Info: Management of Breastmilk

There are several reasons why breastfeeding mothers need to express their milk:

1. They are working moms who are away from their babies during the day

2. The babies sleep soundly through the night (like mine) so the breasts get full in the night

3. The babies can’t latch on properly (tongue-tied, inverted nipples etc) so they get breastmilk in the bottle

4. To increase or maintain breastmilk production rate – ideally we should empty both breasts after each feeding

5. To relieve breast engorgement

We can express breastmilk by hand (the marmet method), using manual or battery/electricity operated breastpump. I never got the gist of hand-expressing, so I chose to use a breastpump instead. During the first few months when the production rate was still low I used a manual breastpump, then during the peak period of breastmilk production I used an electric breastpump which gave more milk at a faster time. Working moms often chose double pump that can express both breasts at one go, very useful if you have limited time to express at the office. There are also pumps with massage feature to induce the let-down reflex. Nowadays there are myriad of options regarding breastpump types and brands, you’ll need to do a thorough research before deciding to purchase one. Or you can just receive one as a gift and stick with it, like I did.

The Third Month – feeling alive again

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.

The Second Month – still horror!

My fellow mom friends were right – things do get easier after a while. Particularly because by now we’ve developed some kind of daily routine: each morning I waited for noon to come, and at noon I waited for late afternoon to come, and at late afternoon I waited for Jojo’s bedtime to come. No kidding! Hubby had to go back to work after his 3-week leave was up, mom had to go back home in East Java so it’s just me, Jojo, the dogs and two housemaids.

Bless the maids because I didn’t have to do household chores or deal with soiled diapers! Jojo had a hearty appetite and demanded breastmilk every 45 minutes – 1 hour. This resulted in peeing every hour and pooping 4-5 times a day. The dirty diaper pail was being filled in at a nearly alarming rate.

Info: Breastfeeding

Right from the very beginning of my prgnancy, hubby and I had decided to breastfeed exclusively. We requested in our Birth Plan that no formula or sugar water should be given at the nursery room unless for emergency medical purposes. We also requested that early breastfeeding initiation should take place right after the delivery. We were planning for waterbirth but ended up with a Caesarean section instead – hubby steadfastly stuck to the agreement and followed the nurses to make sure no formula was given to the baby. He even took it up a notch and brought the baby to be breastfed off me at the surgery room even before I regained my consciousness – the ob-gyn was still stitching up my lower abdomen.

At the first attempt, no milk came out for about 15 minutes, and Jojo cried angrily. After a short break we tried again at the recovery room, I wasn’t fully conscious yet so one midwive and one nurse held the baby while Tom hovered near me. This time the colostrum came out and Jojo had his fill for some time. And I’ve been breastfeeding ever since. To this day, baby Jojo has never known formula.

Info: Lotus Birth

Before Jojo was born, hubby and I had decided that we wanted to do Lotus Birth. Our ob gyn is a big advocate on gentle birth, and he was very supportive of our decision. So when I ended up having an emergency Cesarean surgery, we asked if we still could do the Lotus Birth and the doctor okayed it.

Lotus Birth, or non-severence, is the practice of leaving the newborn with his umbilical cord intact until it falls off on its own. The reason we wanted to do this practice is to let the baby get the full benefit of his placenta. The placenta is full of nutrients, by severing the cord after the birth we also cut off the nutrients from flowing back to the baby’s body. Instead of harvesting the cord for cord blood banking (which we couldn’t afford) we chose to let the blood and stem cells flow back naturally to Jojo’s body, giving him all the nutrients and immune systems as it possibly could. 

Info: Introducing The Baby to Your Dogs

I gave birth on Saturday morning and went home on Monday late afternoon. Since we had four robust dogs that had been severely under-exercised since my last trimester, we had to put up a strategy on how to bring the baby home safely. From Saturday to Sunday Tom went home a few times with Jojo’s dirty diapers for the dogs to sniff on to their hearts’ content. This would make them aware of the baby’s scent so they wouldn’t be as excited as seeing a totally new creature. It was a good plan, but we forgot the other excitement factor: they were elated to see me again after three days’ absence. I should have greeted them alone first before introducing the baby. Instead, I sat on the couch with the baby (my body was so sore and I could hardly move without pain) then we let the dogs in. They were beside themselves with joy from seeing me, they tried to jump on the couch to lick my face and nearly knocked the baby on their way! I didn’t think they even saw baby JoJo, they only saw me. I shielded JoJo as best as I could, and with hubby’s help we finally managed to calm them down – as well as calming JoJo’s frantic grandmas who witnessed the incident. Then the dogs started to sniff JoJo, but it wasn’t a new scent so they soon lost interest. JoJo was instantly a member of the pack.

First Month With Jojo – the horror!

There was a reason why the maternity hospital’s VIP room provided a mirror so tiny that it could only fit 3/4 of my face. It was to shield me and other new moms from the harsh truth.  The first thing I did when I got home (after greeting my dogs) was taking a long hot shower and hairwash (with hubby’s assistance since I was still wobbly from the C-section, plus the scar wasn’t supposed to get wet). In the view of my full-length mirror in my bathroom, I cried out in dismay. I was a total WRECK! With my unwashed hair and oily face, super wobbly stomach that looked and felt like pudding, swollen breasts that were just as wobbly, ass and thighs that were still as big as in my pregnant days, I looked a total fright. That’s not all, folks – I’ve developed ugly red rashes on my stomach from the tummy wrap AND scratches on my butt from the hospital bed’s waterproof sheet. Yuck, yuck, yuck. It was almost as if I wasn’t human anymore, just a broken package to be discarded.