Up With The Leg!

Just a picture post capturing moments where baby E's leg makes its presence known.

Chili's @ Resorts World Sentosa

Jacob Ballas Children's Garden

Royal Caribbean - Legend of the Seas

Stop Biting My Baby!

2nd bite

Something's been biting baby E and causing big, scary allergic reactions on his skin. The last time I'd seen something like this is when a spider bit me on the leg one summer in a cottage up in Muskoka, Ontario. The bite swelled up, itched like mad, turned red, purple, green then yellow before fading out.

The first bite was on his big toe but I did not get a photo of that. According to his pediatrician, it's an insect bite and baby E is having an allergic reaction which we can't do much about other than to wait for him to grow out of it. 

Until that happens, we were given some cream and anti-itch medication which causes drowsiness to help the inflammation go down and for baby E to get some sleep. Then it happened again and he was bit on the ankle. Which swelled up a little bit but seemed under control with the cream from the pediatrician.

4th bite

And then he was bit AGAIN, on the same ankle but on the back rather than the front. This time I took a picture, the swelling was horrible and baby E was horribly itchy and his sleep was all over the place.

The anti-itch meds seemed to help the first night, but from the second night onwards baby E would sleep for a solid 3 or 4 hours then he'd be extremely awake the rest of the night. 

I'm not sure if it was a side-effect but we decided to stop the meds and just continue with applying the cream on his bites.

Then double whammy, he was bitten TWICE on the SAME DAMNED LEG! Momma was not happy, momma was ready to hunt the godforsaken insect down and 'crrrrrrrrrush it like a cockroach!' (Masters of the Sea reference here, line made famous by Margaret Chan's character, wiki it here)

5th & 6th bite

By this time, baby E's night time sleep was shot to hell and I was desperately trying to keep him from gouging chunks of flesh off his leg with all the scratching that he was doing. I gave in once and fed him the anti-itch meds which let him sleep for a few hours then he was up and about the rest of the night.

Thank god for being able to nurse baby E while lying down at night, it helped to calm him down and distract him from the itch at night and gave the both of us a few precious hours of much needed sleep.

My poor itchy baby

Even so, he still looked like this for a few nights -->

But I'm happy to write that with a round of mild antibiotics (given on our third visit to his pediatrician when the bites became infected due to his scratching) and diligent cream application (no steroids, I checked 'cos I'm paranoid like that), baby E is good as new.

And momma can breathe a sigh of relief. After we called a cleaning company to clean and sanitize our mattresses and pillows.

The first bite

UPDATE: Hubby found the photo of the first insect bite on baby E's big toe.

Breastfeeding and Us

Hey there lil' guy!

Before I was pregnant, I never really thought much about what kind of parent I'd be. In fact, I did not feel like someone who had the patience or capacity to be good with children. I guess I was wrong (which is a good thing since I now AM a mother).

During pregnancy, I decided to do some reading and soul searching to figure this stuff out, somewhat of a crash course in being 'a mom'. Of course, I started reading articles on the internet, found some mummy blogs and joined some local Singaporean mummy forums online to get relevant practical information like where the best bargains for baby supplies were and the all-important baby product exhibition and department store sales.

Early on, I made a decision to breastfeed baby E. It would save us a bunch of money as I would be taking care of baby E full-time while the hubby slaved away to bring home the bacon. I read everything I could on breastfeeding, the potential pitfalls and how to deal with them etc. I also read horror stories of mothers with cracked and bleeding nipples due to a poor latch while feeding their baby or mothers who were dealing with mastitis / blocked ducts / thrush and other scary stuff. I knew that newborns normally lost up to 10% of their body weight in the first 7-10 days and that a newborn baby's stomach was teeny tiny and couldn't really hold much, so the colostrum that I produced in the first few days was more than enough until mature milk came in.

I thought I was prepared.

Then we brought baby E home and he cried. And cried. And CRIED. For a teeny tiny baby he sure could cry really loudly. I carried him, the hubby carried him, we swaddled him, unswaddled him, tuned the TV to a local news channel hoping that the talking in the background would help him sleep, kept the lights dim in the room. We tried everything.

I fed him every couple of hours and he'd calm down and sleep. Then wake up screaming and yelling half an hour later. It was especially difficult at night and the hubby slept while cradling baby E the first night as it was the only way we could get more than an hour of sleep without baby E waking up screaming. I was tired, and sore and postpartum hormones were screwing with my emotions and I was convinced that we were doing everything wrong!

We were worried about baby E's voice turning hoarse so I called his pediatrician's emergency number on Sunday (we were due for a check-up the next day) and was told not to worry, baby E is just being a normal baby and we didn't need to rush him to a hospital for his crying. At this point, being sleep deprived and highly emotional, I was convinced that the pediatrician was a quack for saying that my crying, screaming baby was perfectly fine. I called Thomson Medical Centre's helpline for new mothers and was advised to pump after every feed to encourage my milk supply. At my lowest point, I asked the hubby to get a tin of formula and we tried cup feeding baby E but he refused to drink it. We also tried glucose water like the nurses in the hospital advised which baby E grudgingly took but it did not help the crying.

Then my milk came in early Monday morning, baby E nursed and slept. For almost 5 HOURS. He woke when I was prepping him for his checkup at the pediatrician's, nursed and fell right back to sleep. He slept through the drive downtown and the checkup with his pediatrician where we found out about his jaundice and need for phototherapy. Other than jaundice, baby E was perfectly healthy and we were so RELIEVED. Still incredibly tired, but very, VERY relieved.

Since then, baby E has been exclusively breastfed until he grew up and started grabbing food out of my hands during meals. The plan is to breastfeed until he self-weans. Until then, every quiet moment we spend together while he is nursing is precious to me.

Phototherapy

Just workin' on my tan, mom!

When baby E was born, his pediatrician, Dr Teoh, told us to expose him to natural sunlight at 8am and 4pm everyday to keep his jaundice level down. We followed his advice but the bilirubin was too much for baby E's liver to handle and we had to rent a bilibed and photolamp to do phototherapy at home for 3 days from The Baby Specialist.

It was such a blessing to have a very pro-breastfeeding pediatrician (he was baby E's attending pediatrician when I gave birth at Thomson Medical Centre and seems to work quite closely with my OB/GYN) and it was Dr Teoh who suggested we rent the equipment so that I could still breastfeed baby E at home while he was undergoing phototherapy. The cost of renting the equipment also worked out to be cheaper than getting baby E admitted to the hospital and we could take care of him ourselves rather than being separated and unable to comfort him. Hubby and I took turns watching him to ensure that he was comfortable and that his blindfold didn't shift and expose his eyes to the UV lights. This happened once when the headband became too lose and baby E turned his head to the side and the entire blindfold slipped off, to be fair the instructions do indicate that we need to change the blindfold as soon as the velcro-like ends feel like they are losing their grip. Luckily, baby E was asleep and his eyes were closed. We changed to a new blindfold after that and kept an even closer watch on him.

The biggest challenge was having to leave baby E in the phototherapy equipment at all times other than to breastfeed, change his diaper or give him a bath. It was the hardest 3 days of my life but it paid off because after treatment his jaundice was down to safe levels and he had a clean bill of health from Dr Teoh. What really helped was baby E being sleepy from the jaundice so he was somewhat relaxed and slept most of the time (as you can see in the picture above). I don't know if I would've had the heart to leave him in the equipment if he was crying and yelling like he normally does.

At 9 Months

Look ma, one hand!

When baby E learnt to pull up at 9 months old, almost immediately he would only hold on to the railing on his cot with just one hand.

Strong and confident, just like his daddy.

Fairmont Singapore

Like a boss

For some reason, baby E loves to stick his feet in the air. Whether he's in the stroller or highchair, his leg eventually finds it's way up and elicits comments like 'little towkay' from random strangers when we are out and about.