Shake head

My colleagues warned me that the word that my baby will most expert at will be “NO” Bryan has not learnt to say No, but he is getting quite clever at shaking his head.

Me: Bryan, time to get out of bath now…up up!
Bryan : (Shake Head)

Me: (Try to put Bryan into the car seat)
Bryan: (Shake Head) (Throw tantrum)

Bryan: (Try to open the drawers)
Me/ Hubby: Bryan NO.
Bryan: (Shake Head)

Me: (try to get Bryan to finish his food)
Bryan: (Shake Head, pushes away the spoon)

The way he shakes his head is quite hilarious sometimes – very exagerated . MIL says he looks as if he is on Ecstasy.

New Mothers’ Room

We have been asking for a new mothers room for a long time. There was a mothers’ room previously but they tore it down to accomodate our company’s expansion.

Pumping moms were asked to express milk at the sick bay at the in-house clinic. They did separate out a section for pumping moms but security is very loose.

A few mothers had their privacy intruded by people who were
1) looking for their sick friends; or
2) plain busy bodies

It is also not hygienic or conducive as there are sometimes unwell employees at the nearby beds.

So a few of us at the company had wrote multiple emails to the HR department and the Workplace services asking for a separate Mothers’ Room and to ensure privacy and security for the pumping moms.

I had also wrote to WABA for materials to support our cause. WABA was very supportive to help provide materials. But unfortunately, the breastfeeding regulations in Malaysia is very weak. Eg 68% of the countries around the world has breastfeeding breaks for working breastfeeding mothers, but sadly, Malaysia is not one of them.

So since there are no rules governing the rights of bfg mothers, we had to champion our own cause.

I had been quite lucky that i do not used the old Mothers’ room very frequently last time as
1) I extended my maternity leave until my baby is 3+ months
2) I worked from home for most of the days until my baby is about 10 mths old. I have been lucky that most of the projects that I was assigned when I returned to work do not require me to be physically at the office. I only went to the office once a week.

But since about 2 months ago, I was assigned to a new project that requires me to work with the local team and thus need to be at the office most of the days.

Anyway back to the blog title, as of yesterday, we have a brand new mothers room.

It is a bit smaller than we requested- we wanted min 5 stalls but were given only 4. But nevertheless it is a BIG improvement.

There is a bigger fridge now (1 door) instead of the miserable Minibar we had later, and there’s a hot water pot and sink (but no soap *aiyo*) in the room. There is also some shelves for us to put our bags.

We had also asked for notice boards to be placed in the room, so that we can post bfg articles and our babies’ photos. HR promised us this in Stage 2 of the plan (whatever it means).

Anyway, although this facility comes late for me (my baby is already 1 yr old) , I am still very happy on it, and am happy for the new pumping moms in my company.

How long to BF?

How long to breastfeed?

I really don’t know. Main reason to introduce formula is I want to reduce pump sessions at work to max 1. Work load has been extremely heavy lately, with meetings/ teleconferences from 730am to 6pm, and then starting again at 9/ 10pm till midnight.

Basically, that has been my schedule in the last 3 days…Tonight also got conference till 12 mn. A few more days like that and i will see-sua (fall into pieces). Already i am having headache. So now taking a few minutes to blog and unwind, before getting back to work madness.

So introducing formula has nothing to do with planning for #2.

#1 has taken all my available time and not available time as well. And having #2 will surely kill me. Definitely have to wait till Bryan is bigger before planning #2. He still need 100% of my attention when i am with him.

Anyway, back to my title. Answer: don’t know…kekeke. But probably not beyond 2, coz he will be a big boy then.

And when that time comes, i will surely be very sad and miss the special moments with him. Especially when he goes “mmmmm”….and gives me a smile during nursing, as if to say “thank you mummy”

The beginning of weaning

Bryan tried the EyeQ Gain formula today. At first sip, he made vomit face, but after that he accepted the taste and finished the 2 out of 3 Oz that mom prepared for him. Mom gave him another 3 Oz one hour later.

My frens at work was teasing me that if Bryan don’t accept formula, then i will have to bf till he is 5.

I will soon be able to reduce my daily pumping session to just 1, but i will continue to direct bf Bryan whenever he’s with me, ie nights and weekend.

But I am still a little bit sad. This would mean that our bfg relationship is slowly coming to end. Not that i want to wean now, but it marks the beginning….

More formula samples

It’s Bryan’s vaccination appointment again. I told the PD that Bryan hated the HA formula and he laughed saying that Bryan had got used to drinking “champagne”.

So he gave me some extra packs to try – 2 types, one plain flavoured (Eye Q Gain Plus) and the other vanilla flavoured (Pediasure).

My fren’s daughter loved the Pediasure because of the vanilla flavouring, but i prefer to give plain ones. Also i wonder how can the nutritional requirement of a 1 yr old child = 10 yrs, since Pediasure is for kids 1-10 years.

Will try the formula on Monday and see how.

Sleep talk

I used to talk in my sleep. When I was a school prefect in secondary school, sometimes I would start speaking in a disciplinary tone in the middle of my sleep. There was once in a slumber party during school time, I started talking in my sleep and gave my friend a good fright….kekeke. She woke up another girl in the room and she only relaxed when the the girl told her to ignore me as I was sleep talking.

After I got married, there were also a few occasions that I woke my husband up because he thought that I was talking to him.

Somehow, after I have a baby, the sleep talking stops, at least according to my hubby. Perhaps we were both too tired to notice even if I did.

But it looks like Bryan had inherited my sleep talking behaviour. There was a few times, that after I had tucked him to bed, and I was sure that he is fast asleep, I heard him giggling. When I checked him, his eyes were shut but he was still giggling happily.

Last night, I left his room immediately after he fall asleep and asked hubby to stay behind in case he wakes up. Hubby told me later that Bryan was making “brrrrrrrr” sound with his lips. This is his one of his latest favorite game during the day now.

Then at 11:30pm, I was at the dining room packing my stuff for work tomorrow. Bryan’s room’s door is wide open and I can see Bryan from where I was. He tossed a bit and suddenly sat up and said, “Aeeeiiiiiii (surprise tone)”, so I asked hubby to go in and check at him.

Hubby went & came out and said, he’s still fast asleep.

Looks like he is really developing a habit to sleep talk. Sleep talk, ok, but please don’t sleep walk/ crawl….keke.

Look at me, or…

Hubby was commenting that Bryan is getting more and more demanding. When he “talks” to us, we have to look at him. If we don’t he will do anything to get our attention. Normally he will place his palms on our face and turn our face towards him.

The 4 persons closest/ who spend the most time with Bryan are my parents, hubby and me.

My parents – their activities revolve around Bryan when he is around. So he has their full attention most of the time.

Me – I consider myself pretty attentive to Bryan when i am with him.

Hubby – Quite attentive most of the time, but if there is something interesting on TV or if he is talking to someone, or working on something, he has a tendency to ignore Bryan for a while.

So looks like Bryan figured out a “sure-win” formula to get hubby’s attention
#1: Swat at his glasses; or
#2: Hit or bite his mouth/ cheek – somehow Bryan noticed that these are more sensitive and will aim for these if hubby ignored him.

Hahaha..okay, it is not good to hit people, and whenever he does that, we will tell him that it is wrong. But at least gotta give him credit for being sensitive to what irks us the most.

I’m front facing now!

Since Bryan is 1 year old now and is above 20 pounds, he has met the minimum requirement to sit in a front facing child car seat.

So we turned his seat around, hoping that he will “enjoy” the view more and will be more cooperative in the car seat.

He was,..for the first few minutes. He went “Aeiii” when we placed him in his NEW seat arrangement and was happy that he can see his daddy from where he were.

But it was only a few minutes, before he started fretting again…hai…..