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Those of you who’ve never seen Elena’s early photos on my Flickr/Facebook would probably be surprised to know that my little princess has an extra toe fused to her last toe on both her feet! The sixth toe doesn’t have any bones though as we only saw 5 bones on each feet when we did the ultrasound while I was pregnant. I’ve been meaning to take some close-up shots of her funny feet but never really got around to doing it till now (and I’m still not too happy with these shots).

The toenail on her left feet is continuous, ie. she has only one nail on the two fused toes.

However, the toenail on her right feet is separated, hence one overlaps the other and it’s near impossible to trim cause the overlapping part is so close!

I hope that she won’t have problems walking in the future, although the paed did reassure us that this will not in any way impact her development (in walking). However, I think we might have some difficulty buying shoes for her in the future as the extra toe(s) would mean that normal shoes may be abit snug in the front. Open-toed sandals, maybe? Her daddy said that she’ll untung when she goes for pedicures next time though…6 toes for the price of 5… (if I have a rolling eyes icon, I’ll definitely use it here)…

Yup, she’s definitely sleeping through the night now! For the past week, every night without fail, she’ll fall asleep around 11+pm and sleep through till the next morning, waking up at around 7+am. We hardly have to pat her to sleep either…she absolutely loves her Tiny Love cot mobile, so all I have to do is to switch it on and she’ll watch it till she falls asleep.

Before putting her to bed, I always give her a quick wipedown with a warm washcloth, change her diapers, rub some Ban Leng oil on her tummy to keep the ‘wind’ away and change her into her pjs (long sleeve top and pants). It’s a nice bedtime routine and perhaps she now knows that once we’ve done all that, it’s time to sleep? I don’t read her bedtime stories though as her attention span is still way too short…besides, she prefers talking to her friends, Bird-bird, Frog-frog and Hippo (the three toys hanging from her cot mobile)…

After a few rounds of trimming her nails, we’ve finally removed her mittens! She has scratched herself twice since then, but nothing serious. However, I noticed that she’s very hesitant when it comes to touching her toys. Some babies are ‘grabbers’…they are very quick to reach their arms out and grab anything that catches their attention. Elena, however, doesn’t do that. I can see that she wants to touch, say, the toy hanging from her gymini, as she keeps leaning towards it. Her hands would stretch out a little bit, then she’ll draw them back in towards her body, her fingers all curled up. And if we bring the toy to her, she’ll start crying! It’s very strange…it’s as if she’s afraid! Well, we’ll just have to let her explore more with her fingers now that her mittens are off and see how it goes.

She’s definitely finds her fingers delicious though… …she delights in trying to cram her whole fist into her mouth, and the noise she makes when she’s sucking her fingers goes something along the lines of ‘sluuuuurrrp slurrrrrp slurrrrppppp’ with lots of saliva thrown in!

We brought her to the paed on Thursday for another round of vaccinations and my my…this girl is gaining weight so fast! She’s now 6.3kgs! The paed said that she’s growing well (duh, obviously!), no need to worry, and continue feeding her on demand. Weightwise, she’s somewhere around the 50th percentile for her age (but counting the fact that she was one month premature, she has actually caught up really fast!). Again, she developed a slight fever after the jab, but it went away within a day.

She still doesn’t really like being put on her tummy, preferring instead to be carried upright. She keeps on trying to straighten her legs…I often tell her, “Baby, please learn to sit before you learn to stand, can?” Her legs are definitely strong coz the paed carried her to test if her legs can bear her own weight and they can! I don’t plan to buy a walker for her though as I’ve read quite a few books that said that walkers do not actually help the baby to walk, and in fact, some research says that walkers may instead slow down a baby’s development when it comes to walking and crawling as the movements that the baby makes in a walker is different from actual walking! Instead, I just let her use her feet to propel herself upwards whenever we carry her upright. I was quite tempted to get her the Fisher-Price Jumperoo but it costs a whopping RM599!

We also tried putting her in her Bumbo seat for the very first time! Her head is quite steady now, but I kept my arm on the back of the chair just in case. She looked so cute sitting in it though, that I couldn’t resist and quickly snapped a few photos of her. When it was time to get her out (as in she started crying and kicking her legs), her little drumstick thighs got stuck at the opening…

She smiles and laughs alot more nowadays. She absolutely loves it when we sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ with accompanying hand movements and will always give us a big grin! Like any other baby, she loves attention, and it always makes her happy whenever any of us ‘talk’ to her. One thing’s for sure, she loves company and dislikes waking up from her nap and finding herself alone in the room…that’s a surefire recipe for crying! As long as she wakes up and sees either my mom or myself next to her, she’ll usually go back sleep. Many times, I caught her opening her eyes slightly and peeking through her eyelashes to see if we’re still sitting next to her…and once she has reassured herself that she’s not alone, she’ll give a satisfied sigh and go back to sleep!

Although I’m still expressing milk, the amount has decreased drastically since Elena started sleeping through the night. I hardly breastfeed her now, unless she wakes up at around 6+am asking to be fed (and she doesn’t cry either, nowadays…she just tosses and turns and whimpers a bit), which was one or twice in the past week. I used to be able to express around 5oz of milk each time, but now, I’m back to 2-3oz each session. She also doesn’t seem to be able to latch on that well anymore, taking a bit of time before being able to suckle properly, and I found that let-down is a little bit slower as well. Oh well, looks like practice does make perfect… …and boy, are we both out of practice nowadays! Well, I’m still planning to carry on expressing till I run out of milk…a little bit is still better than none, right?

What a week!

I’m so proud to announce that from sleeping through 5-6 hours at night on our bed, Elena has progressed to sleeping through the night in her own cot! I’m so amazed as we didn’t think we would ever be able to get to this stage so soon. Her sleeping pattern has progressed from:

1. …sleeping in her cot but waking up every 2 hours to feed when we first brought her back…
2. …to completely refusing to go to sleep in her cot at all. That’s also when I started to breastfeed her directly again at night with both of us lying down, so that’s how she ended up sleeping in between us. This went on for quite awhile and she had to be breastfed first else she won’t go to sleep.
3. Then, she started falling asleep on our bed without needing to be breastfed first. However, she could only last 5 hours between feed, hence if her last feed was around 11+pm, she would wake up at 4am and again at 6am to be breastfed. If her last feed was at 12+am, she would only wake up once at around 5am to be breastfed.
4. Then on Monday night, we put her in her cot after her last feed and she promptly fell asleep. Hubby said…”Let’s leave her there and see if she can sleep through the night”…and she almost did, waking up only at 5am for a feed (I carried her to our bed and let her sleep there till morning).
5. The next night, she fell asleep in her cot again after ‘talking’ to her cot mobile for some time, and this time, she slept all the way till 7am! And she did so again for another 2 nights in a row!

I’m keeping my fingers and toes tightly crossed that this will be her sleeping pattern from now onwards. My main concerns when she started sleeping with us was:

1. How to get her to stop needing to be breastfed before going to sleep (as it wasn’t coz she was hungry, she just wanted to suckle)…
2. How to teach her to fall asleep by herself
3. How to get her to sleep in her own cot

Noooo grandma, I don’t wanna go to sleep!

…and amazingly enough, all of the above was resolved without any ‘drastic’ actions on our part! I have to admit that although I’m deliriously happy that she’s sleeping in her cot by herself, I really do miss having her next to me at night! I may complain about the lack of space and achy-breaky joints the next morning, but I’ve really gotten used to having my little princess sleeping next to me with her arms and legs all spread out taking up half the bed! I miss seeing her face when she’s sleeping peacefully next to me when I wake up in the middle of the night (although I don’t miss waking up in the middle of the night one bit as contrary as it may sound!). And I miss sharing my blanket with her… Really felt ‘empty’ the past few nights!

Psstt…wanna know a secret? I left the fridge door open…

On the flipside, the horrible thing that happened this week was that one night, the fridge door wasn’t shut properly, leaving a little gap…and because of that, the next morning, horrors of horrors, I had to throw away 20oz of EBM. The milk was still quite cold when I touched it, but there was no way I was going to risk feeding it to Elena. Still, imagine how heartsick and nauseated I felt pouring it all away…

Elena’s rash was still not getting any better (thanks for the tip, Giddy Tigress…if only I read it before I threw away the 20oz of EBM!), so I decided to see if there was any cream I could apply. I found this cream: Sebamed Baby Facial Cream at Guardian and decided to try it as I’m currently using the children’s shampoo from the same range on Elena. The first time, I just applied a little bit on her chin at night before she fell asleep, and guess what? The rash subsided somewhat the next morning! I’ve been applying it on the problem areas twice to three times a day since and I’m glad to say we’ve finally seen some improvement – the affected areas are not as red and dry.

On Sunday, we brought her over to a friend’s place for the first time…a trial run, I called it! She cried a little bit when we got there, probably due to the unfamiliar surroundings and faces. However, she settled down after awhile and even managed a little nap…which meant I actually got to play mahjong for the first time since I gave birth to her, woohoo!!

A short post this time so I’ll fill up the blanks with photos instead…

So many exciting things happened this week:

“Ouch, getting a crick in the neck from posing for all these photos…”

1. Elena finally fell asleep by herself without needing to suckle on my breast! And not only that, she slept through the whole night till 5.30am…five nights in a row! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will continue…

“Hmmm…shall I sleep through the night tonight or should I wake up to kacau mummy & daddy??”

2. Her rash has not subsided…in fact, it’s getting worse. She has little red patches on her chin, cheeks, beside her eyes and behind her ears…

But on the bright side, Elena’s getting fairer…

3. She’s such a complain queen! She’s not satisfied with just crying, even after we pacify her, she’ll still moan and groan for a few minutes before settling down. And she does it even with the bottle in her mouth!

My lil’ laughing Buddha!

4. Gave in to popping a pacifier into her mouth…for less than 1 minute! I just couldn’t stand the sight of it in her mouth, it reminded me of a muzzle…sigh…so I pulled it out. She was happily sucking on it the minute it went in and boy, did she give a big howl of protest when I pulled it out. Took me ages to pacify (pun unintended!) her after that…

“Hmmppphhh, since Mommy won’t give me the pacifier, I’ll settle for my fist instead…”

5. She getting more and more talkative! It’s so fun to say ‘Hiiiii’ to her coz she’ll respond with a shy smile followed by ‘Aiiiiiii…..’. And our ‘Helllloooo’ gets a response in the form of ‘eeehhhoooo’. Oh, and once, she actually got angry when the toys on her rocker didn’t respond to all her babbling…she actually ‘scolded’ them (her babbling got increasingly agitated and louder)… And she has definitely smiled her ‘social’ smile at us (but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to take a photo of her when she smiles like that).

“Anyone wanna cubit my cheeks?”

Another remarkably uneventful week IF you exclude all her poo-ing episodes!! LOL…how my life has changed! The highlight of my day is whether Elena poos or not… *faints* She usually goes once a day, and each time, it’s a little drama by itself. The amount of poo is amazing; it saturates her diapers and actually overflows. Once, I was carrying her and accidentally….urm…pressed the bottom part of her diaper right after she poo-ed. The poo actually got squeezed out of the top of her diaper like toothpaste…ugh!! Yes, exciting days indeed…

She has started babbling a lot, and there are new sounds everyday! It’s so fun to ‘talk’ to her when she’s in her talkative mode…within one to two days, her ‘vocabulary’ suddenly expanded to include all sorts of sounds. Even her cries have taken on new intonations! And boy…her cries and coos are soooooo manja…just think of a little kitten mewing, that’s what she sounds like sometimes!

She has recently developed this bad habit of biting her mittens and rubbing it all over her face. She has little patches of small rashes on her chin, behind her ear and on her eyes…I think it’s caused by all the rubbing as her mittens are wet with her saliva and milk residue. I really need to buy more mittens so that I can change it more frequently as we are still hesitating about removing her mittens permanently in case she scratches her face.

Hugs anyone?

Lately, she decreed that mommy shall now become her all-day pacifier - not only does she suckle at my breast at night, she now sucks my arm/shoulder/neck whenever she gets the chance while I’m carrying her! She sucked so hard that I actually got a little hickey! And this mischievous girl does it covertly…she’ll first angle her head so that her mouth is just touching my arm, and then all of a sudden…slurp slurp slurp…

We noticed that she’s now very fascinated with moving objects. Her vision must have gotten a whole lot clearer now as she can very clearly focus on her cot mobile when she’s lying down. She ‘visits’ her friends, Mr. Frog, Mr. Bird and Mr. Hippo a couple of times a day whenever she has her diaper changed, and each time, she’ll talk to them excitedly. She really likes her cot mobile and actually protests when I carry her away!

She also loves looking at the pendulum of the clock in the hall, her pink Disney rattle, the movement of my hair when it’s not tied up, the curtains, or any reflective surface…as long as there is some movement in the object. However, she doesn’t have a very long attention span and she gets bored pretty quickly. Hence, we have a ‘tour’ of all her favourite objects where we start off from my mom’s room to my room, to the hall and finally the kitchen… …enough to keep her entertained for a good 10-15 minutes!

We’ve also increased her feeding amount and I’m glad to say that she is now able to take 3.5-4.0oz! This means that the time in between feedings can now be stretched to 2.5 to 3 hours…yay! I’m still expressing milk daily, but I’ve now decreased the number of times to 3 times a day, and am able to express about 4-5 oz each time. Elena is doing pretty well on Enfalac A+ as she hasn’t had any problems with her bowel movements. I hope she won’t have any constipation problems once we wean her completely off breastmilk! Yes, we do plan to wean her off breastmilk gradually, although I still hope I’m able to continue to include some EBM feedings till she starts on solids. Am glad to say that although I haven’t been able to exclusively breastfeed her, her daily intake still consists of at least 50% breastmilk vs. formula.

Her movements are extremely quick and we have to be really careful when carrying her as she squirms a lot. She has also developed this new tactic of moving from a burping position to a snuggling position when I carry her (and she only does it to me, never to my mom). I usually carry her upright on my right when I burp her. At first, she used to use her head and bang it against my neck, then my chest and finally come to rest on the opposite side in the crook of my arm. I then started to use my chin to block her from moving downwards. When she realized that she could no longer bulldoze her way down, you know what she did??? She bent her body backwards from the waist, and swung herself in an arc to land on the opposite side of my body on my left arm! Future stuntwoman for hire, anyone?

As for mommy…well, mommy is now facing a dilemma of whether or not to continue on as a stay-at-home-mom…or go back to work? More on that on another day, in another post…