Syifaa at 11 months and tanah aina

My dear baby girl, 

This is a picture of you on the day you turned 11 months, you are afraid of that toy crab but you still love playing with it.

you love holding things and both hands must be occupied, here is your first scribbly art : )

This is your new favourite toy, you love the elephant when it pops, you would close it back and pop it  again. I left this in the car because whenever you cry when you are in your car seat, this would make you happy.

Sometime last month you could stand unassisted, about 3 seconds , and that got me all excited :D

we gave you a hand me down toy from Rafa and Gaza, and you have been practicing to walk everyday using this.

Ibu and Ayah bought you many books, and some hand me downs from Rafa and Gaza of course, you love reading and you love taking them down the shelf too

When ibu is in the kitchen, and ibu has to clean the dishes, these are among the things that i would let you play with including the pots and pans : ). by far tissues and magnets never failed. 

Just a day before you turned 11 months, we stayed a night at Tanah Aina in bentong, you loved everything including the jungle tracking where ayah carried you all the way through, and also the river we swam in. You are really our little explorer : )

Lots of love,

Ibu and Ayah

10 month old Syifaa

Baby girl,

It won't be long till i have to stop addressing you as my baby girl , soon you will be in school, in uni, going to work, getting married and you will be my big girl. Today you are 10 months old, i figured i would like to keep you updated on what you have been doing this past month.

We brought you swimming again in the pool and your first time wearing this neck flotie which you enjoyed.

At 9 months, you have mastered drinking on your own..

Somehow you started to refuse eating, you don't even want ibu to spoon feed you, so i tried letting you be in control of what you eat, not giving you pureed food no more and also added more flavour to your food (homemade chicken stock for cooking rice).. and amazingly your appetite came back.

You dislike touching any sticky food, thus there you are eating with no hands ... oh my baby girl , the things you do : )

We went to aunty effa's wedding, that was your first 

Ayah bought this bicycle seat and every time we went out of the house, you see ayah going on the bike you would lough and get all excited.

at 9 months you already have 4 teeth, and another 2 coming out soon. you have been biting your cot a lot now. 

Here are some of the things you love doing.......

You love crawling under everything, the chair, the slide ...

You love playing with water, you love tearing up tissues to pieces :)

You now understand if i say clap, fan, light. butterfly, bird , heart, bicycle, slide and rocking horse

I love listening to your laughter, and looking at your smile... I Hope you will always give me that smile and those laughter, and that you will always fill this house with happiness and joy :') .. i love you my baby girl. 

Activities 8 month old

These are some of the activities to keep Syifaa occupied throughout the day. 

Foam blocks- she loves me building it and she destroying it : )

Cotton wool - I made small balls to practice her fine motor skills. it keeps her occupied for 10 minutes.

Bottles - These are her favourites. i use it almost everywhere, in her tub, bring it out everywhere i go since its small and fits easily in my bag. 1 with buttons and the other with beads. you can hot glue the top so it doesn't come off. 

Scarf - She loves playing peekaboo with this

Stairs - Her current obsession is to climb the stairs way up to the top : /

Water play- just made this today since the weather was so nice. I added in the small balls in the water again to practice her fine motor skills 

Baloon chase - Been playing this for 4 days in a row and she still loves it

Currently her favourite books

Family holiday to Port dickson

Our first family trip was to Port dickson to give Syifaa her first sand experience and thankfully she loved it. 

we stayed at the water chalet in Avillion Port Dickson, our second time here but first time with Syifaa. Its a beautiful place with its own private beach and heaps of activities , peacocks roaming around freely an amazing SPA that i have yet to try. Do have a look at their website http://www.avillionportdickson.com 

one thing that was unexpected was that the next morning i discovered 10 mosquito bites on Syifaa      : (.. I didn't know getting the water chalet near the beach would result to this.... oh well a lesson it is.

I would come here again when Syifaa is a little older to enjoy the activities.

Syifaa at 5 months

My baby girl is 5 months already.... alhamdulillah her sleeping pattern has improved a lot although once in a while i still have to review the book again to check if im doing it alright.

Syifaa loves sucking her thumb now, i have been thinking if i should stop her from doing that but most online reading i did says that thumb sucking is good at this age as it is a sign that the child can calm herself and it is also not a major concern until the permanent teeth comes out.

So baby girl, ill let you suck your thumb and if the need arises we will put braces on your teeth : ).

Most Infants Self-Pacify

Most experts agree that a thumb-sucker younger than 5 shouldn't be pressured to stop. Most children will give up the habit on their own before they enter kindergarten.

"Thumb-sucking is an appropriate and useful behavior for very young children," says Linda Goldstein, MD, a Washington pediatrician. "It allows them to comfort and entertain themselves."

In fact, more than three-quarters of infants suck their thumbs or fingers through the first year of life. A child usually turns to the thumb when bored, tired, or upset. It is not uncommon to see a thumb-sucker simultaneously engage in other behaviors, such as twirling a strand of hair, holding onto an ear, or rubbing a blankie.

"Even when the habit lingers past infancy, thumb-sucking is rarely something to be concerned about. It doesn't indicate that a child has emotional problems or that he will still be sucking his finger when he's a teenager," says Sabine Hack, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine.

-taken from http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/breaking-thumb-sucking-habit

Milk Supply

When Syifaa was 3 months++ my milk supply went really low, that one night she was just unsatisfied so i took some EBM from the freezer but baby girl refuses the bottle i had at home which led me to plan B and called my sister for help. She brought different teats that she thought my baby would be ok with but still baby girl refuses milk form the bottle 

which in the end led us to plan C , since my  nephew who was 1yr 10mnth at that time was still being breastfeed, Syifaa had a share of the milk. she actually drank for a few minutes and had a good sleep

So i searched online and found out this website really helpful

http://kellymom.com/bf/got-milk/supply-worries/low-supply/

Now my supply has been good and i hope it stays that way till baby girl is 2yrs old. Basically what i did was :

1) Drank warm water about 3L a day

Minum air banyak akan increase milk supply tapi warm water, bukan room temperature tapi warm. Sebelum ni susu banyak so i ingat alah sehari dua tak minum banyak tak apa... but NO air memang sangat penting untuk banyakkan susu.

2) Drank warm milk and ate oats in the morning

Untuk yang tak allergic susu, minumlah susu and makan oats, it helped me. 

3) Frequent pumping

Sebelum ni ada pump sikit sebab tu ada stock EBM, lepas tu ingat tak payah lah sebab milk selalu ada. tapi pump tu sangat penting untuk tambah susu. The idea is i quote from kellymom.com is "To speed milk production and increase overall milk supply, the key is to remove more milk from the breast and to do this frequently, so that less milk accumulates in the breast between feedings"

lepas baby habis minum i would pump one breast, walaupun susu tak keluar tapi i pump additional 3-5 minutes. The key to remember is bila breast empty dia akan produce more milk. 

4) Eat dates 

I makan kurma, tak sure ini membantu tak tapi alhamdulillah milk increase. sampai sekarang i makan kurma selang sehari. 

5) Think positive, dont stress and have enough rest

Memang masa susu sikit stress sangat , rumah bersepah rehat tak cukup sebab baby girl susah nak tido masa tu. Jadi agak penat lah.

Syifaa's monthly update

So this monthly update is just for me to review and remember Syifaa.

3 months
she could already lift her head up and i got really excited ahahah, Syifaa on the other hand didn't show any excitement...oh well.. In general she is such an easy baby, she normally wakes up happy, smiling and she rarely cries and If she does cry the only possible reason could be that she has not been sleeping well.

Thats a picture of my baby girl on her first day of lifting her head up high : )

Milk supply went down sometime around 3 months++, ill write on another post on my milk supply next time.

4 months

Syifaa's weight is 7.6kg, she could turn and has been drinking a lot more now. Sleep wise she has been sleeping at 12midnight most of the time sometimes at 10 or 11 at night and will wake up at 10 in the morning, roughly  In between she has about 2 feedings. In total daily she gets about 14 hours of sleep which is not enough for her age.

Her nap time varies, sometimes its just 20 minutes sometimes its 2 hours

At 4 months she should be getting around 15 hours, so im working on a sleep routine for her and i really do hope it works. My friend suggested a book and ill write a review of the book next time when this sleep issue has resolved.