Bringing Madison to WORK!

Plans had been laid before Madison was born....
It was also decided that there would be a office/nursery at the back of the clinic so that I could bring dear old Madison to work for as long as I wished, facilitating breastfeeding and of course, bonding...

well... She's been around to the clinic several times in the past 61/2 weeks and so far.. well... its been a mixed bag.. occasionally she would settle and sleep, but most times she would fuss and fret until I could feed her and put her to sleep!

Today was a good day though... for some reason I was able to time her feeds from home all the way to the clinic until I started work... and she protested for only a short while before surrendering to sleep...

NEW HURDLES...

Having a baby indeed presents a continual challenge to the parents, especially the mother...

Today Madison officially turns 6 weeks...

We had a checkup at Prof John Tee's practice for me, and at Dr Wong for her to review her jaundice. The good news.. her bilirubin had dropped below 200 (150) so we are in the clear... the bad news? after returning from Melbourne, where the entire family came down with the cold, she was now running a low grade temperature of 37.4 to 37.5 C! Thankfully she is on breastmilk, so we were praying the antibodies from me would protect her somewhat.

We brought some goodies for Dr Tee and Sally ( his assistant ) in way of thanks... I got a Pap smear done and a quick ultrasound scan of the uterus which i presume was normal. Afterwards we popped in to see Dr Wong who told us to monitor Madison and to return if she continued to run a temperature.

While waiting to see Dr Tee, Yen Ping the lactation consultant dropped by to see Madison... she gave me new instructions to start pumping rigourously and to start her on some bottle feeds during the day for her... so we had to purchase a double electric pump to boost the pumping efficiency... her instructions was to pump at every feed for 20 minutes.. stress... so far pumping is quite a chore, with pitifully poor yields... but if she says it has to be done to boost my milk storage capacity.. all a training process... argh... just when I thought I had the breastfeeding thing down pat!
She also advised me to top up the last feed at night in order for Madison to sleep a little longer earlier in the night..

Madison still is pretty sleepy though... wonder if this is normal at 6 weeks?

MADISON'S 1st holiday

our dear Madison is indeed one lucky gal....

WEEK 5 and she is off to Melbourne, Australia for a 1 week jaunt...the amount of luggage that she created: an entire suitcase of new clothing, the AVENT steriliser, bottles, breast pump and BRESTFRIEND pillow and a pile of diapers, her carry cot/car seat and stroller.. the rest of us had minimal luggage!

We left Singapore on the 14th of April, 1 day after she turned 1 month...We flew on Singapore Airlines SQ228. It was a night flight, which in retrospect turned out to be a bad choice as we, the parents didn't get to sleep! Madison slept so well it was a nightmare trying to rouse her to latch on during take off and landing!
The entire flight there was filled with coughing spluttering people, mainly children too... resulting in the ENTIRE family coming down with a cold/sinusitis, starting with Pa, then Ma and now Chris and I are starting to come down with it too!

We arrived in Melbourne at 8 in the morning, and picked up the car ( RAV 4) that Chai had booked for us. For some reason, she started her distinct dislike of the car seat during this trip... the initial protests turned into massive wails and screams until we reached the house... we got stuck in traffic trying to avoid the CITYLINK toll...

The first day was spent at the Registry of births, deaths and marriage attempting to register her birth.. after waiting eons we were finally served, only to be faced with the immense difficulty of getting an approval for the registration form! BOB, the guy serving us was really helpful though, and went out of his way to enquire about the process of application for us... took us almost 2 hours to accomplish and we are still in the dark about the success of the application!

Ming and Olivia were the first to see Madison, and they joined us for dinner. Cheryl and Selene were next...our dear Maddi decided to play up most of the trip at dinner time, refusing to settle... I suppose she realised something was up...We had a get together on Friday night, with a potluck dinner at home... Austin and Lyana/ Angus/ mike and Yen/ Alex and Lisa/ Soong Chua/ Janette and Asrar/ Pete and Carla turned up ..

Most of the trip revolved around our dear girl. We did manage to go to Albert Park one morning for a really short stroll to see the ducks, one afternoon in the city shopping at David Jones' Food Hall, and breakfast at the Victoria Market, shopping at Brunwsick discount stores...(Nike and Addidas), breakfast at Joe's Garage...

Pa did most of the food catering at home... he was absolutely mesmerised by the meat department at the Victoria market. We had steak, pork roast, Osso bucco,crab in it's shell. I had lots of Chicken soup courtesy of ma, diligently chopping chicken at night to stew in the slow cooker...

we met up with Chai for dinner and most of Saturday.Han Ting came over as well.. they make a nice couple. Chai held Madison and really looked the part!

Sunday came around really quickly, and we were soon packing once again to make the journey back home. We left Melbourne really early in the morning for a day flight back to Singapore on SQ 238. Once again Madison was super sleepy in the plane, driving me crazy trying to force her to latch on for take off and landing! IT was amazing the stuporific effect the plane had on her! If only she would sleep like that at night at home!

We arrived safely home in the afternoon and took a taxi back to the Papillon house... in preparation for the final move back to our apartment ( we had been staying at the Novena house since she was born )...stress..

EARLY PARENTHOOD

The going is really tough... no one is kidding you when they tell you the initial days are crazy.. I am wondering if it'll ever get better, even though everyone I speak to always reassures me that it will, then I'll miss the old times!

I think at the moment the nights are absolutely the worst, every night is becoming a mini phobia inducing episode for me and probably Chris as well... it all depends on how well Madison wants to sleep.. at this point trying to force her to sleep in her own cot is pointless.. we'd all be up till 5 am trying to pacify her!

Madison generally is a light sleeper and jumps easily at noise/movement,especially her own startles..then she awakes with a rude shock and cries lustily until someone rocks her back to sleep or I comfort feed her! I think she is associating me with comfort sucking now, and most times I find it almost impossible to calm her down in any method other than the breast!

There was an article yesterday in Mind your Body, a supplement that comes with the Straits Times, on total breastfeeding.. It was written to encourage more women to persist with total breastfeeding IE no supplements with formula. The article stated that 95% of women start out attempting to breastfeed, but by 2 months only 14% are total breastfeeding and by 6 months only 1 % are left breastfeeding in Singapore! Reasons sited were insufficient supply, engorgement, poor latch, baby preferring formula!

Now I understand why women give up breastfeeding.. it is tough and no one else can really help you in the initial days. So many times already in the first month have I contemplated supplementing with formula, especially in the long lonely nights when I have to be up feeding her endlessly, tolerating sore nipples, aching breasts and the mental fatigue and fog... Nights are tough, because you feel so alone in the quest. And the baby does not show any appreciation( ie stay asleep long enough for you to recover !)

But I have to persevere... if I survive 2 months I already belong to the 14% of women in Singapore! Teo Yen Ping, the lactation consultant at KKH is quite proud of me for having persisted thus far... I have called on her invaluable services twice this month, and am truly grateful for the support and help that she has given to me...

IF ONLY MADISON COULD SLEEP WELL AT NIGHT.... IN HER COT WOULD BE A BLESSING... I'd really hate to have to sleep train her later and have her cry it out!

WEEK 3 of Madison's life

It truly is a relief that week 3 has passed... it has been pretty tough with her going through what we think was /is a growth spurt...

Madison started the week off pretty much the same, but as the week progressed she became increasingly grouchy and clingy, refusing to sleep in her cot at any time! Nap times were a horror.. she would feed then fall asleep while feeding but promptly awake to protest loudly if she were to be lowered into the cot!

The evenings deteriorated to a point that she needed to be carried and rocked to sleep, or be allowed to sleep while feeding in my arms! Meal times for Chris and I became a nightmare, since one of us had to be with her while she slept! Bed times became a real chore and thus we elected to co sleep so that all 3 of us could get some shut eye...

The other thing that new parenthood brings along with it is alot of advice from well meaning relatives and friends... parents, parents in law etc... whether to create routines (not advised by them since they didn't follow one), co sleeping (its ok ) etc...

Nights were still sleepless most of the time, 2 am being the witching hour... Madison would promptly wake at 150 to 2am and stay awake, demanding to be fed/ carried/ rocked until nearly 5 or 6 in the morning... by which time Chris and I were bushed... and then she would fall asleep, needing to be woken at 730 for her morning feed!

The other issue is of diapering.. we started off with the intention of environmentally friendly cloth nappies but with the situation so poor we are now mainly using disposables... although I must say that the disposables do create marks where they sit on her thigh....

Madison is a really light sleeper most of the time, waking and startling really easily with noise or movement. She is able to startle so badly she wakes up wailing and is slightly inconsolable... wonder why she is so... I hope we haven't somehow traumatised her already..

Sleep training is another issue we are starting to consider... There is alot of conflicting information about whether to sleep train or not.. one of the foremost writers and proponents of it is Richard Ferber. We have acquired a copy of his book and are planning to implement it when she is 2-3 months?