rawakramblings

We chose 6 months however occasionally giving her fruits to suck on from 5 months, just to get her used to eating. Being the typical excited 6 month old parent, we also prepared puree for her. We started off with pumpkin - because of the iron content which is important for her at 6 months. We also followed that rule of thumb when introducing solids to babies - introduce one food at a time for 3-4 days before introducing another type of food just in case they have allergies.

However, our excitement was ruined when she didn't want to eat! So I thought maybe she doesn't like pumpkin so I made apple puree the next week, and then carrot the next week and then spinach the next week but it all turned to waste. So can you imagine all my hopes, just gone like that?

My mom bought Cerelac, the popular baby cereal. I didn't quite like the idea because I wanted fresh food, not some powder from the box. But you know what, at that point, I thought let's just give it a try - as long as she eats! She didn't like it too. And then I started buying every other brand of food on the babyfood shelves, organic, pouched, dried fruit, baby biscuits, you name it... none of them worked. 

I did more reading and it seems that some babies are fussy and some, are just not ready to eat yet.

The thing about Aisya is that she is not that type of baby that likes to put every single thing in her mouth. Her sense of recognizing things seem to be her hands - the sense of touching and not tasting. So every time something foreign comes near to her mouth, she will immediately shut it tightly and push away.

From 7 month onwards, we just kept on forcing the spoon into her mouth - just so she knows what 'eating' is. Some days she just swallows them unconsciously. Some days she pushes them away. Mealtime seems to be a nightmare for all of us haha. Some of our attempts include:

1. Turn Barney on and when she's excited looking at Barney and open her mouth, quickly push the spoon into her mouth. She will swallow it and then continue looking at Barney - just simply uninterested with eating. 
2. Because she seem to love drinking plain water, we trick her by changing between water and food in the spoon. 
3. Pretending to eat her biscuits and all and she was still uninterested. Like "Ya mummy... whatever..,"
4. We also did a simple experiment - where we give her the same food with the baby spoon and then our usual spoon and realized that she will only eat the one with the 'adult' spoon and 'adult' bowl. When we switch back to her plastic spoon, she will shake her head and push the spoon away. 
5. Bought a solid feeder where we can put fruits in and she can suck through it without getting the chunks into her mouth but only the juice - didn't work. 

Solid Feeder - by Munchkin.

By 8 months, she seem to show interest to eat when she looks at us eating. She started imitating her cousin Khyra (who is 3 months older than her) when she was eating biscuits - then only did she understand that the biscuits are meant to be eaten and not thrown everywhere. When Mr eats oats, she seem to want them too and opens her mouth when we give it to her but only for about 4-5 spoons. 

By 9 months, she has already learn to open her mouth when we bring a spoon nearer to her mouth. Sometimes she requests for food too. We feed her practically anything that she requests when she sees us eating- bread, rice, apple, soup. We also realized that she needs to be seated at a certain seat to understand that 'it is now time to mamam..'. 

Magic Bullet

I didn't invest to buy any baby food blender and only use mom's food processor to blend Aisya's puree initially. But now that she's eating well, I've bought the Magic Bullet Blender from Lazada so that I can blend small portions of food instead of stacking a whole week's supply which needs to be defrost everytime before meal time. Some choose the baby version of the Magic Bullet called the Baby Bullet - but I find that they're both the same only the Baby version has extra storage containers which I don't need. Some buy the Avent steamer + blender however its a little too expensive for me.

I would love to feed her fresh food all the time but I realized that as a working mom, I cannot be expecting others to sacrifice so much so something minor so I've decided to only give her fresh food for dinner and also during the weekends. Other than those times, I'm okay with Cerelac.


Before this, we feed her solids 3 times a day: at 9am when she wakes up, at noon and also at 6 in the evening. However, Mr. did some reading and pointed out that maybe she needs more than just 3 times so we changed her schedule to 4 times a day: 9am; noon; 4pm and 8pm. Now, when it's time to eat, she starts complaining and gets all excited when she sees her bowl.

Syukur alhamdulillah. Another milestone indeed :)

I guess its true what they say: not every baby is the same. Starting solid at 6 months is the advice however it seems that mine was only fully ready for it at 9 months. Just make sure that you keep on feeding your baby milk especially mummy's milk as no food can replace the nutrients in the mummy's milk.

Yes, I am a strong believer in breastmilk!

You can say that you 'understand' what you're going through but honestly, only a mom can say "I feel you..." to another mom. 

The sacrifices I go through as a mom are just 'challenging' but yet rewarding. I'm not sure how you can feel both feelings at the same time but I just do. I'm just exhausted of taking care of my baby and then suddenly she kisses me, and all that tiredness just go away. You're tired and yet, satisfied and happy. And its not that I HAVE to do everything perfectly but I try, because I want the best for my child. Don't all parents do?

Sometime last week, Mr. was telling me that I should spend some time reading books - as he haven't seen me doing that for quite sometime. The next thing I know, I was blurting out how 'I don't seem to have time for a lot of other things too - like going to the movies. Or for my mani pedi. Or to read the quran. Or to update the blog...Or to even sleep!' The worst thing is I even compared my responsibility to his - how he has time for gym, for reading his favourite books and magazines, for futsal..and can even get his full night sleep.

And then I realized what a HUGE mistake that was - comparing responsibilities. Because the truth is, we both have our own responsibilities to carry. I didn't bother to try understand what other things are on his shoulders and the things he has to work on as the leader of the family. And at that moment, I forgot all the things that he has been doing to help out with the baby - he has been quite a support, and I didn't even thank him for that. Why the need to compare? Why the need to bring up what's fair and what's not? Why not just carry out our own responsibility for the sake of Allah? Ikhlas. 

and like I said, there are things that mothers go through that only other mothers understand. like seriously, how can I runaway from breastfeeding my daughter when she wakes up at night, right? How do I runaway from my daughter who only wants me and only me when I get back from work. And I WANT to breastfeed her, and I LOVE that she is so clingy towards me.. they're the best feeling ever! 

So goodbye to all these me-time at the moment, because I'm actually enjoying the me-time I have with my babygirl. I will cherish this while she is still a baby because they will grow up really fast.. and like what other mothers say, by then, we will wish that she becomes a baby again.  

Aisya is now 8 weeks young now. I've started training her in the car seat about 3 weeks back, when we had to go to the immigration for her first passport. When she's asleep, she's okay. But when she's awake, it really depends on her mood.

I've been reading a lot on the net about training your baby in the car seat. The first few times, I sat next to her. Initially, she was amazed with the moving light outside the car, and then when she tries to move her body and realized that she's strapped, she starts making fussy noises. Then I had to pull her out. 

The next attempt, I talked to her loudly, "Aisya....mummy here..mummy here," and then looked at her eyes, and then she keeps quiet. But not for long. Most of the time, I end up feeding her in the car while someone else drives.

Just last week, we planned to bring Aisya back to Mr's hometown, Klang. Mr however had his weekend classes. So I decided to try driving the car alone with her from Shah Alam to Klang. I was lucky, as this time, she was asleep. All I did was turned on the white-noise apps in my iPhone and placed it next to her all the way..and alhamdulillah, arrived Klang peacefully. 

The next day, I tried again. This time driving from Subang to Mines for Mr's Birthday Lunch. I fed her fully and changed her diapers and as she was slightly drugged from the milk, I put on the whitenoise apps and so her eyes went shut right away. Alhamdulillah, we arrived Mr's office peacefully. However, on the way back, I was not that lucky. She cried hysterically at this really long red light and I had to stop over and calmed her down - this included feeding her and changing her diapers. Then, back to the white noise apps all the way back to Subang. What was supposed to be a 20mins drive turned out to be a 45 minutes drive.

Today, the situation was slightly different. Aisya's awake in the car seat. This time around, it's a longer journey. Just 10 minutes on the road, the whitenoise apps didn't work anymore and she started complaining and crying. I stopped the car and calmed her down. Drove back and she started crying again 5 minutes later. You can imagine how stressful I was in the car trying to figure out a way to calm her down. And then I started singing 'Zikrullah' - a melody I usually sing to her to sleep - and she was quiet!  - and so I sang the song repeatedly for the next 20 minutes or so - penat ok!

On the way back home, Zikrullah only worked for 20 minutes - and then you know what works? Beatles' The Yellow Submarine! She magically went back to sleep! LOL 

This whole try-and-error with my baby is challenging but also quite fun discovering what works with her. Like you've just learned something new about her.

My personal tips on car seat training:

1. Before putting your baby in the car seat, make sure that your baby is full fed and with fresh new nappy.
2. Download whitenoise application in your phone. It keeps your baby calm. Or download some whitenoise mp3 and burn them in a CD.
3. Put some colorful or black and white images around her to keep her entertained. Or some musical mobile. 
4. Sing to her, or put on some music with songs that she's familiar with. As for me, I used to hum the Zikrullah after my solat during my pregnancy, just to get my baby familiar with the melody. As for The Beatles, yes - one of my favs ;)
5. Make sure that you're willing to sacrifice a bit of your time, and stop to calm her down. 

That is all that I can share as for now. Let's see what else works with her in the car seat.....

It was my 39th week pregnancy check-up. As usual, I had to do my urine test. It was then I noticed that brown spot. I went back to Dr Delaila's clinic and told the nurse about the brown spot, she said, "Waa..that's usually the sign. Do you feel any contraction?" "Err... no. I'm not too sure how its supposed to feel like," I said. The nurse just smiled and told me to wait till my turn to see the doctor and see what she says about it. 

While waiting, both me and Mr. were excited thinking "Oohhh, the day is finally HERE!," I on the other hand, also had some nervousness in me - worried about labour pain and all. 

While waiting for our appointment number, had breakfast at Dome at SDMC.

When seeing Dr. Delaila, she checked on the opening of my cervix. "Hmm.. it has opened. But still very small. Not even a centimeter. That's alright. Just make sure you take extra calcium tablets and I'll see you next week yah. Here's another 5 days of MC. Just make sure you come to Level 4 whenever you feel a contraction of 5 minutes interval," 

"Not the time yet," I whatsapped our family group. And so Mr. sent me back home and head over to his weekend masters class.

At home, I had lontong for lunch and watched an episode of HIMYM on 711 Astro. Occasionally I felt my stomach stretched and told myself that maybe I should time that, just in case that is what they say a contraction should feel like. And so I timed using a contraction apps on my iPhone. 50mins. 20mins. 50mins. 30mins. And they lasted 1 min per 'contraction'. "Hmm... maybe this isn't contraction,"...

I went into my room for Zuhur prayers, and then I read Surah Maryam and prayed to Allah to ease my labour and shorten my labour pain. I've always prayed to have a short labour so that I will have the strength to breast-feed my baby straight after birth. I drank some zamzam water (which I've been drinking for the past 2 weeks) and then took a nap. It was during this sleep that I felt these contractions slightly painful - more like diarrhea tummy pain - in which, did make me go in and out of the toilet later with diarrhea. At this time, I knew it was contractions because it became more and more prominent and they were 20 minutes apart, 1 min duration each.

At around 5pm, contractions became painful. The funny thing is, in between contractions, I feel perfectly fine that I can even eat fried bananas! I prayed Asar and again, prayed for a short labour and this time around, tawakal to Allah - I said "I know that YOU know what is going to happen and I have prayed for the very best and done what is necessary and now I'm letting things happen the way it should, the way you've decided... just give me the strength,". I can still remember that contraction came during my last rakaat that I had to pause and breathe in and out deeply to stand the pain.

By 6pm, I couldn't stand it anymore. I knew it was time. I called Mr and said, "I think you should come back now.. I think it's time," I swear I can hear excited-ness in his voice when he replied, "Ok. ok.. leaving now," -- hello?? I'm in pain here..why so happy?

I double checked my labour bag for all the necessary documents and things to bring to the hospital and then I head into the shower for a round of hot shower. Hot shower really calms me down! Breathing deeply under the hot shower...so relaxing..! Didn't realize how long it was that when I came out, Mr was already back home. By then, when contraction came,  couldn't stand straight.

Mr. hugged me and said, "I maafkan you yang, for everything," Then I hugged my parents and said my apologies to them for all my wrongdoings, not because I was afraid of not surviving labour but to get blessings to ease my labour process. Then, off we went to the hospital, which was only 2 mins away btw.

7pm, we were already in the labour room. The midwife checked on my dilation and said, "4cm and your contractions are 2 minutes apart. Kuat jugak awak than sakit ye..ni dah active labour dah, " and then I Mr. said, "Ohh alhamdulillah, dah almost halfway dah!,"

"Awak dah decide nak pain killer apa?".. asked the midwife.
"Gas je..."
"Waahhh.. bagus ni,"
I told myself, "Yes, come on, you can stand this,"

Mr. prayed Maghrib next to me in the labour room.. and then Isya'..and then solat hajat. and I can't remember if he read the Quran but I remember seeing him reciting some surahs and throughout contractions, I remember him zikr which helped me to zikr also in my head because honestly, contractions were sooo painful that you tend to forget everything. He also helped with the breathing methods during contractions, which was something we learned during the pre-natal classes that we attended.

Everytime during contraction, I looked for Mr's hands, "Tangan...tangan..sayang..." and I held them really really tightly and transferred all that pain to his hand.. it felt like a relief! Mr told me later that I was really squeezing his hand and fingers really really tight that it hurts but he pretended that he could stand it because he knew I was going through worst..Kesiannn dia..sorry dear!

By 9pm, I asked for some gas and they told me that gas (enthonox) can only be given when I'm 7cm dilated. By then I was only 6cm. I was shocked! I didn't know that there was a limit as to when I can use the gas. I was mentally prepared to use the gas as the pain killer.

"Kita boleh bagi injection kalau puan tak boleh tahan.."

"Takpe.. takpe.. saya boleh tahan..."

Pfft! Lasted only for a few more contractions....and then I gave up and called for the midwife, "Okay.. bagi injection,".. better known as pethidine.

The pain was the same. But I felt my muscles more relax. My back didn't hurt anymore. The pain focused on only the contraction and in between contractions, I could have a few minutes of nap to rest and gain back my energy.

They gave me gas to breathe during contractions by about 10pm and then everything else felt really quick. Doc came in. I made some crazy ridiculous comments about her attire due to me being high on the drugs. Then I felt some hot water gushing out. Dr. broke my water bag. Then she left. She came back in again. They asked me to push. I pushed hard. But it still wasn't hard enough. It felt like a really really bad constipation and I really had to get this really big huge gigantic rock out. I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed again. and again and again and again.. and then she was out!

Dr.Delaila passed the scissors to Mr. for him to cut the umbilical cord, then.. I heard cries.. baby cries. I saw the midwives took her to be cleaned and then weigh her and passed her to Mr. Honestly it was hard to compose how I felt. I wasn't all 'Ahhh-she's-so-beautiful-it's-a-miracle' - I just sat there and just looked at everything not feeling anything. Then I heard Mr. recite the Azan to Aisya and then the midwife passed the baby to me. That was the first time I saw her, quiet and asleep, and I looked at Mr. and we both smiled.

"Okay..we're going to leave your here for 30 minutes. Boleh susukan baby and relax dulu sementara tunggu bilik siap..dah tau macam mana nak susukan baby?"

"Err...first time ni,"I replied and the midwife smiled and showed me how. Aisya was just quiet and the minute we directed the nipple to her mouth, she went all active and excited..after a few attempts, she was already sucking, Alhamdulillah..I got what I wished and prayed for - to breastfeed my baby right after birth to let her get all the colostrum she needs to enable her to be strong. It was then, that I said to myself. ".. Alhamdulillah,"