Hugs and kisses

Kaitlyn started giving us hugs and kisses today. When I said to her "Kaitlyn, give mummy a hug?" She puts her arms around me, and her head on my shoulder right next to my neck and goes "uggg". She can't pronounce hug properly yet but so cute!

She also started kissing us for no reason at all. She kissed me on both cheek this afternoon, BIG WET ones LOL... I think her skills needs a bit of refining ;)

She also understands quite a few words now. She claps and waves when you ask her to, and she now demands "baf time" and she asks for the book after her bedtime bottle using a word that I do not understand (but she uses the same word every night).

I love being a mum :)

The Story of no wraps, cold turkey

Bit of the background: Kaitlyn likes being wrapped to sleep. When she was very little, like from birth to about 3 months, she was swaddled, i.e. her arms and legs were wrapped snuggly. Otherwise, she would startle herself and wake up screaming. Gradually, she got too long for the wraps, so we only wrapped her arms down at night.

Then one night around 5 months, she decided she no longer liked to be wrapped with arms down by her side. So we had to leave her to sleep without being wrapped at all. But that's when she got worse with her sleeping patterns and waking every single hour throughout the day and night. She also started moving all over the bed, and getting her head, arms and legs trapped between the cot railings or had them bruised by smacking the wood too hard. Eventually, after 2 months of struggling with that, we took her to Tresillian. In Tresillian, they tried to get her to settle and sleep without being wrapped at first... and she cried for TWO entire hours that afternoon and didn't get a wink of sleep. So, the nurse wrapped her loosely with her arms near her face. BINGO! that was the trick. She slept!!!

After 7 days at Tresillian, she started sleeping, and a week after we got home, she was consistently sleeping through the night, from 8pm to 4am-6am. And she also napped for 1.5 to 3 hours during the day. Ah, it was heaven~!~~!~ We also bought her the SafeTWrap, which is a long piece of material that is secured to the mattress and to secure her onto the mattress. She can still turn to her sides if she wished, but she couldn't move all over the bed, and couldn't get trapped under the covers, or between the railings. I slept a lot better after we got the SafeTWrap, knowing she is safe in the cot.

So, fast forwad to last month, My father decided he'd start nagging me about the wrapping and wanting me to stop wrapping her and securing her down with the safeTwrap. I thought, ok, it wasn't broken, she's sleeping great, and she liked the security of the wraps, everyone in the house is much happier because she was sleeping well, why change it? It's not like we wrap her very tight, it was so loose that she could get out of the wraps easily. And a lot of mornings, we did find her out of her wraps and waving her arms at us or clapping anyways. BUT NO, dad still nags and nags and nags.... it got so bad last week, every word he said to me was about removing the wraps and how I am harming the baby intentionally and stunting her development, hurting her bones etc. Way to go dad!

So, I got very fed up with the nagging and being told that I was the worst mother in the world. I decided to show him what it would've been like to totally unwrap her. Oh boy did she cry... Out fo the 24 hours that we totally unwrapped her, she slept for maybe max 8 hours in totally (that's less than half of her usual sleep!) She wouldn't nap at all during the day, and woke up every hour during the night again. It also wasn't the whining cry, it was screaming and startled sort of cry. She kept crying mama, mama... it was heart breaking! We also found her upside down in the bed, or on her tummy and couldn't get herself back over to her back...etc. Wasn't safe, and lucky I put the baby breathing and motion monitor back on so _I_ could get a little bit of sleep, otherwise I would've been worrying all night long. I was so tempted to wrap her again, but I didn't. I wanted to make sure dad cave first.

Well, he did. He's never very good with handling Kaitlyn's crying anyways. He asked us to re-wrap her after 24 hours of torture. Ok, I am fine with weaning her off the wrap that goes over her arms as I do agree that it is probably not great for her development to bend her arm all night. But the SafeTWrap was to keep her safe! It's not like she's held down in one single position all night, it's just to keep her from getting to her tummy or get hurt by the railings!

I put the SafeTWrap back on, and Yay, she slept! The 24 hours cold turkey no wrapping at all had weaned her off the arm wraps. As long as we tuck her in nice and snug, she would sleep. She loved playing with the covers with her arms. But she still needed the security of being held around the tummy. I know when she's ready, she will outgrow the SafeTWrap, but I also know that this is NOT the time yet.

I got very annoyed during the 24 hours of no sleep and baby crying. But I am also happy that she no longer needs her arms held down at all. I just wish though that my dad will realise that I was trying to do what's best for my child and know my child better than he does. But I know, that's too much to hope for...

9 Months measurements and teething, round 2

Here are Kaitlyn's 9 months measurements:

Weight: 7.5kg (her weight has been yoyo-ing a lot the last 3 months, it's sad that she only gain 100gms net, in 3 months!, but for the last 3 weeks, she's been consistent in gaining 100gm every week, so here's hoping she will start gaining more weight from now on)
Height: 74cm (she's tall, at the 90 percentile at the moment, here's hoping she won't be short like mummy when she grows up)
Head circumference: 43cm (she wiggles so much I don't know if this is accurate)

Her top centre teeth are coming through soon, she's a drooling machine again and today her temperature spiked a little. She will look so different with bug bunny teeth.

NINE months old

Kaitlyn turns 9 months old today! It's weird how time seemed to have sped up after she's 6 months old... It's now like, I blinked and a month is gone. She has her next paediatrician appointment next week. I am such a slack mummy and have not taken her to her 6 to 8 months routine checkup yet. Now that we need to take a bus to go ANYWHERE, it's just such a hassel to leave the house without a car. She's generally healthy, when she's not teething. She's a little on the skinny side, but I am trying to not worry too much. I will definitely ask the doctor about the lack fo weight gain though when we see him next week.

Now, onto the new things Kaitlyn is doing:

• She crawls all over the house now, and rather fast, although she's still doing commando crawls (with her arms only)
• She stands up for a long time, holding onto the railings in her cot
• She now can say, mum and dad (in 2 languages), bath, full, num-num (for food) and bed
• She sings and dances
• She waves hello and goodbye without being asked
• She claps her hands when she is happy or when she is singing
• She pats you on the back and arms when she's happy
• She kicks her legs when you tell her to
• She's close to doing "kisses"
• She loves to play and talk with herself in front of the mirror
• She pulls herself up in the bathtub
• She has a "shoe fetish" and chase people's slippers, shoes and socks all over the house if you let her
• She plays peek-a-boo
• She loves to giggle and laugh. She is such a happy baby, we feel very blessed
• She has "hair envy" (maybe because she doesn't have much at all, she still looks like a baldie in photos with her mousey blond fuzz). She loves to grab and pull other people (especially mummy)'s hair, very ouchie...
• She does NOT like pumpkin
• She loves chicken and carrots in her rice porridge but not so keen on pork
• She bites if woken to be fed in the morning... not a morning person I assume...
• She loves to walk, while holding onto furnitures or on our pinky fingers.
  

I will be going back to work first week next month. I wish I could continue to stay home. I much prefer to raise my child than have my mother do it. But then, having my mother taking care of Kaitlyn is still better than putting her in childcare, I suppose... I really wish I could stay home... I hate thinking about my baby growing up, without me around... :(

The Few Days Away sans Baby

As a part of the celebration for my 30th birthday, Brett took me away for a few days without the baby. We went back to the hotel we stayed at for our wedding, in the city, just so that IN CASE baby needed us, we were not far away.

I went to the gym and pool everyday, so I could justify to myself the numerous restaurants we visited. I just LOVE food... We had a Japanese buffet last night... OMG we ate so much... I could see a look of relief on the waitress when we eventually finished. I hope this place don't go bust like that All You Can Eat Yum Cha we went to just the once...

As much as it was nice to be in a 5 star hotel, have the room made up nicely each day by someone else and room service (love the breakfast in bed thing)... What I loved the most was being able to have a hot shower, with more than decent water pressure, for as long as I wanted, whenever I wanted. I have not had a LONG hot shower since the night before Kaitlyn was born.

I missed Kaitlyn heaps and called home everyday to make sure she was ok. She was an angel apparently, never fussed and slept through the night every night.

Kaitlyn looked slightly different when I first saw her when we got home. She definitely has more fuzz on her head now... her mousey blonde mohawk is so cute LOL. It took her a while before she gave us that big bright signature smile. In just this few days, she has learned to:

• go from sitting to crawling
• Stand very well when holding onto something, by herself
• crawls a lot faster
• oh, and she was singing today... I could almost swear we heard she sang the tune of "ABC"

Ah, kids just grow up so fast...

I am so glad to be home, and be with my baby girl.

Ouchies -- Too much information warning

I made a booboo again with the baby. /sighs. Last night I was feeding Kaitlyn her usual congee for dinner. I thought I had cooled it down properly because she's already gone through half a bowl with no problems. So, I put this one spoonful in, and she started screaming... my poor baby, it was too hot. She then started vomitting, and vomitting and vomitting... she fountained so much I didn't know a little tiny baby could hold that much food! The high chair was soaked, the floor directly under the the chair was covered, her whole body was covered... She cried and cried till her face was bright red, and she kept on crying out "mum, mummy, mama..." It was heartbreaking.

Needless to say, I got quite a lecturing from MY parents, as if i wasn't feeling guilty enough about burning my baby. /sighs

Kaitlyn was ok after I wiped her down, changed her and cuddled her for 15 minutes. She even finished the rest of her dinner and drank extra for the bedtime bottle.

Forward and Onward...

Kaitlyn has been crawling in circles and backwards for a month or 2 now. Today, she started crawling forwards!! So yep, she's mobile now :D Time to baby proof the house.

Teeth count = 2

Kaitlyn now has both bottom centre teeth! And it's about time mummy and daddy start saving up for her braces. The poor girl has unfortunately received mummy's bad teeth genes by the looks of the first 2 teeth. Ah well, nothing a few years of braces won't fix. :D

On the note of braces, I am on my LAST set of aligners!! I LOVE InvisAlign! Most people could not tell I have been wearing braces at all. They've made a world of difference to my teeth! I will post some before/after photos when I get the "buttons" taken out in a few weeks time. :)