Two Weeks Post Partum

I'm still learning to cope up. My main problem with the tweensie is breastfeeding, my main problem with the bigsie is tantrum problem.

First Week.
I thought the second time breastfeeding I've gotten the hang of it. It turns out.. NO! I still got to suffer from poor latch on, cracked nipples, etc. First week was spent with me struggling to overcome that problem. Milk supply was no problem, it was better compared to last time but because of poor latch on I was engorged. Then I went to lactation consultant who taught me to latch on properly and helped me rid of my lumps. Within one week my nipple is healing and my milk flow is better.

My second problem on this week was, at day 6 Rana's jaundice level was 223mmol/L. Normal supposed to be around 103. The doctor did not send for phototherapy because the level had not exceeded 300 yet.

Aura Diandra Adiratna

Please welcome our newest addition to the family!!!

Accomplishments 34months

So, since we started on September by this mid October I announce that she's diaper free! Even if I put her diaper on it's not wet! Since last post I've had 1 accident wetting the bed at night, and a few pees before we reach toilet. So Alhamdulillah, I can save money now!

Her speech is growing each day. She still speaks in grammatically random sentences but I kept correcting her. Her vocabs increased, Indonesian and English. "Sudah selesai", "Masih ada", and a few more indonesian phrases that she managed to pull through. Some easy English sentences she managed to say perfectly, but there are still times that I don't even know what the hell she's trying to say.

She is now interested in vehicles (trains, cars, anything that moves), robots, dinosaurs, and other non-girls stuff. Her fave tv shows are Pocoyo, Tayo, Mr Maker, Hi5. Her fave movie is Toy Story and Wall E.She is very good in memorizing songs, even though sometimes she only got it partially but she got the words right! so I guess it's a good time to teach her phonics.

Her favorite activities are pasting stickers, building blocks, drawing, coloring. I'm trying to teach her phonics and get her to read more. Maybe during my maternity leave I'll try doing that. But she is such a random person. She'll just do whatever she wants to do.

Her reluctance to take a bath is still on going. Some days are good, some days are bad, some days are horrible. Got to put on earplugs and handle her with patience. Which is so difficult when I am tired as well. I am so dreading for the day that she can go take a shower willfully without drama.

These past few months she seemed to have become a picky eater. I am going to try to be more creative in preparing dishes. So difficult to ask my maid to be creative cos last time she worked in Saudi, they fed their kids with Cokes and Burgers.

She is in that phase called terrible two going three. Everything is a NO. And it is the time when she forcefully push her own ways and wants. In good days I can reason with her, but in bad days it's just a never ending screaming and fights. So tiring -____-.
I just wish these days will end soon, but then another phase will come along. Oh well, the beauty of having kids I guesss....

I always emphasized to myself, enjoy these times and more horrible and enjoyable times to come. Kids get on your nerves, but don't let your nerves give up on them. So don't fret and stress over them, it's just a phase they need to go through. Easier said than done.

Potty Training (again)

So I decided to at least try before the second child comes. Since now she's bigger, and understands things, and able to say "pipis" or "pupup" and she knows when I go to the toilet to do my business, I decided to try again.
Btw her milestone this month is she is fully weaned from bottle. First try, she did not even complain! hahahahahha. Lucky me! So no more bottles for her. I decided to change cos I notice she started biting off her teat. Means the hole is not big enough for her. So the spout would be just nice.


So back to potty training, I started again last week. I only put her diaper on when we go out and night time. At the beginning she still misses her pipis times. Shortly when she say pipis, that's when she starts to wet herself. Slowly she learn to hold it and say pipis before she goes. Now I've got another homework to do. She needs to learn to pull down her own pants when she wants to go and I need to provide a high enough stool for her to climb to the toilet. So she doesn't have to fetch an adult to help her up. It'll be useful when her sister arrives later on.

So it's true, when your kid is ready, it is easier to teach her. Compared to my frustration and extra effort that I put during my first try, this one is a breeze.
Sometimes when other kids have accomplished something and your kid hasn't, it's us parents who are worried. Should I start to teach her? Why she still couldn't do it? Etc etc. We often forget that each kid has their own pace, their own interests. We only guide, not force. It's easier to guide your kid into something that she has developed a liking to rather than forcing her to like something she never did.

She's not fully potty trained yet, but I am thankful for this progress. I don't dare to boast, cos everytime I boast to people, something happens. Screw this, no one needs to know :D

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Shortly after this, she was fully potty trained. No diapers at night, or on the go. There were and still are accidents at times, but they are negligible. Now I only need to buy diaper for the lil one!!

Hardship of Life

Sometimes we feel that we are having the most difficult time of our life. Having to stick with my old job, no pay rise. Having to save up for my delivery, having to pay taxes, having to pay for expensive consultation fee for prenatal etc etc.

Then one day, my uncle passed away. He left behind 6 kids and my aunt. One in uni, one going to uni, the rest are still schooling. Then suddenly I don't think so much of my hardship anymore. We are both still working, we still have regular income, we have insurance, we are surviving. We still manage to enjoy a bit of indulgence here and there.

I used to worry how am I going to cope with 2 kids later? How about finances? My aunt manages to bring up her 6 kids well enough. What do I have to complain? Rezeki all comes from Allah. Allah told us to seek for it, not complain about it. Prepare our best, leave the rest to Allah. No good will come from worrying too much.

Now I understand the concept of gratitude. Be grateful of what you have in life, Allah can just take the most important thing away someday. Stop worrying of what has not come yet. The best we can do is just prepare ourselves. The rest Allah will help :). Have faith!

Potty Training

Until now, I still haven't been able to get my daughter potty trained. I am not pushing anymore. I still put her on training pants and cloth diapers just to get her used to the wetness feeling. Hopefully someday she will say herself, "mommy, my pants is wet, i need to change"

Here's an article that might ease your worries, if your kid is 2.5yo and NOT potty trained while everyone else are. Just think of it as another point of view to consider. If your kid is potty trained earlier, bless you, she is more ready than some of our kids, so don't be offended ya...

The dangers of potty training too early. 

You’ve probably heard the arguments in favor of early toilet training. They train early in Europe! Toddlers are more compliant than three-year-olds! Diapers are bad for the environment! Perhaps you’ve even read scientific studies concluding that children who train later are more likely to end up having accidents.

As a pediatric urologist who specializes in toileting problems, I’ll tell you this: Children under age 3 should not manage their own toileting habits any more than they should manage their college funds. Preschools that require 3-year-olds to be potty trained – like the one in Virginia that suspended 12-year-old Zoe Rosso for excessive potty accidents – are harming kids. And infant toilet training, promoted in Mayim Bialik’s new book Beyond the Sling, is just plain nuts – unless, like Bialik, you monitor your child 24/7, feed your child a high-fiber vegan diet, and home-school your child. Babies need to experience uninhibited 

voiding, or elimination, without the expectation of using the toilet at such an early age.

It’s not that young kids can’t be potty trained. Sure they can. But knowing how to poop on the potty is not the same as responding to your body’s urges in a judicious manner.

Let’s fast-forward two or three years. That’s when potty prodigies show up at my clinic – one of a handful specializing in dysfunctional voiding – with the sudden onset of pee and poop accidents, urinary tract infections (UTIs), urinary frequency, and/or bedwetting.

“I don’t get it,” a mom will tell me. “I didn’t push her – she basically trained herself.”

I believe these parents, but unfortunately it’s typically the kids who trained earliest and most easily who develop the most serious problems. I see about 100 kids a week at my clinic, and about half are dysfunctional voiders; most of them trained before 3.

To understand the risks of early training, it’s important to know that virtually all toileting problems – pee and poop accidents, bedwetting, urinary frequency, and urinary tract infections – are related to chronically holding pee or poop or both.

Children – and I mean all children – don’t like to interrupt their lives to use the bathroom. Once kids learn to put off peeing and pooping, essentially the definition of toilet training, they tend to do so often and for as long as they can. This is a dicey habit. Each time you squeeze your sphincter to prevent the release of pee, you create resistance in your bladder. What happens when muscles go up against resistance? Exactly what happens when you train your hamstrings at the gym: They get thicker and stronger. But unlike muscular hamstrings, a thicker bladder is a bad thing. It has a smaller capacity and its sensation mechanism goes awry. When a child habitually delays peeing, over months and years, his bladder wall becomes more muscular and eventually the bladder can get so strong and irritable that it empties without any input from the child.

Chronically holding poop, a problem exacerbated by our kids’ low-fiber diets, compounds the damage. A mass of poop forms in the rectum, right behind the bladder, and can stretch the rectum from about 2 centimeters in diameter to 10 centimeters or more. There’s only so much room in the pelvis, so the bladder gets squeezed out of the way and can’t hold as much urine. What’s more, the nerves controlling the bladder, which run between the bladder and the intestines, can get irritated when the intestines are enlarged, causing unexpected and unwanted bladder contractions – in other words, mad dashes to the toilet and accidents.

Chronically holding pee and poop also causes urinary tract infections. The less often a child pees, the more opportunity for infection-causing bacteria to creep up to her bladder. And if this kid is also hauling around a hefty load of poop, she’s harboring about a gazillion (to be precise) more times the bacteria than when her rectum has been emptied. Since the bladder is only a couple of inches from the rectum, the offending bacteria have a short trip to make, crawling through the perineal skin and into the vagina and the area around the urethra.

Though nobody posts on Facebook, “My kid wet the bed again,” toileting problems are rampant in our culture. Physician visits for constipation have doubled among children in the last decade or so, while hospital visits for constipation have quadrupled. Eight percent of girls have had a urinary tract infection by age 7, accounting for one million annual visits to pediatric clinics and 14 percent of all emergency room physician encounters between young girls and ER docs. Furthermore, about five million kids wet the bed, including about 20 percent of 5-year-olds, 12 percent of 6-year-olds, and 10-percent of 7-year-olds.

Though the data is robust, I believe these numbers are actually underestimates. Since parents tend to believe potty problems are normal, many don’t bother bringing their kids to the doctor.

Even when they do see a physician, the cause of their children’s toileting troubles often go unnoticed. That’s because most parents, and even many pediatricians, equate constipation with infrequent pooping. In reality, many constipated kids poop regularly, even multiple times a day. Large poop masses in children typically go unnoticed because looser poop oozes by and finds a way out more easily than the hard stuff, giving the impression that the child has fully eliminated. This is what happened with Zoe Rosso, the girl who was suspended from preschool and who is now my patient. As it turned out, Zoe had a poop mass the size of a miniature Nerf basketball stuck in her rectum, which both her pediatrician and pediatric urology clinic missed because they failed to X-ray her.

Plenty of published research, including our clinic’s 2012 study published in Urology, demonstrates that when you clear up clogged kids and prevent them from holding, the accidents, UTIs, and bedwetting episodes cease. Our study simply confirmed results from a remarkable series of Canadian studies published in the 1980s. These showed convincingly that children with wetting problems were severely constipated, despite showing few or no outward signs, and that treating constipation resolved the wetting and UTIs dramatically. (Remember that by constipation we mean a rectum clogged with stool – not failing to poop regularly.)

The reason kids who train at age 2 have more of these problems than children who train later, in my opinion, is that they have spent more months or years deciding for themselves when they should pee or poop – before they’re mature enough to understand the importance of eliminating as soon as they feel the urge. What’s more, the bladder needs about three or four years to grow and develop, and uninhibited voiding (read: diapers) facilitates maximum growth.

Parents often tell me their child has accidents because she has a “small bladder,” as if an undersized bladder is something the child was born with. The child’s bladder may be small, but that’s because its capacity has been compromised by holding.

Do you know how often I see children who are still in diapers and have recurrent UTIs? Never. Do you know how often I treat newly potty-trained children for recurrent UTIs? Every day. These kids fill a quarter of my clinic. This is not a coincidence and demonstrates quite clearly that toilet training in very young children is harmful. There is no way that healthy, developmentally normal, un-constipated children who learn to use the potty at 3 ½ have a higher rate of chronic pee or poop accidents than children who train at 2 ½. Kids in diapers don’t hold; many toilet-trained children do. Every year of constipation-free, uninhibited voiding – in other words, wearing diapers – leads to bladder growth; every year of holding shrinks the bladder and makes it more overactive.

And consider this: Typical therapy for accidents involves giving kids laxatives and putting them on a pee schedule, taking the decision of when to eliminate out of their hands.

Perhaps you’re still not sold on waiting until age 3 to potty train. Maybe you’re wondering: What about the research suggesting that it’s actually late training, not early training, that causes constipation and accidents?

Well, there’s a major flaw in this research: The authors didn’t check, via X-ray, to see if these kids were constipated at the time they started training. The records we keep at my clinic suggest that among late trainers, it’s not the age of training, but rather unrecognized constipation that correlates with problems. We have found that children who trained after age 3 and have toileting troubles either trained late because they were constipated (their parents had tried earlier but failed) or trained late and are constipated.

So, if you are training your 2-year-old because the preschool you’ve chosen requires children to be potty trained by 3, I suggest you find another school. Sending an early-trained child to preschool only increases the risk of potty problems, particularly if these schools don’t allow the safety net of a Pull-Up. Think about it: You’re placing a 3-year-old in an unfamiliar environment where, for possibly the first time in her life, she has no family members around for half the day, and you’re expecting her to interrupt her teacher during the story circle and announce that she needs to use the toilet or to climb out of the fort she’s just built with her friends and make her way over to the potty. Whoever thought that was a good idea has surely never set foot in a pediatric urology clinic.

Making matters worse, these kids are ill-equipped to deal with the sub-par restrooms and restrictive bathroom policies that may await them in elementary school and beyond. I have countless patients who have developed the capacity to hold their pee and poop from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. – and have developed serious bladder problems and recurring urinary tract infections because of it.

Children who are newly potty trained need a lot of follow-up, no matter how well they are able to stay dry, and the earlier you train a child, the longer it’s your responsibility to monitor the child’s peeing and pooping habits closely. Children need reminders to use the toilet about every two hours. (And caretakers should never ask a child if he needs to go potty, because most kids will say no. It’s your job to instruct the child when to go.)

It’s also important to glance at your child’s poops whenever you have a chance (luckily, kids often forget to flush!). Look for poop that’s thin and/or mushy, like mashed potatoes or hummus (it’s the watery, diarrhea-like poops that signal a problem). Extra-large poops and thick, formed poops are signs of constipation.

You can also teach your child to check on his own poop and report its appearance to you. (Yeah, all this sounds gross, but these conversations are important for families to have, and lots of kids think talking about poop is fun stuff.) Finally, try to keep track of the last time your child pooped.

I know most parents dream of the day when they can be completely removed from their children’s goings-on in the bathroom. Heck, I look forward to that day myself. But don’t get too fixated on your own potty liberation. You need to pay attention to your kids’ pooping habits until you’re absolutely positive they have it down.

taken from (http://www.babble.com/toddler/toddler-health-safety/dangers-potty-training-early/)

Toilet Train

If you're wondering whatever happened to my attempts of toilet training, I would say it's a delayed success. Hahaaha. In other words, no success so far. We have tried 2 weeks and I don't think she's ready yet. So now we still keep her in her cloth diapers most times.

She is just starting to grasp the idea of going to potty. Like when I'm peeing in the toilet she'll say, "ibuw potty". She sees a bowl she'll start to sit on it like sitting on a potty. I think maybe last time I was rushing things. I should have introduced her to it slowly. Let the idea sipped into her mind then train her. I have a lot of helps from youtube potty training's video. Free and easy!

That's where she learned the word potty. Previously I introduced toilet, pipis, pupup and NOTHING worked. Potty seemed to pretty much described them all. Either that or maybe it's just because it's youtube who said it -___-. Maybe I'll try again in a few months time. So far I'm still trying to discipline her (and myself) to at least go potty before sleep and first thing in the morning. Sometimes this lazy ibuw is too tired and fall asleep first.

A point to note: when you are teaching your child to be disciplined, you too should be as disciplined. YOSH!

Her First Days of Playgroup

Late post again!

Last Monday, 5 March 2012 was her first playgroup day. I went in with her for the first 2 days. Their program is play first thing when they went in. Then after 30mins, they sing, draw, read a book, coloring, etc. After 30 minutes they wash hands, go potty, then have 30 mins snack. After snacking before they go home they sing songs, read books, etc.

It sounds like something we do everyday at home right? But I find it's good for her to socialize. The first 2 days I went in she was so clingy (typical), and was such a crybaby. During the 3rd day I sent my maid to spy on her.... She seemed to be playing well, and she loved music time. The 4th day a bit chaotic with a bit of cries here and there. The 5th day was a bit better. Then after that... 1 wk holiday. It was such a wrong timing to put her in!

Anyway I'm crossing fingers on how she'll be next time she goes back to school. Overall, I think she enjoyed it. She always cries when it's time to go home. When she's home she refuses to take off her uniform and socks XD. SO cuuuuutte! She got along well with the boys mostly. So overall, I think she'll be just fine :).

Baby's Independence? (old post)

After looking at some of my friends' blog. I decided to try. Yup, I tried to let her fall asleep by herself. To train her so called sense of confidence and independence early.

So far I know she can fall asleep by herself during daytime, or when she's super tired. But not when i'm around. Them babies are veeery smart. Even though i'm so far away she still wails away.

So anyway, I did try on one fine night. I let her wail for like.. 15mins and I thought this will never end.. So I nursed her to sleep. I browsed around and found some pros and cons. Well everything always has two sides.

But for my own personal opinion, I don't mind nursing her to sleep until she learns how to sleep by herself. No matter what people say, for her own good, to teach them independency, etc etc. Please lah, she's like still 11months plus and you want to teach them about independence?

I personally believe this is the time where they need their parents the most. The time when they learn to trust other people. Even though the western way to do it is teach them independence from young, I disagree.

I'm a working mother. It is hard for me already to leave her alone and not be there with her during her daily and important times. One of my private moments with her is the nursing times. My bonding time, and the times when I actually do my job as a mother.

So after I thought about it, I decided to teach her that independence lesson when she is older. For now, I am enjoying my mothering and nursing times.

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You know what, after approximately 2 years old, more or less, she's fully weaned and fell asleep by herself. I started slowly since she was 1.5yrs old. I did the right thing by waiting until the time is right :)


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Milestone 2 Yrs 1Mos

At this time she picks up things very fast, mostly the ones she got from TV. Not so much on the Bahasa tho. I find that she picks up English better than she picks up Bahasa. Her vocabulary has increased significantly. I didn't count how many words she has but I think she's improving.

Now her favorite show is Dora, OSO, Diego and Team Umizoomi. The rest is just so so. I disabled the youtube App in my Iphone and Ipad. So she will not be exposed to unwanted parody shows.

She can make up simple sentences in English like, " do you see stars?", "Look it's a bike", "Here you go". Bahasa improvemet: bare minimum. She has started saying Ayah Ibu and Teteh clearer now, but so far I have never heard her saying a complete sentence. My maid said that during time of distress aka crying etc she speaks blurred Bahasa but other than that it is so difficult to get it out of her.

She picks up an interest in puzzles nowadays and getting very good at it. She learns the name of animals from ipad mostly, sometime books. She also started to play match game and improving in it. Sometimes when I tell her to do things she pretended that she didn't hear. Now even to tell her to clean up her mess is so difficult. She frowned, pretending to not hear, or run away. A bit tough because I know she understands but because she still can't answer anything makes me think she doesn't.

Her appetite changed too. Now she is more picky and her eating mood changes every day. Sometimes she eats more sometimes less sometimes nothing. Based on what I read this is normal. We can't expect kids to eat regular 3 times daily meal because their intake is different. At first I tried to force her.. but after a while I give up. I just try to provide healthy snacks like fruits, cereals, raisins, yogurts, etc. She was so into candies a while ago but I insisted on limiting it. So now she understood that 1 day maximum 1 candy.

I'm trying to limit TV as well. So far TV is on in the morning and afternoon. Night time we try to not watch tv at all.

Continuing to watch over her progress :)

Day 1 Asha goes Diaperless

Today Asha goes commando! No diapers. I'm a bit sad actually, the maid has to do it and not me. I feel like shoving my responsibility to someone else. I couldn't take leave because everyone in my department has gone on leave, actually 1 resigned 2 took leave.

So anyway, what happened today was:

1. She peed every 20mins, so we're running out of "pop" pants very fast.
2. She's still scared to say "pee". Maybe scared we'll scold her or something. She seems a bit stressed out, but we'll see if she improves in a few days.
3. Currently the last 2 attempt to make her pee in the toilet has succeeded. Usually her signs are touching her genitals then quickly ask her if she wanted to pee.
4. After some attempts she doesn't look as scared when she had to go to the bathroom to clean herself up.

Some tips from friends:

1. Continue to praise her for whatever progress she made on the day. Constantly remind her that she is a big kid and need to pee in the toilet.
2. It will take maybe a week, past a week don't bother, maybe she's not ready.
3. Prepare lots of newspaper to spread on her pee, so when you pick her up to toilet it doesn't drip everywhere.
4. Don't look stress, pretend that it's a normal process that you have to go through.
5. If your cushion is stained, pour hot boiling water on top of it, leave for a while and then put under the sun.
6. If you have cloth diapers, try using the outer wears without insert as a pants, some say helps absorb some so the pee doesn't go all over the place.

I'm gonna go home early today to see her progress... So we'll see how it goes tomorrow....