This is the first time I have been away from this blog for such a long time. Apart from the Chinese New Year celebration, I was sick and my 10mo baby had fever too. A few days before CNY, I had splitting headache, nausea, fever and sore-throat. After popping some paracetamol, supplements and iron pills, I was healed just on time to celebrate CNY. My baby caught the fever bug from me too! I had no choice but to let him have some formula milk coz my body was not producing enough milk for him.
On the 3rd day of CNY, the headache and fever decided to pay me a visit again! Baby had mild fever again too. The next day, I urinated blood! I had difficulty passing urine too. Kept going to the toilet the whole day. On Friday, I am sure it is UTI and head to the clinic to get some antibiotic. Well, obviously my body was too heaty and dehydrated. Drank too much carbonated drink too and abandoned H2O! Blaming the hot weather too.
As of today, I am better but my mom kept bugging me to stop breastfeeding coz I often have dizziness and nauseous right after menses. But I will not! Will visit the Singseh shop soon to get some “Pak Chan”. Is this the one to “poh” your body after menses?
I wanted to write this “Exposed” post for quite a while already but couldn’t find a quiet moment to think and write. Previous posts were written without much thought.
It started when Baby turns 7 months old. He does not like his face to be covered when breastfeeding. He does not like my hand to be anywhere near my boobs. My boobs are his and his alone. He will push away my hand, he will push the nappy cloth that I used to cover any exposed part, he will push the ring sling which is covering his face, he will even push up my t-shirt if it is anywhere near the areola. He will be very happy when I breastfeed him without wearing anything.
Due to this, breastfeeding in public is no longer an option for us which is quite difficult sometime when he wants it when we were out from the house. The only place that I can breastfeed him when we go out is in the car. So I will let him whine and be cranky until I’m done shopping.
Thank God we survived 2 months only without being exposed much in the public; we seldom go out since then. The only place that I am being exposed is during church service in the mother’s room. Nevermind lar, I am not the only breastfeeding mommy in that room; you see mine, I see yours.
I have stopped complaining about managing my household. No point complaining right? I still have to do it by myself. Just pray everyday that God will give me strength to do as much as I could and not make my tummy in pain again.
And, I found something to release my stress and that is sewing. My sister was here 2 days ago and she was commenting “Already have 4 children, still want to learn sewing.” I told her that sewing releases my stress. Doing things that you enjoy releases stress. Don’t you agree with me?
I have always love handwork. I tried crochet, knitting, cross-stitch and now sewing. The first 3 were too expensive for me to continue; their materials are so expensive!
I will find time to sit at the sewing machine and sew something. Now, all my hubby’s pants are mended and my children’s hand-me-down pajamas too. I am blessed that my mom was a seamstress before she got married to my dad (she was busy raising 4 of us up that the only dress that she sewn for us was pajamas). So I am getting her to pass down her knowledge to me.
I was thinking of going for sewing class but by the time I can leave my 4th child behind and attend classes, my girls will not want to wear dresses made by their mommy already. My sewing teacher will be my mom and Youtube for now.
I am busy everyday but yesterday I used my energy more which means I burnt more calories and my body uses more water. So the water that I drank was not sufficient to produce breastmilk. This is what I figured.
After washing and hanging my laundry and sweeping the floor, I was out with hubby, my eldest daughter and baby to run some errands. The moment I step home, I put my baby to sleep (with my breastmilk of course; takan use sleeping pills. hehe) then I started mopping every single part of the house. It was very tiring and I was sweating (I don’t sweat easily you know). I doubt the maid mops the floor like I do coz the amount of dirt on my baby’s socks is the same as when she mops the house every other day. I figured she just wet the floor when she mops. At the end of it, my tummy started to ache and that forced me to stop and rest.
In the evening when baby took his nap around 6pm, I quickly take the broom and started raking/sweeping the leaves that are covering the ground as fast that I could but I did not have enough time to collect them to throw in the rubbish pit coz baby woke up within that half an hour. Will do that right after I am done with this post coz hubby, my eldest and first boy are coughing so we are not going to church; air-cond room will make them cough even more.
Then I realised that my breastmilk is not producing as much as it should. I did drink a lot of water but I guess it was not sufficient coz I did extra work.
Now I know the reason cows can produce a lot of milk. All they do is eat, drink and sleep; eat, drink and sleep. That is IMPOSSIBLE for a SAHM mommy without any helper to follow. So I must drink more water than I usually drank and triple my fenugreek(halba) intake every Saturday.
I have no intention of stopping breastfeeding my 6.5mo baby. I really enjoy the bonding time and most of all he keeps me slim!
Yesterday, I accidentally discovered a way to stop the breastmilk production naturally; for those who wants to wean of their baby off their boobs.
Eat Guava, lots of it to stop breastmilk production. That was what I ate the day before yesterday. I ate almost half of a huge Guava. The next day, my boobs didn’t want to fill up. I thought I did not eat enough, which was partly true coz I ate my lunch at 9.45am and dinner at 4.50pm and no snacks in between coz baby was latching most of the time due to lack of breastmilk. Towards late evening, he got very frustrated. On top of it, I did not have time to cook his solid meal coz I was rushing to send my eldest girl to art class.
Pacing to and fro under the Arc Lamp trying to figure out where it went wrong. Wrote my frustration in FB and I received lots of tips on how to increase breastmilk production and Sasha asked me whether I ate Guava. I almost can’t breathe when I read that coz I want more breastmilk, not stop it.
So, I went to drink lots of water, drank Milo with Oat, ate bread and swallowed 1/2 tsp of Fenugreek. By midnight, the breastmilk started to produce again and this time, my baby pulak cannot breathe while drinking; the flow is too fast coz a lot of breastmilk!
Phew! Guava is banned from my list of fruits.
If any of you know of any fruit or food that can stop breastmilk production, please share with me ok? TQ.
My baby is growing and his needs for breastmilk has increased. Earlier I was kind of frustrated when I cannot produce enough breastmilk for him. Everyone advised to feed him more often and the milk will naturally come to cater for his needs. At times, he latches every hour but the milk didn’t seem to multiply.
Then I remembered that Chinnee from Mamapatch.com ate a certain kind of pills to help boost her milk production. She has twins you know; so I am sure the pill works. Send her a buzz and she told me to buy Halba / Fenugreek to eat. Fenugreek is an Indian spice which is commonly use in their curry.
So, I am supposed to swallow half teaspoon of this sand-like grain 3 times a day! My mom said that Halba / Fenugreek is heaty so I have to monitor how this will affect my body; I have hemorrhoids and I can’t take too much heaty stuff. So I started with only half teaspoon a day.
It WORKS! I have constant supply of breastmilk since taking it. My breast hardly go empty. I even have enough breastmilk to breastfeed my newborn niece.
At first my mom bought the Halba from the supermarket at 50 cents for 10g! That is way too expensive. Later I went to an Indian shop and bought it at RM5 for 1kg! Then I send it to the mill for grinding that cost me RM3. I wanted the powdered Fenugreek coz when I eat the grain, the grain came out unscratched. But then hor, it is way too difficult to swallow the powdered form.
But I still swallow it with a cup of warm Milo to wash it down. In less than 2 months time, I would be needing to swallow Fenugreek 3 times a day coz I volunteered to babysit my sister’s firstborn so that I can breastfeed her till she is 6 months old.
I am so nice hor? No lar! I just wanna stay slim as long as possible coz by then my baby would be 8 months old and he will take more solid than breastmilk. Ada udang di sebalik mee.
While I was breastfeeding my baby to sleep, I heard there was a nurse outside my house waiting to come in to meet me. Why on earth would a nurse wanna meet me? Not that I skip any monthly check-up for my baby. Or she was actually looking for my sister who just gave birth and came to the wrong house.
Anyway, I told my girl to let her in and she asked me whether I want to participate in a breastfeeding competition. She did not give me much detail about the competition except that I may be required to breastfeed in public. This is easy peasy; I often breastfeed in the food court.
But how do I win? Who got the most letdown? Who can express the most milk? I did not ask the nurse though. I just asked Mr Google.
This is what I found at http://www.stoneoakinfo.com/node/57081
Nursing mothers at designated locations throughout Canada, the United States and other countries will compete to set the record for the most babies breastfeeding at one time. The site with the highest number of mothers nursing at one time, as well as the country, province, territory or state with the highest turnout at registered sites, will be declared the winners. To level the playing field each site will be divided into one of four groups based on the area’s birth rate.
I doubt Bukit Rambai can win because according to the nurse, not many mommy fully breastfeed their baby in my kampung.
I still have no idea when and where this breastfeeding competition will be held. I will ask the nurse when she returns my baby health check up card.
You know, I don’t really care what is the winning prize; be it 1 year supply of breast pad or heated blanket for my baby. All I want is the experience of being part of a big group of breastfeeding mommies.
See, see, I am not a supermom. So please don’t salute me.
I broke down because…
- I am sad seeing my 3yo son slept without having his bath. Then he started coughing in his sleep. He vomited but he swallowed his vomit because he knows I will be very angry if he vomits on the bed.
- I am hungry because I have no time to eat. By now, I only managed to eat 1 slice of plain white bread while my 3mo baby cried in his bouncing net and when I was about to eat another 2 slices with peanut butter, baby woke up. Got to swallow fast, fast lar.
- I am tired because I have been awake since 4.30am with no nap at all.
- I can’t call my hubby to come home now because he has to work from 10am till 12mn almost every day.
- My chores are not completed yet.
Tomorrow will be another challenging day; hubby wants me to cook for him to save money.
Don’t worry about me. I don’t give up easily. I will whine and I will cry but I will survive.
I heard him poo-poo, opened his nappy cloth to discover yellowish bubbles (lots of them) instead of the normal yellowish poops.
Must ask the most experienced mom. I told my mom about it. She said that baby’s tummy got a lot of wind because I ate and drank overnight food and drinks. That is so true, the afternoon, I drank yesterday’s Lor Han Kuo from the fridge.
Oh! Like that arh? So, everything a breastfeeding mommy eats and drinks must be fresh; no leftovers and no overnights.
I am thinking of becoming a full time babysitter. I wonder whether I can or not! hehe
My SIL is giving birth this August and my mom does not want to babysit her baby anymore. My mom had enough of babysitting and she wants to be free to go anywhere she likes and at anytime.
Since I am confined at home most of the time, I am thinking of offering my time to babysit her baby. When her baby is 2 months old and she needs to go back to work, my baby would be 6 months old already; big boy already.
If I succeed with hers, maybe I will take one or two more! But it will be until 5.30pm only.
