Switching formulas

When Hayley was 3+, I wanted to change her formula. She was on Enfagrow A+ and because of all the big hoo hah going around the market with all the added sugar in formula milk, I was going around trying to find something suitable and healthier for her. I also hated the fact that Enfagrow A+ always increase their price and I hate being one of their victims.

My sister and her friend recommenced Lactogen. They said it was cheap and good and their kids have better appetite and healthier looking output (hehe) after consuming the milk. I bought a small pack, it was really cheap if compared to Enfagrow A+ and so I gave it to Hayley. She said it wasn't nice and she didn't like it. I persisted, told her it was for big girls like her and she can no longer drink the baby's milk meant for her little brother (yes Zac is also on Enfagrow A+). I persisted for over 3 months and when she started refusing her milk in the afternoon and couldn't finish her milk in the morning and night, I got worried. I even resorted to adding some milo into her milk calling it 'her specials' to give her the colour and taste and even that she didn't like it.

I even tried Mamil Gold which she rejected.

I finally decided to switch her back to Enfagrow A+. To my surprise, she didn't like it anymore. Left with no choice I decided to give Anmum Essential a try. It is the only brand in the industry that claimed they have 'no added sugar' in their formula. I have always wanted to give this brand a try (cause no added sugar ma) but because they have not been in the industry long (well, at least not as long as the other brands), I didn't have the confidence in their product and the name 'ANMUM' didn't sound like a formula for kids. I probably have more faith in their Anmum Materna for expecting mothers than their Anmum Essential for kids. If they change the name to Ankid Essential maybe I would have tried it sooner.. haha

Anyway, I finally bought it and gave it to her. And guess what, she liked it! She said it was nice and since then she is back to taking her usual amount of milk a day. I am now a happy mum again! Very soon, I am going to switch Zac to the same formula :).

It is cheaper than what I used to buy and it is healthier (no added sugar ma) so why not? hehehe

My niece Caitlyn turns 4

Caitlyn who is born 3 weeks after Hayley (my sister's youngest) finally turns 4 this weekend. Happy birthday Caitlyn, yee yee wishes you lots of happiness and best of healthalways.

The 2 best friends

The birthday girl with her small yee yee (I am the big yee yee ;))

Crash Boom Bang

Zac started walking when he was 15+ months. Now that he is 16+ months, he is more adventurous and more daring in taking those steps. This also means more injury, more bruises and possibly more blood....sigh....

This is a photo taken just yesterday after he has had 3 falls! Twice at the babysitter's and once at home. Apparently aunty said he stepped on his own foot and his face knocked onto the table and then he bounced and fell to the floor. He ended up with a bruised eye and a bruised cheek (the right cheek which is not visible here). When he got home, he was crawling and then his hand slipped and his forehead knocked on the floor. You can see the bungalow on his left forehead as a result of this!

I just hope the future damages will be less serious otherwise I really need to wrap my entire house including the floor with bubble wraps!

Taken with his mouth full of cheerios

Zac's Update: 15+ months

At 15+ months, I:

• developed a habit of biting people. I was just being playful and didn't realise that I was actually hurting them :(
• love copying everything my sister does - shouting, throwing the toys around, jumping, banging my head against the door/wall
• love the outdoors, love watching cars zoom by, birds and aeroplane flying in the sky, kids running around in the park, barking dogs
• love eating and drinking my milk, beats my sister everytime in finishing up my food and milk
• am still not using words to express myself that much, still prefers to talk in my baby language
• know what 'sayang' means and will use my hand to rub my mummy's face when she ask me to sayang her
• love pretending to be an aeroplane flying in the sky. Will lie on my tummy and lift both my hands and feet off the ground and pretend to be flying. It was fun!
• am walking a lot more now although I still need to grab on to something or someone to stand up. I am starting to learn to run too!
• still have the usual swelling on my cheeks but it is getting a lot less obvious now :)
• am supposed to have my 15th month Pneumococal jab (last jab) but mummy wasn't sure if she would want me to go ahead with it after reading all the posts by other mommies about how bad these jabs are... she's in a dilemma.
• hate hair cuts, the aunty and the razors frightens me each time
• picked up cycling on my own. Mummy puts me on the tricycle one day and I surprised her by pushing myself forward using my legs and reversing! I wasn't tall enough to cycle so I had to stand up and use my legs. I even got down on my own! I'm a pretty smart boy.
• have a lot of focus compared to my sister. I like to watch what others do and then copy/follow. I can play with a toy for hours on my own provided my sister doesn't interrupt/disturb me.

Happy 4th birthday my girl...

Today, my girl turns 4. Happy birthday girl!

Although it is your birthday, can I please make a wish? PLEASE quickly get over your 'picky eating' stage pretty please? Otherwise all my hair will turn white very soon!!!!! Thank you.

Here are some photos from her celebration at school.

Party packs for her classmates, yellow for the boys, red for the girls

Happy with her present from the teacher and card from her friends

CNY

Happy belated Lunar New Year. I hope everyone have had a great celebration. It has been a pretty busy and tiring one for us (although most of the time were spent at home and to hospital visiting my mil). We'll let the photos do the story telling :)

Kids and fashion show:




CNY seems incomplete without a visit to Thean Hou temple. There were lion dance performances and the place was crowded!




Back to papa's hometown in Kuala Lipis, Pahang. Early morning fresh air, something you hardly get in KL!



We finally visited House of Joy this year during the 3rd day of CNY. They are currently at a temporary home in Bandar Kinrara (after the fire incidence and while waiting for their new place to be ready). The place was crowded with kids and elderly and good samaritans. We've been wanting to go and do our bit the last few years but didn't manage to and glad that we finally managed to make it this year.

From their wish list (our little contribution)

Gathering with some good friends

CNY open house at a friend's place. Kids enjoyed the lion dance.

Do you love me or not?

Recently my soon to be 4 year old girl is constantly asking everyone in the family especially me and the papa that question.

Is it common for the first child to behave this way when they have a younger sibling who is at the moment getting more attention from the parents? Is that a sign of insecurity or sibling rivalry? Are we not juggling our love correctly between the kids resulting in such a behaviour? Should I be alarm? What should I do?

Of late she is showing a lot of unacceptable behaviours which warrants some whacking (on top of the usual reasoning, explaining, scolding, warning and punishing) - running and playing in the middle of the road despite us telling her many times that it is dangerous (if you asked her what she did wrong, she can tell you that she cannot play on the road as there will be oncoming cars), throwing up food whenever she feels like it, most of the time with the excuse that it was too big a spoon and it made no difference if we're feeding her or she was feeding herself or if we're eating at home or eating out (sometimes we only give her half a teaspoon and she still said it was too big), not listening to what we say and intentionally not doing what we repeatedly asked her to and many more....

I know kids will be kids and we can't expect them to be perfect at all times but as a parent I believe we also need to teach them from young on what's dangerous and acceptable and what's not and we will use whatever method that works. Having read many blogs written by mothers who I look up to in parenting, I know whacking is not the best solution and I don't like doing it too but sometimes I just don't know what else to do or how else to send the message across to her. Whenever she misbehaves, I always start by reasoning and explaining and if she still repeats the same after a few times then I will move on to warning and scolding. If that didn't work it will be punishing (usually we'll make her stand at a corner by herself staring at the wall and she will cry and cry) and lastly we'll use the cane. No matter what methods were used, we always explain to her at the end of it why we did what we did to hopefully help her understand.

I am really at my wits end on how to handle this girl of mine at this stage. I hope this will only be temporary and she will learn to understand better as she gets older. Can anyone please tell me at what age things will start making sense to them?

I do constantly tell her I love her and her brother (trying to instill in her head that I love both the same no matter what) but everytime after an unhappy episode be it scolding or punishing or whacking or even a simple thing where I don't oblige what she wants then she will say that I don't love her and will wrap her arms around herself and show me that she is unhappy. She will only show me her happy face again when I say I love her.

Whenever I am home she will want me to do everything for her such as bathing her, feeding her, brushing teeth with her, making her milk, playing with her etc. She won't want the maid or the papa. It feels like she's trying to tell me she wants my attention and I am trying to give her my undivided attention as much as I can (which is very hard with a 1 year old around) and I hope every little effort I am putting in will make a difference.

Looking at her reactions, I also sometimes wonder if I actually caused this. You see, the maid helps me with Hayley when I am at work and on weekends and I don't usually let the maid handle Zac as I don't trust her with a toddler (she tends to be forgetful and careless). So I usually will bath, feed and attend to Zac myself on weekends while she helps me with Hayley. Before having the maid, I will attend to both myself. I am wondering if she's taking this negatively that I don't care for her anymore and leaving her to the maid? I wish I can just get into her head and understand what she's thinking.

I actually did think of this before and tried attending to both kids myself on weekends and was told off by some people that I should not do that now that I have a maid. I was constantly asked what's the point of having a maid if I still have to do everything myself? Anyway, from this weekend onwards I am going to brush aside what others have to say and try changing my approach and see if it will help.

Sigh.... with 2 kids I am already at wits end. I really salute parents with 3 or more kids and doing it wonderfully.

Super moms!

When Zac was a few months old a friend of mine introduced me to a Breastfeeding Network on Facebook. The members on this network helps and encourage each other on breastfeeding and discuss and share knowledge on how to give the best to our babies. Gina Yong, the famous breastfeeding guru is also on this network and she is quite active in giving advices too.

When I started reading the posts on this network, it made me feel like crappy mom. Some of the moms are really amazing I tell you. I just don't know how they did what they did. Here are some of the things that made me go 'WHOAAAAAAA.........'. Let me know if you feel the same too :)

1. Most of them breastfed their babies exclusively until they are 3 or 4! Some even continue to breastfeed several kids (eg feeding the 3 and 4 year olds while still pregnant with the next one).
2. Some of these mothers have so much milk that they actually 'donate' their milk to babies in orphanages or use their milk to make breast milk soap.
3. Some of the mothers are also strongly against vaccinations, even the compulsory ones. I know of one who had 3 kids (pregnant with No 4) and all her kids have not been jabbed before, not a single one. She claimed that all these vaccinations actually make the babies sick. According to her (she said she made a lot of research herself), babies are born healthy and all these vaccinations with chemical contents that are actually harmful to small babies who cannot tolerate them will only make them worst. Also according to her, her kids have never been seriously sick, just the usual flu and cough and they usually heal very fast and they have NEVER been to the doctors. She however do supplement her kids with Vit C and VCO (Virgin Coconut Oil). Whenever the kids are not well, she will boost their Vit C intake, that's all.

So, are you feeling crappy yet?

I have given my kids all the jabs in the world (kiasi), even the not compulsory ones and now I felt like I have failed my kids by injecting them with poisons and not to mention those antibiotics they have taken due to their sensitive throat since they were babies.

Although I hate going in there to read the posts (as they make me feel crappy) but it honestly does provide a lot of useful tips and infor in bringing up kids the healthy way. I am surely going to get some of those Vit Cs and VCOs for my kids now :)

Zac's update: 14+ months

At 14+ months, I:

• am finally walking :)
  
• have added a couple more words to my vocab: a-ti (aunty), ish (fish), if (give), however my pronounciation is still a bit off and only my mummy can understand me mostly for now
• am getting more demanding and I also love to test the limits of my parents (driving them nuts :-))
• love to eat (eat anything and everything) but dislike drinking water
  
• love shaking my butt to music
• love going kai kai (going out) and will often point to the door and demand to be carried out of the house. If my papa who is usually shirtless at home puts on his shirt, I know he's going out and I'll stick to him like glue
• am more focus and can play a new toy by myself for quite a while (so unlike my sister, according to my mom)
• also inherited my mom's sensitive throat, I often get sore throat that requires antibiotics :(
• still have my usual swelling on the cheek but it is getting less obvious now that I am growing up