Days of Eliza & Emily: It's day 12!

Today's the day i WASH MY HAIR...buahaha....
Ww says it stinks...i say i can't smell it cos it's too short...and i tie it up all the time. so it was a good move to cut it the not-short-not-long hair even tho i had like bad hair days then when my hair refuses to behave & i'm too lazy to blow dry it.
but....i don't like the yao4 cai2 smell...:S
yeah...i'm kinda adhering to the confinement 'rules' so i haven't bathed either...kinda. bathe as in be soaked in shower and soap...BUTBUTBUT i do wipe down with warm water and a towel everyday. otherwise it's terrible!!

MIA for 12 days le...and so much has happened. life revolves so much around Eliza and the breaks i have are those when she falls asleep (like now).

i have so much i would love to write...but i don't know where to start. would have started blogging earlier but there were so much stuff to do...stuff to read, ppl visiting etc.

Anyway we've been reading up on this Babywise...it's like our parenting super essential guide.

which is like so important...to establish a routine yet PDF (parent-directed feeding) pattern..so that eventually but 8-12weeks baby can sleep throughout the night, is well rested and well fed.
so we've been following this guide and trying to guide Eliza into the 2 1/2hr - 3hr feeds. it's not easy sometimes because she can stay up awake for 2-3hrs, or wants to feed every hour. but she's almost on schedule nowadays, so i can predict when her next feed will be and plan things ahead of time.

by God's grace, from day 3 since she came home, she has been feeding and sleeping well through the night. day 1 & day 2 was tiring cos she'll be awake frm 3-5 or 6am not wanting to sleep, making a fuss when she's left alone and when she doesn't sleep i can't sleep either. ah-ha..so those were the days Ww woke up in the middle of the night cos she was crying loud enough to disturb him. but ever since day 3 he has been soundly sleeping all through the night! ok that's a good thing cos Eliza wakes to feed twice in the early mornings and quickly falls back to sleep. and amazingly i DO wake up when she starts making noise, not really loud cries but like a mini cry or two. i thought i would sleep like a log like i normally do. but i'm so sensitive to her squeaks or cries that i wake regardless.
it's great like that cos i would have a good sleep in-between her night feeds and wake up nicely fresh even though i average a 5-6hour sleep. (and occasionally an afternoon nap) so we pray hard she continues this and slowly by 2-3 months she's able to sleep through the night.

Times when she doesn't sleep:
Yeap..there are still times when she doesn't sleep...for at least 3-4hrs like this morning after her bath. which is still managable...cos we'll play with her, sing to her, talk to her. and i'll leave her on her cot to entertain herself...or hopefully fall asleep. sometimes she doesn't, so she'll fuss a bit and start rooting for milk...ok...so i feed her...if i don't want to feed her cos she just drank a lot a while ago...and it's just an itch to suckle..we'll resort to the pacifier.

she'll happily suck it anyway...sometimes so happily that we find this NUK pacifier's design gives her what we call her 'bracket face'. ie ( mouth )...which is why we went to find another brand of pacifier. but still using the NUK one now...tink her cheeks not that fat now..or she doesn't suck so hard so it's not so bad. heh...

We're trying to transit her into bottle feeding so that when i'm not around someone can feed her EBM (expressed breast milk) and especially when i go back to work. everyone has had a go at it, my mil, of cos Ww and my sil (sister-in-law).
the only problem with transiting her to bottle was that her suckle was so strong she drinks too fast from the bottle, causing her to 'merlion' her milk out cos she drank too much to fast. but she's smart and now she's getting the hang of it, stopping sometimes to take a breath like when she direct latch on (cos she needs to use more energy to suckle when direct latch). otherwise we'll remove the bottle so that she can take a breather.

the other challenge is to burp her...she hardly burps, and it's hard to get a burp out of her...and when we do, it's so satisfying...and..eh...she looks quite satisfied too.

this is daddy trying to burp her...and she'll be giving that half-asleep face or the 'this is so shuang' face and all kinds of expressions. :P

So bottle feeding allowed both of us to go for my gynae appointment on monday our own while Eliza sleeps soundly at home. Ww was still asking me if i want to go somewhere to walk around and reward myself a bit. heh...but i think i would be worrying more about Eliza...and feeling too unbathed (oops!) to enjoy a stroll at TM or something. after all i have nothing much to buy either. (also cos i'll send Ww to buy stuff when things run out...go buy diapers! go buy nappy! go check the vaccination at that clinic! go buy this..buy that...hehehe)
so the follow-up gynae appointment was to check and remove the stitches...eeep! ee...shudder at the thought of it...wasn't too fun feeling the stitch come out. also went to apply for the Baby Bonus...$3k woh(given out in 4 parts every 3 months)...we thought we'll invest this money for Eliza so kinda like save it up for her and let it grow. hopefully our expenses are manageable enough such that we won't have to touch this money.

A baby's grip is quite strong and cos Eliza's hands are always in her mittens i hardly get to photograph her fingers...which are quite like mine...lots of lines.