Starting Work Soon.....

Wow... time really flies, before you know it, it will soon be time to work (Can i dun work for now ?? haha). Past few weeks had been full of action, lots of changes, lots of adaption, lots of judgment, decisions to make and a lot of emotional upheaval .I would say it had been a trying period. There were a lot of joy of cause but with it there was also a large dosage of frustration ( dunno what the bb is crying about.

The first week was a good transition period. Carissa was behaving like a well written computer program. Shit, pee...change diapers eat, sleep for 2.5 to 3 hours...and the whole cycle runs again. During this time, the adults started trying to fill up the roles they were playing... washing the poo poo... cooking mommy's food .. helping with the baby feeding... of course some minor clashes along the way in the sense this is the better way to do things, no that is better.. but it was alright as things finally do get sorted out itself and we were finally settled into a comfortable routine.

Then Day 7
Carissa had a blocked nose... Mommy got worried...insisted on going to hospital, finally we ended up at a nearby children hospital. The queue was horrible.. I almost fainted looking at the queue..lucky Jessica went to the information counter to confirm which queue, looking at out baby (due to Carissa's age) we were referred to the A&E Dept where the queue is much much shorter.

We had a 10 min wait and we were in the doctor's room. She confirmed Carissa had a block nose but couldn't find anything else wrong. To confirm its not a virus attack, she called for a blood test. So poor little Carissa, sleeping soundly suddenly got a jab at her finger to draw blood for the test. Oh my god, she was wailing out of control. Must be a rude shock to be awaken with a nasty pain.... *hugs* dun cry ... and quickly the pain went away and she stopped sobbing and fall back to sleep.

Blood test results were quick, showing all normal, we were sent away with some medicines. Quickly we rushed back home hoping Carissa will not catch a cold from the cold weather. Back home , Jessica read the notes and it said safety not garunteed for baby below 1 month old. We decided not to give the medicine and Carissa's nose block so far is up and down. Some days good some days bad. Yesterday was quite bad but today was much better. Read on the net, apply Vicks to baby feet and chest helps to ease off the nose blocks. I had a friend coming over. Hope she don;t forget...

Carissa all dressed against the cold


Carissa looking better later in the day


Carissa having fun


Carissa having fun


Carissa finally falling asleep


Day 8
Carissa seemed to has diarrhea. Her poo seemed more watery then usual and her stomach makes lots of noise. Again, we were thinking if to send her to visit the doctor. After much talking around, and looking at forums and health articles from the net, I managed to convince Jessica on a wait and see approach.

Day 10
Carissa is feeding quite often <2 hour 3-4 times> and Jessica is feeling engorged, so we decided to express out some milk and feed through the bottle if she is feeling hungry after breastfeeding. We tried the manual pump which we got earlier but it was painful and of little effect. After a long while only a little milk is expressed. Luckily through Livia, she recommended us the Avent pump which works perfectly and comfortably.

So when Carissa expressed hunger not long after a breast feeding session, I took the bottle and started to feed her .. thats the first time Carissa feed from the bottle. Too bad no pictures on that ;-p

Just as when we thought her diarrhea was getting better, she started to cry very very loudly and intensely.. for the 3-4 hours that she was crying, we were all very worried. We were taking turns to carry her singing song... playing white noise sound all to no avail.

Finally she stopped and appeared to be normal again. Again phone calls were made, chat windows opened and again google became the most popular site. We suspect Carissa could be suffering from Colic based on the symptoms showed so far. Luckily (touch wood) there is no recurrence up til now. Also Simon, here on holiday managed to get the stomach oil(which i managed to get from him 1 day after the cries) which we applied to Carissa. Hopefully all this measures helped to prevent a recurrence.

After the day when she cried for hours, Carissa started to vomit milk when she burbed. She was not observed to do that before that day.

Day 17

Nowadays Carissa seemed to be very active and had long hours of wakefulness. Sometimes she spent the whole afternoon awake or worse at night. She feeds quite often and her poo is normal.If anybody got suggest do let us know. Thanks.

One good piece of news. Carissa is slightly toilet trained. For a few times before she actually pee/poo, she actually cries out. So if you read her body language accurately you can bring her to toilet to do her business. A few times after hearing her cries, I opened up her diaper to check the condition, it was dry. While I was wondering why she was crying all the stuff starts coming out. So far only grandma is ahead of the game. Once she checked she is cleaned she would bring her to toilet to poo. Success rate 70%. Well sometimes still dunno why she is crying ;-p

Lots of challenges, luckily we can manage it. Hopefully the coming days will be easier.. the latest challenge now will be to get the baby back into routine.



I am sleepy


Sound asleep ??


Nose blocked la...


I loved powder *wink*

Below is my latest photo... did I looked better ?? ;-)









Some of the articles that we read from the net :

NUH Article on Infant diarrhea
UK Baby Centre Article on baby poo
Colic Articles
Colic Articles
Colic Articles
KK Article on breastfeeding
Burbing babies
Burbing babies