My gosh.. it is soooo hard...

Yesterday was my very first time leaving Hana. Eventhough I was on leave, I still had to do calls as my department did not have enough medical officer. I was REALLY sad as I had to leave Hana overnight and her sleep training is not yet over. I would probably need another 2 weeks to really train her to sleep on her own. I did request from my boss to extend my cuti for several reasons unfortunately it was rejected.. Damn!

I spent my time in the hospital and I admit, I cried alone in the oncall room that night as I missed Hana soooo much eventhough she would probably be fast asleep at home. I also noticed that each time I see small kiddo in ill health, I became overtly emotional. I am blessed thus far that Hana is well and has never fall sick.

There was a small infant who is about Hana's age who was ventilated in the intensive care unit for Streptococcal meningitis. She is very2 ill and I felt sorry for the baby and the family. I realized that those children who get infected by this germ called Streptococcal pneumoniae are usually very2 sick and few even succumbed due to severe pneumonia or meningitis.

Vaccination against this bug is unfortunately not in the KKM immunization schedule (yet) but is readily available at private hospitals. Eventhough it is a bit pricey but it is better than risk your child's life. So I urge all of you, to make sure that your loved ones receive Pneumococcal vaccination before it is too late.

1 down, another 26 days to go..

Today is my first day of ganti puasa. I had a total of 27 days of replacing to do since Hana was born on the 4th of Ramadhan.

What I missed most is breakfast. The rest of the meal, I can get by.

I noticed that I did not eat that much these days since I started Hana on sleep boot camp. I was so stressed up as her naps are so difficult to tackle that it took a toll on me. The authors of all the books I read did day that naps are more difficult to iron out compare to nightime sleep. I hope that Hana will get proper nap before I started working.

To Hana, caiyok! Mama is always by your side!

Day 6 sleep bootcamp

I did mention in the previous entry that Hana has sleep problem. She is 3 months old but is an avid catnapper. She relies on being rocked to sleep by bibik and will only being hold. She loves pacifying me and will wake up the minute the nipple is out of her mouth!! It is going to become a major problem once I strated working since I'll be doing 36 hours oncall 6-8 times/month. And since Hana is thriving well (her current weight is 6.5kg), tak lama lagi patah pinggang bibik kalau nak kena rock her to sleep and carry her 1-2 hours each time. She also sleeps restlessly at night and appeared unsettled. So I started reading 3 books on how to help your baby to sleep and has been applying Tizzie Halls method to teach Hana the skill of self settling and to sleep on her own.

Today is day 6 of sleep bootcamp. Yesterday, Hana starts to become cranky since 5pm. I know that she was sleepy. After bathing, feeding and burping her, it was already 6.30pm. I put Hana in her cot, baca ayat kursi and 3 Qul, then I kissed her goodnight and tell her that mama loves her very much and she needs to learn to sleep on her own. I closed the door and waited outside. She started to protest cry for 15 minutes before falling asleep.

I went to bed at 9pm after I finished pumping and performed Isyak prayer. My hubby gave Hana her dreamfeed at 11pm and let me catch up on my sleep. Hana woke up twice at night around 2am and 3am , cried a bit but I did not pick her up as I know she was not hungry. After about 1 minute she was able to put herself to sleep! She woke up again at 4.00am, cried a bit louder and I fed her since her least milk was 5 hours ago. She woke up at 6.30 am cheerfully playing with her musical mobile. So in total, Hana had about 12hours of night sleep and only woke up for feed once.

I played with her and did some limbs and tummy exercise. I fed her around 8am and I put her to sleep around 8.15am. She cried for 5 minutes before falling asleep and woke up 30 minutes after that. She naps for 30 minutes every 2 hours so in total she had about 2 hours of day sleep.

By 5.00pm she became cranky and crying non stop and I know she wanted to sleep. So following the bedtime routine, I bath, feed and burped her. She appeared happy once I put her in the cot. I kissed her goodnight and closed the door. Amazingly, she did not cry and fall asleep after 15 minutes!!!

I am ssoo happy. Tizzie Hall did say that once your baby learn the skill to self settle with minimal fuss , the baby will soon able to sleep longer during the day as she is able to learn to resettle. I am so looking forward to that!!

Mama.. tolong hana tido..

My baby Hana is already 3 months + 4 days today.. She is such an adorable baby especially now that she babbles non stop.
But the problem with Hana is that she has sleep problem even way back when she was in neonatal age. Quite restless I might say (considering that she is my first born, so I don't have any other babies to compare her with).

She only falls asleep after being rocked, hold and at night she dozes off after 1 hour + 30 minutes at my breast (it was not fun I tell you since my nip became sore after a while). She also wakes up for night feed twice sometimes thrice which makes me and hubby sleep deprived. Since we co-sleep, I also noticed that she tossed and turned a lot at night from around 2am till 5am. I checked everything to make sure that she is comfortable: she's not cold or overheated, her diapers was not that wet and etc but she still appeared restless.

Catnapping during the day became a big problem for her. She sleeps atas kendong bibik and the minute her head touches the bed, she opened her eyes. Same goes when she was with me. The only way I can get her to sleep is during BF since she recognizes me from my distinct scent. Nak tido jer, she starts looking and searching for the breast. After 10 minutes of BF (or most likely comfort sucking, she started to close her eyes. After half and hour I thought she was already sound asleep but boy, was I wrong. She'll open her eyes once I took out the nipple. I tried giving her dummy but she refused. My mom suggested us to put Hana but I said NO since it is a bad habit.

I pity Hana. On average, she only sleeps about 1 hour during the day and 10 hours at night (but restless). A baby of her age supposed to have a good 15 hours of sleep (5 hours during the day and the rest at night).

So I decided that it's about time that my baby girl needs an intervention. A dear friend of mine suggested a book by Tizzie Hall called Save Our Sleep. The book teaches babies to fall asleep by themselves without the help of dummy, rocker, lullaby, kendong etc..The baby has to learn the skill of self settling /self soothing which is an important lifetime skill. He'll learn to feel calm in other situation too such as when mommy momentarily walked out of the room or when he is just feeling out of sort.

My sleep obsession

An international study (including Malaysia) showed that babies who sleep earlier, falling asleep by themselves and sleep in their own cot, sleep longer and has more quality sleep!!

The most improtant thing this book tells you is to follow a regular bed/naptime and consistent bedtime routine such as taking a bath followed by feeding or a story (babies thrive on consistency). The baby must be put to sleep at a place where you intend for her to wake up and she must be put to bed AWAKE so that she'll learn the skill to self settle. It is just like crawling. If you always carry your baby or put him in a walker, he'll never learn how to crawl since he'll never be on the floor long enough to work it out.

This book also taught us to differentiate babies' different cry. Emotional cry in which the sound will be something like WAA, WAA, WAA (loud and persistent with same tone through out) means that the baby is in distress due to hunger or wet nappy or too cold/hot. Thus you must attend to your baby immediately. A protest cry on the other hand sounds like WA, WAA, WAAA, WAA, WA, pause, WAA, pause (different intonation with few pauses). This means that the baby is protesting and requested to be hold or rocked. It doesn't indicate anything serious.

In the initial part of the process, a baby like Hana who is so used to being rocked and fed to sleep will have a bit of protest cry and need more time to practice. That means, putting Hana to bed AWAKE, letting her cry and NOT doing anything!! Imagine doing that to your loved ones!!!!

So far I'm still in the process of letting Hana to learn to self soothe. On the first day, she cried 30 minutes straight!!! I dengar pun nak nangis jugak and really tempted to go in and pick her. But I know, I'm doing this for her own sake. After 3 days, Hana is still learning but she cried shorter. Tonight she fell asleep after 15 minutes of crying (and I hope she'll keep improving after this)! I'll probably post an entry of my struggle with Tizzie Hall's sleep routine.

Wish me and Hana good luck ya.

What a day!

Today my shopaholicness (is there such a word?) took over me! I left Hana with my mom and 2 bibik at home and me and hubby embarked on a journey to heaven.

Hehehe.. we first went for a retail therapy at Big Bad Wolf warehouse sale at South City Plaza and boy, was I in for a big surprise. Te price at the sale was super duper cheap with everything ranged from RM 3 to RM 20, from famous novels to cookbooks. Memang nak giler weh! I've been wanting to buy Hana few books to read for her and perasaan tamak terus merasuk diri. I bought for her >20 books and few novels for myself. They all would've cost me more than a thousand ringgit but I only paid RM 200!!!!

Then off we went to Mothercare sale at Bangsar Shopping Centre to buy Hana few new bodysuits since she has outgrown most of them. Since I am a VIP card holder, I am entitled to an additional 10% on total purchase. So we got her 2 packets of bodysuits before going to Pureen stock clearance in PJ.

Luckily we didn't bring Hana along as it was cramped with eager parents. We bought baby wipes, bottle cleanser, shampoo and baby bath but not the diapers as Hana is using Huggies and occasionally Mami Poko. Borong punya banyak macam stock untuk setahun!!

Ish3x...