13 Month Update

We took Meera for her MMR and chicken pox vaccinations. So her official weight is 9.7 kg (the scales at home showed 9.5kg..so quite accurate). Height: 77 cm (our measurement at home using the growth chart was only 74 cm so this is way off. According to the Dr. it's cos they don't really stand up straight so its more accurate to measure lying down) Forget her head circumference...
This time the jab was given in the buttocks but Meera was quite cooperative. Jing forgot his camera (first time!) so used my phone to take the pictures (not as clear as the camera but not too bad).

Finally, Meera is starting to understand the shape sorter. I bought it like when she was 6 months old and shown her what to do with it (although not as regularly as I should have). Last week she finally managed to put in the circle through the hole. It was just one piece but at least it's a step in the right direction! I am so proud. *beaming*

She's also started climbing stuff. Early in the month she figured how to climb up the bed in her room. So I started trying to teach her how to climb down with her legs first to prevent any injuries. She caught on pretty fast. Now she can climb up the sofa and her IKEA chair as well. Luckily she's quite cautious. I noticed that when she climbs up her chair (which is rather high) she has trouble getting down. She can't quite reach the floor and can't really maneuver her legs down properly so she will usually cry for help. Hopefully she doesn't decide to just fall off the chair one of these days.

Her teeth have also started coming out all at once. Up to her 1st birthday she only had 1 front tooth. But right now I can see 4 more on its way out. (Bottom front tooth, and 3 at the top!) I guess they're making up for the lost time.

Her schedule has changed a bit too. I was doing 4 milk feedings till around 1 year but I noticed that she was always refusing a feed every day. So then I dropped to 3 feedings a day and her typical daily schedule became:

9.00 a.m. : wake up, milk (7 oz.)
9.30 a.m . : breakfast (cereal with fruit) I also give her finger foods like banana or crackers.
It's usually quite messy so I bathe her after this.
10.30 a.m.: nap (1.5-2 hours)
1.00 p.m . : lunch
3.00 p.m. : milk (7 oz.), then nap (1.5-2 hrs)
6.30 p.m. : dinner
9.30 p.m. : milk (7 oz.) then bed

But recently though I notice that quite often her afternoon nap is quite disrupted. Sometimes she just spends the whole time babbling in her crib and sometimes she'll start crying so I go and get her. So for the past 2 weeks she usually takes only 1 nap a day. I tried putting her down for 2 but she refuses. Towards the end of this month she became quite clingy and refused naps unless I rocked her! Needless to say the past week has been quite exhausting. Looks like I'll be changing her schedule again...

ByeByeBinky

The title of this post is actually in tribute to a website I found with detailed instructions on how to 'help' baby give up the 'binky'.

When Meera first entered our lives I did not plan to give her a pacifier. I was not exactly against the idea but neither did I consider it something I would offer to her. But after a few weeks I began to realise than Meera was one of those babies than needed to suck (ALOT!). And since I was breastfeeding I essentially was being used as a pacifier! Initially it wasn't too bad but after sitting thru many nursing session that lasted 45 minutes I decided enough was enough! And so we introduced the pacifier. Over time I made sure that she only had it for sleeping times. A part of me worried about the day I would have to stop using the pacifier but at the time it was a god send!

After she turned 1, I figured it was time to let the pacifier go. However I knew it was going to be tough. I started search for suggestions on how to go about it (the internet was filled with ideas). There were basically 3 ways:

1. Cold turkey
2. Cutting the pacifier
3. Cooking up a story for your child (pacifier fairy, giving it to another baby, exchanging it for a toy...the options were endless!)

Option 3 was not really feasible. Meera is only 1 so I highly doubt a 'story' would be understood let alone work. This left me with option 1 and 2. As I was doing my 'research' I found a site detailing the exact steps to take for option 2. As I read it I admit I was a bit skeptical since they made it sound so easy. But I figured I had nothing to loose. If it didn't work I was going to have to take the cold turkey approach so it wouldn't matter if the pacis got mutilated in the process.

I decided to start this 'project' last Friday. So on Thursday night I took 2 pacis (Meera has 6 of 'em) and made a few holes in them. The next morning I put them in her crib for her nap. She took it and didn't seem to notice. Hmmm... I wondered if maybe it felt the same to her?

According to the site you are suppose to let the baby use these pacis for 2 days and on the 3rd day you are suppose to snip of a bit of the end of the paci. Well after Meera adjusted so well to the paci without holes, I decided to snip of the end the following day. So on Saturday I started the day with 2 other pacis with the ends cut off. I gave it to her after her bath just to see what she would do with it. She definitely noticed the difference. It kept falling out of her mouth...guess it was harder to suck? She'd pick it up and put it into her mouth but after a while she didn't bother anymore.

So when it was time for her nap I just put her to bed as usual. After a few minutes she started to cry. I guess this time the paci was too different. So I went in to her room, picked her up and sang a bit. Then put her down and left. She grumbled a bit but within minutes it was quiet. And she slept! Hurrah!

We went out in the afternoon so she missed her 2nd nap. I didn't bring any pacis along with us (she sometimes uses it for the car ride). We got home pretty late and Jing put her to bed. Had to rock her for a while but she managed to fall asleep by herself. I left the 'broken' paci in her crib but she made no move to get it. I expected her to wake up in the middle of the night searching for her paci but surprisingly she slept thru the whole night.

The next day was Sunday. She made it without the paci. I guess she has been weaned...

I must say it went a lot smoother than I expected. I'm not sure if the site helped? Maybe the holes made enough of a difference to her. Or maybe she was just ready to give it up...

Whatever it is, I will definitely be recommending it people. After all...it can't hurt.

Celebrating Meera's Birthday - Part 2 (Trip to Genting)

This was a rather last minute vacation. My brother got some free tickets for the Genting theme park so we decided to go up to Genting. This was the first time bringing Meera up there and I was a bit nervous about the weather. As I was packing her stuff I realised that she didn't really have a lot of warm clothing. Luckily I managed to find a few long sleeve tops for her. It's a good thing we were only going for a night. Any more than that and I would not have had enough clothes for her.

Initially thought of staying at First World Hotel, but everyone seemed to think that the room would be too small to fit Meera's play pen; so we decided to get an apartment instead. We booked at Ria Apartment. We heard a lot of stories about this place...it being haunted. But then every hotel in Genting seems to have similar stories and we had stayed there before without any 'incident' (of course this was like 10-15 years ago!). When we arrived I was quite disappointed. I think from the last time we went there they have not done anything to maintain the place! It was really run down. And not exactly clean. Luckily we were only there for one night and we weren't planning to spend all that much time in the room anyway.

Since we had free theme park tickets we decided to make full use of it. As soon as we set up our stuff we made our way to the outdoor theme park. We thought we would take a nice stroll to the park but we failed to realise that it was an uphill stroll! Also it wasn't exactly stroller friendly. There were lots of places with stairs so we had no choice but to walk along the road which was kinda dangerous since the cars and buses were coming and going! It took us quite a while to reach the theme park and by the time we got there we decided the next time we would drive!

Luckily the weather was not that cold. Jing and I didn't even need a sweater. Meera was only able to go on a few rides but it was enough for her I think. First we went on the carousel...


after that the flying elephant.



We walked around quite a bit just looking at stuff. Then we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. By which time it was already quite late so we went to the indoor park. We only had time to sit on the gondola ride.



Since our car was back at the apartment Jing went and got it and came back to fetch both of us (which was a lot faster since he could walk faster without the stroller).

Meera had no problems sleeping in the apartment. Thankfully! Can't say the same for me though. The bed was not very comfortable and our unit faced the main road so we could hear all the cars passing by throughout the night. Genting never sleeps!

The next day we got up early (no such thing as sleeping in with Meera around). Went downstairs to have breakfast (there was a mini-market/coffee shop on the 7th floor). Came back up, packed up all our stuff and this time we drove up to the theme park. This time we sat on the tea cup ride...



and the flying elephant (again). After that we went to the indoor park and sat on another carousel (which was much better cos it had music) and also a Ferris wheel.

Then we went for lunch (overpriced Bak Kut Teh which was quite good). By then it was already quite late so we decided to come back home.

Overall it was quite an enjoyable trip. Exhausting but worth it!

Celebrating Meera's Birthday

Before Meera was born, Jing and I had attended a few birthday parties for babies and our joint consensus was we would never spend so much on a party when our child had no idea what the heck was going on! So fast forward to Meera's big day and we still felt the same way. But I did want to do 'something' for her birthday.

Since her birthday fell on a Friday, it was easy to keep our guest list small. We figured just a small celebration with a cake at home would be good enough. Something to remember the day and not too overwhelming for Meera.



I had my heart set on getting a birthday cake in the shape of '1'. Luckily there was a Baker's Cottage near our home that was able to make this for us. Unfortunately I was not aware that this cake was 2 kg! And there was going to be less than 10 people to eat it. Well, we still went ahead and ordered it. I figured everyone could take some home with them. I was a bit worried about how the cake would turn out but when we went to collect it I was quite pleased. It was huge though!


We asked everyone to come by in the afternoon so we could cut the cake after Meera's afternoon nap.

I think Meera had a really good time. There was just 7 of us (including Meera) so not too overwhelming for her. We sang did the whole cake cutting thing; although Meera was too young to blow her candles. She had her first taste of cake. We also went out for dinner. Then we came home and opened her presents.