22 months

This past month has brought about quite a few major changes. More than I had initially planned. We switched Meera to a toddler bed (no more crib), along with that we changed her bedtime ritual and...we started potty training! Major changes!!!

But Meera has done exceptionally well with all of this.

So far we have had no issues with her sleeping on the bed. She has yet to test the boundaries (as I type this I hope I'm not tempting fate...) She still waits for me to come inside the room before getting down (off course I no longer wait a very long time after hearing her wake up). After the first few times of falling off the bed (which I don't think she even realised) she is now managing to stay on the bed throughout the night) Occasionally Gigi is on the floor though (Jing usually peeks in on her before he goes to work and puts it back in bed) but other than that no issues.

Her bedtime ritual has also changed a bit. Jing used to take her into the room, give her the milk and then put her to bed. He also had this whole spiel that he would run though with her. Asking her what time she gets up (eight), after hearing the..(bell), the bell would...(ring), who opens the door? (mommy), etc. It got to a point where Meera wanted to repeat the whole thing a few times before going to bed so I guess he decided enough was enough. So now we started giving her the milk outside on the sofa and then both of us bring her in to her room, hug, kiss, 'buddy' (which is alot like a hug - to me anyway) and then she climbs up herself, we say goodnight and shut the door. Amazingly quick and easy! Part of me is just waiting for the day when she realises that she can just get off the bed and follow us out. Until then I shall enjoy the simplicity of our bedtime ritual. No rocking, no singing, no fuss. Sigh....(of contentment)

Potty training has gone quite well. When I initiated it on Monday it seemed as if I would have to give it up. I honestly felt that maybe it was too soon and that she was never going to get it. I was constantly referencing the internet every time a single doubt crossed my mind but I eventually realised that like what everyone said...at some point she would get it. There has yet to be anyone that starts school in diapers. I think once I relaxed a little things started improving, Coincidence? Maybe not. By the end of the week she was quite proficient at telling me when she had to go. I was still a bit paranoid so I kept asking her every once in a while if she needed to pee, which she would just say no. I was convinced she might forget and just pee. But no...that has yet to happen. During the weekend we went out a lot so most of the time she was peeing in her diaper but she would say 'pee' so I took that as a good sign (a least she was still conscious about it). I also got a potty seat to put on top of the toilet. On Monday I started using it and today (Wednesday) we no longer use the potty (which is great since it's quite a pain to empty it into the toilet). Now it's one less step. As for pooping, she seems to do it during her nap time when I put her in diapers. I've decided to hold off on this part of the training (not like I have a choice really). I'm not sure how to go about training her for this but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

She's started to identify colors now. Initially everything was 'orange' but now she can tell me when something is red, pink, green and yellow. Not to sure about blue and purple. She usually gets it wrong the first time but with a bit of prompting she can identify the colour correctly.

She's also getting quite familiar with the alphabet. Initially every letter was 'a' (she was actually able to identify letter as opposed to symbols etc..). Now she can differentiate a, b, c, m and o. I notice that for some letters she says the phonetic sound instead of the actual letter like b is 'buh' and m is 'mmmm'. I guess the Leapfrog DVD is sinking in.

She can manage a 'peace' sign but still can't do a 'thumbs up'. Tying her hair is such a chore. Most times I can barely manage to get it tied up before she scampers of. And whenever we're in the car she will usually take off the rubber band before we reach our destination.


Her vocabulary continues to expand She call herself 'meenie'. She calls us Mommy and Daddy now. And she can say Grandma(no longer Ah Mah), Ku Mah and Ku Cheong (not so clearly) She can even identify them in pictures. Also Ah Kung and Ah Mah (which I have been prepping her for since they're coming for Chinese New Year)

She is really starting to show her independent streak. She'll say 'Meenie' and push our hand away whenever she wants to wear her own clothes (not very successful yet), buckle herself in her highchair (quite good already), wear her own shoes (she can;t differentiate right from left though) and of course feeding is a constant battle (she never lets me feed her although sometimes she'll ask Jing to feed).

She'll also started scribbling a lot so we got her the IKEA easel. Plan to start more art activities with her.

Potty Training...at Day 5

Ideally I would be blogging about this on a day to day basis. But as the title suggests I am already on the 5th day so we'll just proceed .

I was actually not sure whether to start potty training or not. I thought of starting once she turned 2 (for no other reason than procrastinating) but by March the weather would start getting cold and this would not be really practical. Since my plan was to let her just run around naked till she got the potty thing down, it would be better to start now (since it's summer). Needless to say I was using the weather as my deciding factor and not so much whether Meera was ready or not. I read a lot of articles along the lines of 'is your child ready to potty train' but I figure before disposable diapers were available everyone got potty trained a lot earlier so no time like the present. Accordingly I set out to start on Monday.

I had no idea what to expect. Since we recently let her sleep in the toddler bed I would normally wait a while to go get her in the morning. So on Monday I waited a bit and when I went to get her, her diaper was full (as it normally is). I took off her diaper and told her that we were going to start using the potty to pee in for the day. Not sure if she really got what I was trying to tell her. I had already been preparing her for this the week before by letting her see me pee in the toilet and telling her on numerous occasions that she was also suppose to pee in the toilet. She seemed quite ok with it, not really insisting on a diaper(or maybe cos she didn't really get what was going on). So we started the day fine; I would keep asking her if she needed to use the potty to pee and she kept saying no. OK. I figured since her diaper was full it may be a while before she had to pee again so no big deal. I kept plying her with water and diluted juice whole morning and at one point after breakfast she wandered off. Next thing I know she had pooped on the floor! (guess I wasn't asking the right question!) She was quite upset about it (and so was I!) but I tried to act like it was no big deal and cleaned it up. After a while she wanted to pee and she did...right on the floor. Before that though she was quite agitated and cranky but at that point I didn't realise what it meant. So after telling her that she was suppose to pee in the potty I wiped up the mess. There were a few more incidents of her wetting the floor and I was starting to get discouraged. I had no idea how to get her to sit on the potty to pee. A couple of times she sat down and the minute a bit of pee came out she would quickly stand up and stop. I could tell she was trying to hold it in. I could also tell that she knew what was suppose to happen but for some reason was terrified of letting her pee go into the potty. By the end of the day I had used up so many towels to wipe up the spills and not once did she go in the potty. A few dribbles (which I made a big deal of) but she still didn't get it. I even tried to show her it was ok by peeing in the potty myself! Talk about desperate measures. When Jing came home we spent like 30 minutes sitting with her on the potty and finally she peed. So after day 1 I was exhausted...but determined to keep trying.


Day 2 was a bit better. She peed a couple of times. She was still trying to stand up but I kept telling her to sit down and I guess her bladder was so full that she couldn't manage to hold it in. I could tell she was holding in her pee cos I put her in diapers for her nap and it was really full. Even when I got her up in the morning it was so full it leaked. I even tried to take pictures of her pee in the potty to convince her it was a good thing, looking at her face though she doesn't look convinced.


Day 3- she's much more willing to pee in the potty but no poop. She pooped in the early morning and it leaked. So another laundry load. She's starting to get it but not too thrilled about it though. She gets a bit frazzled when she gets the urge to pee so I have to bring her to the potty and keep telling her that it's okay to pee. After a while she will pee but we did have a few accidents (my fault for not really keeping an eye on her).

Day4- I had to go out for groceries today. I also decided I would buy chocolates as a reward. Initially I didn't want to use any reward but she seems so traumatised about peeing on the potty that I wanted to show her it was a good thing. And nothing works like chocolate. :) So I waited till she peed and then we went out to get the stuff. Initially she was so worked up about the chocolate (I got her Smarties) that she just kept crying. I was starting to regret the chocolate idea. But I persevered. That day she peed twice in the potty and both times she got a Smarty. but I don't think she quite gets the connection. No accidents today but I wonder if she's holding in her pee cos her diapers seem unusually full. Still pooping in her diaper though. Guess I'll have to work on that later.

Day 5 - going much better today. She's starting to embrace the reward system. She peed and after that said 'chocolate!'.. no accidents so far.

I think she's getting the whole concept. I'm going to get a toilet seat for the toilet and slowly get her to sit on that. I'm quite amazed that she's getting it so quickly. When I first started on Monday I thought it was going to be impossible and now....she's actually peeing in the potty! (amazing!)

Crib to Toddler Bed

I knew the day would eventually arrive that Meera would have to stop sleeping in a crib . Of course if I had a choice she'd sleep in it forever. But as she gets bigger it's only a matter of time before she doesn't fit in it. Luckily she was never one to climb out of the crib (I've read of some babies doing this but Meera was never that adventurous). To we decided to do it after our Tassie trip.

Once we got back though we weren't sure how she'd take to sleeping in a crib after 2 weeks of the kinder cot. sSo we let her sleep in the crib the first night we got back. We were both pleasantly surprised when she slept the whole night without any wakings. Guess the crib is a lot more comfortable than the Kinderkot (not surprising since it's basically a tent). So the following day we decided it was time to switch the crib into a toddler bed which basically involved turning it around and allowing one side of the bed to be exposed with just a small railing. I was very worried she would fall out during the night. Or worse still refuse to stay in bed and simply climb down.

Surprisingly she did not try to climb out of the bed when Jing put her down. He said it was probably too dark for her to see. Which left me worried that she might try climbing out during nap time. But since we were still on holiday mode (Jing was off for a few more days) and we were out most of the time, she didn't get to nap in her bed. So for the next 3 days she slept in the bed at night. The first night was fine; she didn't fall down (although I put pillows on the floor just in case). In the morning I heard her wake up and I quickly went downstairs to get her (before she got any ideas to climb down herself) I praised her for staying in bed and it seemed like she understood. The second night, we checked on her before going to sleep and she was on the floor! Fast asleep! Jing carried her and put her back in bed. The next morning I heard her wake up, went downstairs, opened the door, and she was right behind it! I was so shocked I didn't know what to do. I just scolded her for coming down the bed. She looked a bit upset, like she was going to cry but that was it. After thinking it over maybe she actually fell off the bed sometime during the night and when she woke up just walked over to the door. 3rd night we found her on the floor again. 4th and 5th passed without incident. Which brings me to today.

So far looks like she's transitioning well. She treats the pillows on the floor like a boundary; calling it a 'line'. So we keep telling her that she can't cross the line and this seems to work. When I get her in the morning she'll be sitting up and pointing to it and saying 'line'. I keep telling her 'good girl' and giving her lots of praise for waiting for me to come get her.

Not sure if I've mentioned this in a previous post but for the past few months I've been using an alarm clock to 'signal' her that it was time to wake up. I would normally wait until I heard her stiring and after a while I would ring the alarm clock and then go in and get her. I hope that she learns that the bell means it's time to wake up and until then she's suppose to be in bed. Seems like it's working well.

21 months

Suddenly it occurs to me that Meera is going to turn 2! I honestly feel as if time is slipping away so fast. She's changed more and more with each day.

We spent 2 weeks in Tasmania for Christmas vacation and during this time she got a lot of exposure to things which never would have been possible if we had stayed at home. Granted she was tired a lot (what with us traveling all around) and her sleep was seriously deprived but she dealt with it really well. There were a few moments of grumpiness especially nearing dinner (evening) time but over all she was great. Luckily the trip involved a lot of driving so she managed to take naps in the car. Its a good thing she sleeps well in the car. The whole 2 weeks had her taking her afternoon naps in the car (never once in a bed)

Her vocabulary has increased by so many new words. We saw a lot of wildlife (so she now says koala, wallaby, wombat, and echidna! Not so clear but we understand) and there were so many other things that she saw and experienced! She's even started saying 2-3 words in a sentence.

Eating-wise she's doing a lot better with chewing. The 2 weeks in Tassie also exposed her to a lot of different stuff (oysters for one.) Unfortunately she also got her first bout of diarrhea during the trip. Luckily it was only for a few days and the only inconvenience was the leaky diapers. I did resort to jarred food for a few days when it seemed like she wasn't eating enough but overall she managed quite well.

Apart from the time we went to Tassie her schedule has pretty much settled to:

8.00 am: wake up
8.30 am: milk
9.30 am: breakfast (usually oats with fruit)
12.30pm: lunch
2.00 pm: milk then nap (usually about 2 hours)
6.00 pm: dinner
9.30 pm: bed

I've been slowly reducing her milk intake so her first 2 feeds are 140 ml (before adding 4 scoops formula) and last feed is 175ml (5 scoops).