Winter:Breastfeeding

With the year-end holidays coming up, many of us might be heading to the northern hemispheres and into colder weather. Some may just be going a little up north, where a jacket alone would suffice, while some may be going even further up north where a couple more layers may be needed, and possibly even thermal scarves and a thick winter coat as you head towards subzero snowy regions. How can we handle a breastfeeding baby without freezing our bellies off? The trick is to layer. The very basic is as shown in this photo:

1. Wear a Bra that can be easily pulled down to nurse. Any of the leisure bras would probably be suitable.

2. Wear a nursing tank top, such as:
- Jean Tank
- Stappy Bra Tank
- Heidi Cross-wrap Tank
- Sandie Tank

3. Layer a long-sleeve nursing top over:
- Cindy Long-Sleeve
- Deana Scrunch Long-Sleeve

4. If the weather is going to be very cold, you can also layer another sweater or a fleece high-neck top before having a jacket on. The sweater or fleece-top would be fairly stretchable so that you can easily lift it up and access your layered nursing tops for breastfeeding, as shown in the photo above. It'd be good to have high-necked top as you might find it tough to have to handle dangling scarves with a baby to manage as well.

Oh, and for me, I usually sling my baby first, before I wear my jacket. Here's some photos of one of our breastfeeding mothers and her baby in wintery Scandinavia.

Baby's in there!

Blanco

We used to say "blanco" in secondary sch when we refer to correction fluid (no correction tapes in those days!). Yeah, to blank out the errors. ;-)

I'm been meaning to do this for a long time. Blank those hanyu pinyin in the baby's book. Mainly bc I'm afraid it may confuse him, distracting from the actual chinese characters that he does already recognise.

*haha* You think he might start thinking that those alphabets form part of the Chinese characters? I sure hope not!

Elephant

JR came face-to-face with the fishes & the pygmy hippo today. Super-delighted especially with this big puffy fish, the name I failed to catch on any of the signs. It was a really cute fish, but active just like JR, hence the blurry pix. *haha*

We also saw the White Tigers on the way out. I also had quite a fright from a snake that slithered across my path(!!!).

Our main aim in making the trip to the zoo was to once again see the Elephant Bathing/Feeding session which is at 9.15am. And I printed out a very simple book just about that.


Next trip, l should work on a different animal theme. ;-)

Your Faves

YOUR FAVOURITE NURSING STYLES
-------------------------------
Along the way as nursing moms, we'll find some styles suit our style of nursing and our lifestyle the best. For this baby, I've grown to love the empire-waistline style the best.

Many of you saw me wearing the neat Anna Cross-Wrap top at the last Saturday Showroom Opening. It's sleek and colours are fresh, and just keeps me looking great. Needless to say, that top sure sold that day. Get yourself one too!

Anna Top:
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/annatrim.html]

My other everyday favourites are the Liana Short-sleeves and the Selina, apart from the Cindy. And my most recent favourite is the Sharon Top. I reach for these over & over again every morning as I prepare to get dressed for my full day of dashing in/out with our 4 children. It is a busy day, and I do need a get-up that keeps me looking well put-together!

My faves:
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/liana-SS-Top.html]
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/sharon.html]
[http://www.momsinmind.com.sg/selina.html]

Which are your favourites?

Book Making

With experience, I've found that it's easier to flip a book that is "landscape" in shape than "portrait". And I've simplified the making process. This is much easier to make and easier to keep (not bulky) compared to the books that I earlier had binded.

I use only 100gsm paper now to print instead of the 160gsm that I used to use. Oh, and I couldn't resist it, but bought a S$19 cutter finally. I used to have one, but it's larger/heavier and I brought it to the office. This cutter is much leaner.

Then I staple the pages together using this light-touch stapler that can do up to 35pages

Then I bind the edges together

Book-binding tape

That simple:

Saying it Loud

This is one of the few words he can verbalise for certain right now.

He can only do words that sound like "Ba" or "Ma", so Butterfly would end up like "Ba ba bye" & even Umbrella will still sound like "Ba"! The only word that he can say nicely with 2 syllables is "Ma-my". *hehe*.

And I will find him taking books to "study" too. Our eldest was the same way. The older 2 boys never did this.

Raw

Hai, with the more frequent night nursing bc of the extra wakefulness due to the chickenpox, my nipples & the skin around are quite raw with JR's teeth scrapping frequently on it. *sigh*

My skin must've grown much thinner over the years with age!!! Must step up intake of vitamin C to aid healing. In the meantime, I am trying what I did years ago.

Express a little milk to clean skin and then wipe dry, put Lansinoh, and cover with the Hydrogel disc bc these help to keep the lansinoh cream neatly on without dirtying my bra and further promotes the moist-wound healing process.

Pox Party

Big boy had chickenpox 2 weeks ago, and now everyone else in the family is down with it! Our very own pox party! LOL!

Baby too was affected and he looks quite bad for it too...so many huge spots. No fever though. Whew! Itchy now the scabs have formed and giving me sleepless nights, so started giving him long oatmeal baths & shampoo, and applying numbing anti-itch antiseptic plus Desitin cream after that to help reduce redness.
He happily continues to play though!

The good thing is that this seems like quite an outbreak for him so maybe he will have lifetime immunity now!

Early Readers

Some of you have asked what sort of readers are suitable for babies & the young ones. Generally, if they are learning to read, books with large words are good. You will find after a while that the baby would focus on the words and not just on the pictures or illustrations. I've found several from our local "popular" bookstore. Just sharing here. I am very particular in my selection of children books these days.

[*click* each photo for a larger view]

The "Precious Little" (可爱的) series (S$3.32ea):

Inside the Little Duck Book:


Level 1 of the "念儿歌，学语文" series (S$1.74 ea):

Inside the Little Lamb book:


And these Red Train Readers are not bad. The Chinese version's words are just a little too small though:

Inside View:

Flip Books

Since JR has finished going through the Wink-to-Learn English & Chinese DVD Flashcard programmes, I thought to make some books like the "short stories" in Level 6.

This one is on the title "Picnics are Fun" or "我们去野餐".

It's A5 in size (half A4 size), printed on 160g paper and bound.

I also made a book on a short trip to the zoo

Just some ideas on how to reinforce the child's learning using vocabulary & events that is familiar to him.