I'm a full-time mummy

I have previously blogged about my thoughts on confinement and its taboo in my old blog and totally forgotten about it until a recent comment submitted by a blog reader in that post prompted me to revise it and post it here in my new blog.

For your info, both my confinement were DIY, as in hubby is the one taking care of our babies in the first month while I recuperate from the labor and focus on breastfeeding our kiddos. You can read my post in my old blog if you want to know what made us decided to DIY our confinement.

Now whenever any friends or ex-colleagues of mine asked me about confinement, I had to go into a long story on how we DIY ours and why we wanted to DIY it. So here's the list on why we decided to DIY our confinement:

1. The opportunity to bond with our newborn (and older siblings to bond with their baby sibling too)

2. The opportunity to practise with trials and errors on babycare aspects, and what to expect and how to deal with crises or newborn incidents (crying, fussiness etc). Don't let other people handle your newborn child. You are the parent, do your job!

3. Economical - not needing to hire any confinement lady (CL) definitely saves a lot of money. (The confinement lady charges for 4 years ago is RM3300 ~ that is about USD1100 for 28 days of work).

4. No interference or different opinions on how you should parent your children. Some CL are very set and determined in certain aspects to make their job easier, such as formula feeding, bottle feeding, disposable diapers, baby sleeping with them etc, all these so that the new mum will get to rest. But if you allow these to happen, your decision to breastfeed your child will be affected. Baby sleeping in with other people such as the CL will only confuse them and make them attached to strangers than to you! Same goes with bottle feeding. Of course, there are a handful of CLs out there who are pro-breastfeeding and encourage the new mums to breastfeed as often and sleep with the baby. But it is not easy to find such CLs.

I have heard of various counts of CL stories horrors from friends and ex-colleagues, these are amongst the many that I can vividly remember...

• A friend hired a CL only to fire the same CL in few weeks time as the CL only knows how to change baby's diapers and does nothing else.
• A friend hired a CL and about a week before the CL leaving, started to panic as she has never been involved in caring of the baby and does not know what to do. Thank God she bucked up and start taking notes and taking over caring her baby before her CL leaves.
• A friend complained that baby keeps crying at night and refused to be breastfed, only wants bottle feed. Because CL has been sleeping with baby for 1 month and bottle feeding baby all the while that baby is used to bottle feeding and to CL's body smell.
  

Now you will ask, then how to handle our own confinement? Well, in terms of babycare, you will need to learn and practise each and everyday. Nobody says parenting is an easy thing to do.

And I personally think if you bring the baby into the world, you should very well take care of the baby and not let others do your job. This is also why I quit my job to be a SAHM and decided to fully take care for my children for now.

You might say I just give birth, I need my rest. Fine, rest when baby is sleeping. During the first few months, all baby does is eat, sleep, pee and poop. So rest when they are resting. If you are staying with other family members (such as in-laws), try to see whether they can help out. Probably cooking food for you or anything.

How about foodwise? You want to replenish your energy and strength and want to drink some herbal medicines/food? You can buy those at the traditional Chinese medicine shops. Some even sell the 28-30 days daily packets of herbal drinks/medicines with instructions for you on how to make it. I didn't get those, I just drink more water and take the occasional black beans with red dates drinks that my MIL boiled for me few times a week.

How about those confinement taboos? Now, here's what I need to explain. Firstly, we are not into following any of those taboos, so apologies as I can't advise you how to get around these superstitious rules and taboos. For me, I will think whether such rules are logical or not. Cover up fully and wear socks? Those rules originated from our ancenstors back in China... and they have winter time in China. Malaysia? Winter? Never... so, think whether such rule is logic or not before you apply it to yourself. Same goes for not bathing, not shampooing your hair etc. Trust me... you will reek by the first day itself after birth. If you can survive past day 2 without showering and washing your hair, well kudos to you for making yourself more unhygienic and smelly. I know I already smell or sweat and blood right after birth and the first thing I did when I went back to my hospital room is to shower and wash everything. A clean and refreshed body definitely brings confidence and happiness to yourself.

Well, you may ask, my hubby had to go work, we don't stay with in-laws and definitely nobody help us out. Fine, go get that CL to help you out but make sure the CL does not interfere with your babycare and if you are planning to breastfeed, make sure the CL knows that you must establish your breastfeeding schedules and it would be great if baby is feeding on demand, direct if possible. Try not to introduce bottles or even formula. No pumping in the first month. If you really must have baby sleeping with the CL, try to get CL to wake up and bring baby to you at night when it is time for feeding. Get CL to help out with other aspects like cooking, washing clothes, etc. But do make sure to slowly take over the CL's job before she leaves. Else, you may suffer as you do not know how to handle baby then if she has been handling baby more than you.

That's all I can think of for now. Do share and feel free to ask if you have any concerns!

I was just sharing with my mummy group in Facebook recently that my first pregnancy checkup for this baby is at 10 weeks and the next one will be when I'm about 28 weeks into pregnancy and some asked me why am I doing so.

And that leads me to writing this post today...

Well, firstly, do note that for my first 2 pregnancies, from 1st to about 7th month pregnancy, I went for monthly checkups and then fortnightly and then gave birth.

But for this round, the reason why I reduced the number of checkups are:

• My 2 previous pregnancies and labors are normal and without any complications so my gynae is OK with this arrangement.
  

• I'm tired. I cannot afford to lug my 2 kiddos along EVERY MONTH now.

• The distance between my house to my hospital is 40 minutes EACH WAY. I really appreciate less travelling time now especially if 2 kiddos are tagging along everywhere I go (different story if we are going on holiday okay?)
  

• My gynae is very busy (and so am I)

Don't get me wrong... I will definitely monitor my progress even though I'm not seeing my gynae every month. Just that, I feel this round, I am more relaxed and not too pressured to be going for my checkups every month. Of course, because of the lack of checkups, I do sometimes forgot how many weeks pregnant I was and had to keep checking on Babycenter website :P

As for antenatal pills, oh well, I buy my own vitamins and pills from the local pharmacy near my housing area. Just folic acid, Obimin and vitamin C daily for now. I've been taking the same thing for the previous 2 pregnancies anyway.

I also read one of my blog followers commenting that she is not going for so many checkups during pregnancy as too much ultrasound will affect the baby's foetal development. I googled around for more information as I'm not aware of this and yes, of course I am curious to know whether there are risks to having too many ultrasounds or not!

You can read up the articles I found here on why it is best to avoid ultrasound scanning during pregnancy and why nobody has ever found them to be harmful and another science-based article here. Of course there are a whole lot more articles out there for you to research and read up on and decide for yourself.

My personal opinion? I think ultrasounds are good where by it helps to alert us if there's any complications or risks to the baby or mum but if your pregnancy is normal and no risks foreseen (or no historical healthy risks on yourself or your parents' side) then it should be fine not to do so many ultrasounds.

So, how often do you go for your antenatal checkups when you are/were pregnant and do you think ultrasounds are risky?

Oh boy... I never know this topic would spark such reactions from my FB page! Last Friday, I shared a conversation I had with my 4 years old boy about penis and vagina and right after I posted that conversation on my FB page, the comments (negative at first) started pouring in...

*** Btw, please note that I normally blog few days to 2 weeks in advance so the date and time on the screenshots you see in this post are captured earlier on 19th April 2013.

So, like I said, the first few comments pouring in were not so discouraging... in fact, some are saying that my 4 years old boy is too young to be knowing this and being taught about this. To be honest, I was shocked to read comments like these... 

You see, being a Chinese born and living in one of the Asian countries (Malaysia to be exact), we are not exactly taught to be so open-minded about the birds and the bees, about how we get our menses etc etc. When I first had my period at 13 years old, my late mum did not explain to me why I was suddenly bleeding down there (I was so scared I was dying but more scared to ask what's happening) and she just took out a sanitary pad and slapped it onto my panty and went on with her daily home routines. I found out bits and pieces about menses few months before from a primary school friend who had her period then but I do not know what to expect and how it would be. Until I got it myself.

So back to penis and vagina.

At first I was feeling down, reading those negative comments shooting me for teaching my boy all this stuff at such an early age (seriously how old should a child be to be taught these things?) and so I replied with this...

I almost wanted to delete the posting on my FB page but decided to write out my opinions on why I don't see anything wrong with what I'm doing... and then the supports poured in. Yay! Read on for more positive feedbacks...

I like the humorous side of this feedback:

And I appreciate and feel so touched by the support comments like these as well...

If you want to read more on what other mums think about being truthful and just teaching the facts about the correct naming terms for our body parts to our children, do feel free to hop over to my FB post and scroll through all the comments in the thread (** Note that the negative ones are way at the bottom as comment with replies and likes get pushed up on top).

I personally learned a few extra things that I have never even thought of (the importance of me teaching my children about this!) such as:

Seriously, I don't know about how the law is in Malaysia when it comes to child sexual abuse cases, but I never realised how important it is for our child to learn to name their body parts correctly until I started this FB post. Now, do know that it is very helpful and IMPORTANT for your children to know the names of their body parts as their statements will weigh more when they know the correct names of their body parts if they are victims of sexual abuse.

Imagine your child's case being dismissed because your child does not know how to pronounce his penis or her vagina using the right words. Will you as a judge believe a child who tells you 'This man touches my down part?' Which down part? What does it mean?

So, parents, remember it is VERY important to teach your child the names of their body parts correctly and not substitute them with baby words or etc etc.

Thank you again for all who left positive and encouraging comments in that humble (and really harmless) FB post of mine. Never had I imagined it would spark such reactions from my fans, on the bright side, I am happy to learn that many parents out there are on the same page as me and I pray and hope that more and more parents will come to a realisation that teaching our children (however young) the correct names for their body parts is NOTHING wrong and SHAMEFUL at all.