baby Archives - Page 11 of 11

My baby is almost six months old, and I’m done with breastfeeding. The end to my breastfeeding days came rather suddenly. One day Kiko decided not to take my breasts. She was three and a half months old. I was shocked. I thought my breasts were her most favorite thing in the world. Although I had a difficulty with breastfeeding (terrible engorgement) in the beginning, I learned to be okay with it over time. But one day, the switch happened, and Kiko would scream when I would try to breastfeed her. At that point it became impossible to breastfeed her while she was conscious. I switched to nursing her while she was groggy during the early morning feeding and late night feeding. The rest of the time I pumped. Slowly, Kiko started to reject those groggy feedings as well, and as I pumped less, my body produced less milk. Over the past two months, I slowly decreased the frequency of pumping, and now I don’t pump at all.

It was sad when she rejected me at first. Andy knows, I cried. I’ve read in the Baby Center about some mothers comments about missing “the bonding time” with baby. It seems like babies get selective around three months and not taking breasts seem to be a common problem.

But now that my breastfeeding days are over, I must say, I am kind of glad that I don’t have to carry around a pump, worrying about leaking, washing nursing pads endlessly, bearing with engorgement pain, or smelling disgusting with leaked milk. I almost exclusively breastfed Kiko for the first three and a half months, and I was glad to be able to do that. But at the same time, I am glad my breasts did whatever they needed to do and it’s over. Now I can have some “bonding time” with Kiko by playing with her, singing to her, reading her books and praying together.

My breasts returned to their original size. I secretly hoped that they would remain a cup size bigger, but sadly it was not to be :p

Week 23 of motherhood! Solid food is the topic of the day We started feeding Kiko some solids when she turned 4 months old. I think we are on the early side, but we decided that she is ready for solids because she showed some signs of wanting more sustenance. She drooled, developed a strong neck and was able to sit up with some support etc. And my fatness Kiko was drinking a LOT of milk (1400ml some days) and milk itself didn’t seem to quite satisfy her appetite. Her first solid food meal was rice portage. Slowly we moved to different pureed vegetables. Although I read an article that the order given to children does not matter and the baby won’t develop taste preferences, I decided to give her vegis first and move on to sweeter food, like apples and oranges, later. I’ve fed her pureed egg plant, avocado, pumpkin, potato and carrots so far. For the first month, she would spit out the food, and not really eat much, but one day she just started to take in the food much better. A baby’s overnight development is quite amazing!

To make puree food, Andy and I either boil the vegetables or microwave them. We then mash it with this tiny mashing bowl and stick we bought here. I think this mashing bowl is traditionally used in Japan for grinding sesame seeds, but we don’t need much ground sesame so we use it for pureeing vegetables. Once we make the pureed food, we divide it into small Tupperware boxes and save them in the fridge

Kiko also started using this new bottle, pictured above. This bottle type is in between a regular baby bottle nipple and a sippy cup. She prefers this cup a lot more because more milk is released with this bottle than with the regular nipple. It used to take her about 20 minutes to finish one bottle of 200cc milk, but now it takes about 5 minutes! She is such a vigorous eater!

Also pictured above is a silicon bib which was gifted from my friend. It’s great because it is soft, washable, and don’t stain like regular cloth bibs. The only problem is that Kiko likes to eat the bib…:p