First month

Baby boy is taking his nap while I'm typing this away. Tomorrow he is 7 weeks old and I have been a mum for more than a month! Look at how much my boy has grown in one month! hehe, it's such a dilemma. Sometimes I wish he will grow up quickly, but on some days he seemed to be growing too fast.

I have been told by many that having a kid is life-changing and it really is. But not all remembered to tell me that having a kid will change my life for the better. This little fellow has brought so much joy to me and the family. Though I can no longer have a good night sleep nor can I be out having a meal in peace and shopping for hours, seeing him grow up happily everyday more than makes up for all these seemingly small sacrifices. He even made me give up one of my favourite activities - snoozing! lol. I just enjoy sleeping in longer. Hee, I will even set my alarm clock earlier so that I can snooze and not get up immediately. But now, no matter how sleepy I am, I will jump up right away to feed him or check on him when I sense some sound or movement beside me.

Even though it's just a short one month as baby and I embarked on our breastfeeding journey, I feel that both of us have come a long way. Baby is now getting better at latching on and suckling. I'm so proud of him! It wasn't like this in the beginning. In the first week, baby boy wasn't feeding well and he didn't poo and pee enough. He was always sleeping and it was a huge challenge for us to wake him up at night for his feeding. On day 3, he was diagnosed with rather high level of jaundice and had to be hospitalised for phototherapy treatment. When he returned home, we had to force him to feed regularly because he needed to poo and pee sufficiently to get rid of the bilirubin in his body. The little fellow would cry and struggle so much as I forced my nipple into his mouth. At the same time, my nipples were all sore and red and they hurt a lot during nursing. When this whole episode was over and I thought we could finally have peaceful nursing sessions, baby started to have pretty bad reflux and will choke a lot during and after feeding and pull off prematurely. This was totally not what I thought breastfeeding will be like. At that moment, when I saw my boy having so much difficulty drinking peacefully, I wondered if nursing sessions were really comforting for him and I had the slightest thought of giving up breastfeeding.

But I'm so glad that I didn't give up. I really love this closeness and enjoy these exclusive bonding sessions with my boy. When he is upset or hungry, I am able to provide him with the comfort he needs. It's so sweet to see him suckle away happily, well until his reflux comes in. Hope that will get better as his digestive system matures. Baby is always kept close to me because he needs me. Sigh, I'm so dreading the coming month because I have to introduce bottle feeding so that this little being still gets his food when I'm back at work in June. It saddens me to think that I can no longer nurse him every time then and I will be replaced by a bottle and my mother-in-law. And this makes me more determined than ever to continue nursing him whenever I'm with my boy!

So that's my first month as a parent! Honestly, I never knew I had so much more love to give and patience in me until this little fellow came along. The parenthood journey is just amazing.