Thursday, July 30, 2009

Sleeping Well

Yy has not been sleeping well these few days. In fact, since she was a baby, she has been a bad sleeper. She is recovering from her cough very slowly. How to get well if she dun rest well?...sigh...

Just this morning, she woke up crying at 4am and decided to fall asleep at 6am, only to be waken up by us at 6.30am to get ready for school.

I researched a bit online and found this interesting article...


Facts about baby/child and sleep

Babies are awful sleepers. Period. Accept this and you will stop seeing a wakeful baby as some kind of parental failure.

The following have been established in research:

Babies are prone to wake far more than adults – average cycle for them is about 50 minutes versus 90 minutes for adults.

Persistent or recurring infant sleep problems in the preschool years are very common

Approximately 25% of children under 5 have some type of sleep problem.

Up to 20% of parents report a problem with infant crying or irritability in the first 3 months of life.

Your task:Calming the brain at bedtime

Primary goal: Bring your child down from super alert state by activating the calming brain chemicals, oxytocin and melatonin (sleep hormone).

Most likely way of achieving this is by establishing a soothing routine.

Whatever you do stay calm. If you are uptight, you can't expect yourself to calm your child. Your tone is everything. Your stress and anger can activate the alarm systems in your child's brain, making her feel unsafe to go to sleep.

Snuggle up and read a story. Your body contact with your child will activate oxytocin in her brain, which can make her feel sleepy.

Try and set up the atmosphere – dim light, soothing music.

Avoid giving food that will keep the child awake such as protein food like meat or fish and chocolate (stimulant) 2 hours before bedtime. Offer carbohydrate food like banana as it activates serotonin which can help make her feel sleepy.

Avoid activating the FEAR system in the lower brain. Keep a nightlight, comfort and assure him, or pray together.

You may choose to lie down next to your child while he goes to sleep. No talking when you do it. Pretend to be asleep yourself. The skin-to-skin contact will regulate your child's bodily arousal system and strengthen the bond you share.

Allow your child to tell you what her fears are concerning sleeping.


Co-sleeping

Extensive research shows that safe co-sleeping can be a real investment for your child's future physical and emotional health.

It provides a baby with a sensory rich environment because of the touch, movement, smells and sounds.

Skin-to-skin contact throughout the night helps to regulate a baby's immature brain systems.

Thermal synchrony happens where the mother's body temperature regulates baby's temperature. For instance, if baby is too cold, the mother's temperature will rise 2 degrees to warm her. Conversely if the baby is too warm, the mother's temperature will lower by 1 degree to cool her. Pretty amazing huh?

Co-sleeping means hours of extra body contact. The more touch a child gets in childhood, the calmer and less fearful he is likely to be in adulthood. The physical contact helps to regulate the stress response system in the brain.

Some studies show that children who have never slept in their parents' bed are harder to control.


Risks of co-sleeping.

Research indicates that the fears about suffocating the baby is unfounded. In fact co-sleeping seems to bring a higher degree of maternal vigilance.

If you intend to co-sleep, it is important that you become aware of SIDS and what you can do to minimize the risks.

Research around the world shows very low rates of SIDS in countries where co-sleeping is common, for example in Asia. One study showed that only 4% of Asian babies sleep alone.

SIDS is caused mostly by unstable breathing and an immature cardiovascular system. Being in close bodily contact with the mother stabilizes a baby's heartbeat and breathing.

When do you stop co-sleeping? It's up to your discretion.

Studies show that the majority of preschoolers need an adult next to them until they fall asleep, and most come to the parents' bed regularly for comfort. Such is the power of the lower brain's fear and separation distress systems.


All about Sleep training

Sleep training is often done because parents and their child are in need of sleep. It is vital for physical growth of the baby as the growth hormone is only released during sleep.

When you decide to sleep train, make sure you don't use a method that involves prolonged crying, even for a few nights.

Eventually children will grow out of separation distress and until them it is crucial that you meet their distressed states with reassurance and comfort.

Why the “cry it out” technique is not good? It may achieved the goal of the baby sleeping but it is at a high cost.

Because she went to sleep stressed from the desperate crying, she may wake up frequently in the middle of the might.

Baby sleeps eventually more because of the exhaustion, which also means that she sleeps with elevated stress levels. Studies show that after being left to cry, babies move into a primitive defense mode and this results in an irregularity in breathing and heart rate and a high level of cortisol.


Kind sleep training – the safe and no-cry options

If your child follows you out of the room, reassure him that he is safe and that you will see him in the morning. Don't ignore and leave him to cry. Repeat the assurance as often as needed.

Avoid sleep training that is based on a deal to leave the door open. This activates fear of the door being shut. Repeated activation of this system in childhood leads to anxiety disorders in later life.
Use science to inform your methods when it's time for your child to sleep on his own.

When it time, it's been shown that acoustic presence of the mother can effectively bring down the stress chemical levels. Give your child a tape recording of your voice, or favourite story.

Your smell can also trigger powerful positive feelings. Give her something to hold in the night that smells of you. With baby, place near her a soft piece of cloth with the smell of our breast milk can be highly effective in settling her.

Make your child's bedroom a special sanctuary where she loves to be.

Encourage your child to have a cuddly toy which also activates comforting brain chemicals.

(source: Science of Parenting)

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Funnie gift ideas

Imagine receiving a diamond ring as a gift which turns out to be a mug?


Worrying about someone stealing your mug or your breakfast?





Get the kids to be interested in eating their food?



More info on the above gifts and more crazy gift ideas could be found here :)

Feeling like a piece of you tiao

I feel like a piece of you-tiao now...greasy and fattening...

I had you tiao for my breakfast.

As I was still full during lunchtime, I bought myself rojak, forgetting that there is you tiao in it.

Then, the pantry lady popped into my room and gave me the weekly dessert treat (ahh..the perks of contributing to office recreational fund)...



It's 'dao shuan' with...you tiao.

-_-

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Off we go

This picture looks familiar :)

I got the above picture from South Sea Arts Collection
This online setup sells framed pictures like those you normally see in the kids' clinic....










Now I m inspired to decorate the kiddos' room with these cutesy drawings...not cheap...
maybe I can DIY? hmm....

Monday, July 13, 2009

Sit up and take notice

It's been a long long while since I went to the library.

I enjoyed going down the rows of books, tilting my head to an angle to skim through all the book titles.

It was a pleasant surprise to see posters of award-winning writers stuck on the sides of the shelves which their books could be found. I'm a sucker for the 'in' books (bestsellers or award winning books).

I was really excited when I saw the Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I have heard the rave reviews of these two books.

I just finished reading the novels.

I wish I had not read them though.

Set against the backdrop of Afghanistan, the two novels opened my eyes to this part of the world where discrimination, violence and war are part of the people's lives. My heart went out to the women and children suffering there. It was my first and second time reading a book made me tear.

My job involves reading the papers, but I would normally make a conscious effort to avoid reading depressing news about wars, social unrest in other parts of the world.

No wonder people say ignorance is bliss. I know I sound like an apathetic, selfish frog which prefers to live happily in my cozy well, insulated from the outside world.

But depressing news are like flies, hovering around you, with a constant irritating buzz, till you take notice of them.

After reading the novels, they made me do a double-take. Should I continue to shut out all these news and be indifferent? Or should I sit up and take notice, knowing that the happenings around the world may someday affect us in ripple effect?

I chose the latter.

I have been reading on the recent Xinjiang incident and was taken aback by the huge population stats there; 21 million people and only about half of them are Han Chinese, the rest are Turkic people aka Uyghur people. (I alwis thought the whole of China's population is Han Chinese)

Saturday, July 11, 2009

New must-trys at Pu Tien

Mr FAT and I took leave last friday to give ourselves a break from work and kids.

After groceries shopping and a visit to the library, we decided to have a late lunch at Pu Tien outlet at Vivo City. We were craving for the lor mee... ( I still do not have a picture of our fav lor mee, its not on their website!)

When we reached there at about 2.30pm, the wait staff informed us that they would be starting their new high tea buffet at 3pm. We were pleasantly surprised when they showed us the menu, the buffet items are aplenty and most of them are what we usually order ala carte.
(refer to my old post on Pu Tien)
There were two dishes which we tried for the 1st time and they were very delicious! A definitely must-try!

(I did not bring a camera, the pictures were from the website)

Drunken cockles

Pu Tien Style Century Eggs

Afternote: Forgot to mention, the high tea buffet is priced at $10++ per pax (about $12) and from 3pm to 5pm, only from Mondays to Fridays.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Posey lil' fishball

Easier said than done

I did it.

I stepped on people's toes and they are not very happy with me.

Black faces, mumblings and finger-pointing behind my back.

"She should doing our work for a day and experience it. She thinks our job is easy, and we very free, is it??..."

Sigh...I wish I was not given this task...to be the bad guy...

A colleague from the other office had this advice for me when I told him I received this task.

"You can have a lot of brilliant ideas to change the process and system, but at the end of it, it's the people's mindset you have to change. Afterall, the process and system are still very 'manual', you need people to work in it. So to change their mindset, firstly and most importantly, the improvements you recommend must not add on to their workload..."

Easier said than done...bleh...

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Rainbow after rain

I feel both happy and a bit sad you found a new life, new friends.

In a little corner of my heart, I secretly wished that I am a part of your renewed life but I know I can't.

I am a fragment of your pained past and I know if I continue to be in your life, you will be reminded of your hurt and sadness.

But.. I'm really happy and proud of you :) Letting go is hard but I think you did well.

You are and will alwis be the SP I know. You are stronger than what you think.

Like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, I hope I can be a part of your life again when you finally let go of the past and find the true meaning of your life.

Meanwhile, I will be right by your side waiting patiently, no regrets :)

Monday, July 6, 2009

Two's a company, Three's a crowd











French Cuisine in Mr FAT's way

We were watching Top Chef on SET channel on MIO on one weekend which we had the twins with us at home.

The challenge for the chefs was to create French cuisine.

I commented to mr FAT that I would like to have French cuisine for my lunch, knowing that it was clearly impossible to eat out or cook with the twins.

He went into the kitchen and came out with this....


Nice try, big guy...

Ingredients: Mango from Thailand, Orange-flavoured dark chocolate from Sweden, Fruitti gummy from NTUC

It took me a long while to finish everything on the plate, just like how you would savour french cuisine.... ;P

PS: We had $2 chicken rice for lunch after having this french appetiser...

Sun, Sand and Sea

We brought yy to the East Coast Park last friday after work.

A set of sand play toys = $5.90

Beachmat = $0 (from home)

Good place for parents to laze around while the kids exhaust themselves while playing on the beach.

One of the little pleasures in life ;)

Father and daughter sharing a tender moment

YY and Me

YY and Mr FAT


Look at the pathetic two mounds on the right which mr FAT 'built' and tried to convince yy that they are castles



Digging his own 'grave'?

A mother's fight

I hate to post something sad.

But I can't help myself but to post the below....

Feisty Char needs bullets to fight!

As a mother of 3 gals, I can feel and empathised with the mother's fight for her daughter's life.

I can't help but tear at the photos of a healthy little gal, and knowing that she might not live past this year. And the fact that her mother has not stopped fighting for her daughter's life.

Then I did something.

I transferred a little amount of money to the account. It was a small amount and I could only afford that much with our mountain of debts.

It felt right. I m not making myself feel better but I felt compelled to contribute to the fight simply becoz I m a mother too.

I pray little Charmaine would be healthy again and her mum to be happy again.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Early Birthday Gift

I got an early birthday gift from my Sis in law cum fren cum colleague cum future tenant.

Ms cactus got me tis 250gb portable hard drive at the IT Fair. I wanted a portable hard disk for the longest time..As it was not a NEED, just simply a WANT, I was waiting for my little sis to pass me her old one.

It's funny how I used to pass her my old clothes n stuff, now its the other way round..ok, i digress here..

Anyway its a fantastic gift, i ve been using it but there's one glitch though..how can i make sure i unplug it whenever i leave office?

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

We are going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

Ok, this post is way overdue...

Anyway better late than never :)

We went to the zoo with yy's cousins on 12 Jun 09, Fri. Right after yw's vaccination, we sent our car for servicing before hopping on Lay Yong's car (mr FAT's sis) to the zoo.

It's not easy to handle 3 active toddlers..even not easy to bring them to the zoo..bringing the wildlife to the wildlife?

LY has a zoo membership card, and we all got in for free, how did we do that? Through some scrupulous way which I can't blog here...

We were kind of glad that we had the card coz it meant free unlimited tram rides...which was very very important for 3 not-very-sporty adults and 3 hyperactive toddlers...

So there was it, we spent our entire day at the zoo on tram rides...can't possibly walk under the scorching sun to the animal enclosures!...

We saw the animal shows and the fun started for the kids when they arrived at the rainforest playground.

Here are the fotos....



























ok, yy's swimming costume is fugly and too small for her...it is one of those hand-me-downs from my cousin's kids. Hint hint to any kind sponsors for new swimwear for yy... :)

Twins DH ordeal


Twins in trouble at KKH
The twins were warded at KKH over the last weekend.

They were down with diarrhoea since beginnning of last week and on last sat, they were like having DH every hour.

Although we kept them hydrated with rice water, barley water and electrolye solution, it was scary and tiring for us. We had to change their diapers every hour and see them cry in pain as we cleaned their nasty diaper rashes. To make things worse, my mum kept nagging me to bring them to KKH.

We then decided to bring both of them to KKH. We reached KKH at 8.30pm. The doc recommended blood tests and stool sample tests for the twins.

They had to collect stool samples..but believe it or not!? From the time we reached KKH, the twins did not pooped till the next day! I think the air in KKH is therapeutic..I suspect that the twins were miraculously healed when they reached KKH.

But too late, the doc insisted that they are to be warded.

Poor Xuan, her tiny finger was poked and squeezed real hard by the terrible nurse to get the blood sample. She cried till she cried in silence. (parents would know what I mean)

Wei wei had it worse...she had to go thru Xray for her persistent cough (they stripped her top and put her on a hard surface in a very freezing room)and she was poked at her foot (I told the nurse off after she poked Xuan's finger, babies' fingers are too small to extract blood sample!) and endured the collection of blood sample TWICE! All because she kicked and broke the glass tubing which was used to collect her blood sample. She cried until her whole head turned red, till she cried in silence.

The doc only came at 1.30am to assess them. By the time she finished asking a lot of (un)necessary questions (questions like, are mr FAT and me related?, what's our occupations? etc)and did all those examinations on the two babies, we were so deadbeat that we did not even care about the creaky,thin foldable beds which felt like I was lying on steel bars.

We spent about $1K in our 3 days, 2 nites stay there. The medicine given were the same as what were given to us by the kids clinic. Throughout the stay, I received medical diagnosis from doctors who looked like they were poly students going for their presentation. And the twins...they pretty much got well when they reached KKH.

It's those FML things that happen every now and then.

Anyway, all well ends well now. My twincesses are back at home, drinking well, no more smelly and runny poop. No more nagging from my mum too :P

Lunch date at Two Chefs

Had a nice lunch date with mr FAT today. (thanks leh, big guy...although I paid for the food and I suggested the place...dun say I gey gao hor... where's the romance? )

I was at my Buona Vista office today and he is working in Bukit Merah.

Initially, we wanted to go to Holland Dr's famous XO fishhead noodles but I recalled reading about this good eating place at commonwealth crescent...Two Chefs Eating Place.

Set in a 70s' coffeeshop tucked in the idyllic neighbourhood of Commonwealth Crescent, it felt like we are transported back to the kampong days.

Like discovering a gem in the muddy waters, our eyes lit up when we found the place. Although the place was run-down, but the food was cheap and good.

Too bad, I was so engrossed in eating that I forgot to take photos. (click on the link to see a review and the photos by a popular food blog)

We ordered the signature butter pork ribs , 3 colour spinach and golden mushroom tofu.($8 per plate and they came in generous portions!)

可惜,we did not order their signature cold cockle dish coz mr FAT find them too fattening. (ahem!...)

Overall, it is a good, value for money place for frens or family gatherings. Would go there again :)