My daughter slept well from day 1 (possibly thanks to the Rock and Play), and it was a breeze nursing her to sleep. Some time approaching the 4 month mark, we encountered the dreaded 4 month sleep regression. In her case, the 10 min nursing session became 3 nursing sessions of 20 min, where she […]
Roll on to Tummy Time
I keep seeing posts about Tummy Time, and how important it is, and how often we need to do it etc. But very few people mention this very important tip – don’t place your baby on her tummy; roll her over. Our baby is slightly delayed in her gross motor skills at 3 months, and […]
Forget about the single electric pump
I’m one of those who only nurse on one side at each feeding. Because I was not certain that breastfeeding was going to work out, I initially only bought a manual pump, which turned out to be really important because my baby was admitted for photo therapy for her jaundice a few days after birth. […]
Rethinking my pumping schedule
I’ve been back at work part-time for 6 weeks now. So far, things have been going okay. I get a bit of me time while at work, try to catch up with the happenings, and it makes me feel like I’ve done something. While I would love to be a stay-at-home mom, the fragmented day […]
Transition from Rock and Play to crib
We kept delaying trying to transition our baby from the RnP to the crib because we were afraid that she would stop sleeping through the night. The RnP is supposed to be good for babies up to 25lbs, but everyone will tell you that it’s not quite true. At 4 months and 15lbs, our baby […]
Ready for solids?
Technical jargon is a general problem – you meet someone in a field, and they start using words that sound completely foreign (I should know. I’m a biologist.) It’s worse when the technical terms are in English, but have very specific meanings. You think you’re communicating, but are you? Us FTMs (First Time Mom) have […]
Reflections on motherhood so far
My baby is 12 weeks old today. She is no longer considered a newborn, although no one would ever mistake such a big baby for a newborn. It also means that I’ve been a mother for 12 weeks. When I talk to her, I call myself Mommy. When her grandma tries to pacify her while […]
Toys for a newborn baby
When we were buying things and preparing for the baby’s arrival, it didn’t occur to me that we needed toys. Fast forward 6 weeks after her birth when she stopped sleeping all the time, I realized that I had nothing to entertain her with. How do you entertain a baby who can’t even raise her […]
I just can’t win: breastfeeding edition
My mother didn’t breastfeed, so breastfeeding is as new to her as to me (although I have definitely read up more than she has). In the early days when my daughter was a newborn, we had troubles feeding her in the afternoons when she was sleepy. Finally under the advice of the pediatrician, we pumped […]
Going back to work
I thought I had the logistics down: at 10 weeks, I decided to go back to work part-time. I have 16 weeks of maternity leave, and I’m planning on taking the last 6 weeks part-time. That means working about 4 hours each day, which translates to pumping once at work. It seemed doable. It seemed […]