Olivia is almost 8 months now

Just realise I have not posted anything for past 1 month. Olivia is almost 8 months old soon.

A month back she was infected with Hand Foot Mouth Disease and it was a great challenge taking care of a 6 months baby with HFMD. She had blisters all over her feet and a few on her hand and the one that causes her the most pain is the ulcers in her throat. Poor girl on the first day she refuse to drink her milk at all. Thanks god on the next day she started to drink and eat again. 

This is a morning puffy eyes look and she was in a very good mood. 

Olivia 6 months 2 weeks old.

Now Olivia takes more initiative to turn to tummy position. But she still can't stay on the position for too long. You can see when she starts lowering her head as she gets tired and she will start to make noise.

Olivia loves to play with her sis Isabelle. I have to put alot of effort and make alot of funny faces in order to make Olivia smile and laugh but when she's with Isabelle, she would just giggle and laugh with no effort.


Olivia still wakes up for night feed. She is not sleeping thru the night yet :( . It is so true that every child is very different even if they are siblings. I wonder when would be the day when she can sleep thru the night. Praying hard.

She starts to eat solids 2 weeks back. She loves cereal but everytime when I introduce a new type of food to her, she doesn't like it the first try. Subsequently when she get use to the taste, she likes it. Olivia is not like Isabelle where I never had problem with Isabelle when comes to milk or solids. Belle would just take all sorts of food and fruits we gives her.

Olivia's Neck has red rashes and fungal infection

Nov 20th 2013 - 6 months 2 weeks old

I started notice Olivia's neck has some rashes and also a small area around her mouth. I was under the presumption that those are drool rash and milk rash as well. Thought it could be easily treated by just keeping the affected area clean and dry but it wasn't so. After more than a week, the rashes seems more serious. When brought her to Pediatrician to check, doc confirm that some spots are already turned into fungal infection. Poor Olivia. Thank god so far she doesn't seem to be bothered by the rash. Doc prescribed a cream call Daktacort, hopefully it help heals the infection soon. Is feels painful to see the rashes on her.

After 3 days using the cream prescribed by doc, her rashes condition seems to be improving. At least the infection area has dried up and is not that red any more. Hopefully this is a good sign of recovering.

Olivia - 5 months 1 week old

As of today (October 11th 2013) Olivia is 5 months+. She haven't start turning yet but now she can be on her tummy and lift her head longer. If comparing to Isabelle, it seems like Isabelle's physical motor skills developed much earlier. By 4th month Isabelle can turn from tummy to back and vice versa. Oh well, I'm not in the rush to have Olivia turning so soon as I would still like to enjoy looking at her and chatting with her why she's in lying position. But this lil girl, although she can't sit stable yet, she always wants to push herself up in standing position. But Olivia is definitely a very happy baby. She always smile when she see anyone.

Olivia's Development, Weight & Height

Weight & Height/Length - Milk Intake

Born       : 2.45 kg | 51cm | 1oz
1 month  : 3.20 kg | 51cm |4oz
2 month  : 4.30 kg | xxcm |4oz
3 month  : 4.95 kg | xxcm | 4oz
4 month  : 5.70 kg | xxcm | 4 - 4.5oz
5 month  : 6.10 kg | 61cm | 5oz
6 month  : 6.70 kg | 64cm | 5oz
7 month  : 7.60 kg | 65cm | 5oz
8 month  : 7.90 kg
9 month  :
10 month:
11 month:
12 month:


Physical Development

3rd Month : 
Tummy time can hold 10 secs

4th Month : 
Tummy time can hold 20 secs
Grab pacifier, grab toy ring, Suck finger and fist, laugh

5th Month : 
Put both hand into her mouth. Know how to make noises to indicate she dislike, turn on tummy with help and stay a lil longer. Knows how to choose who to go to. Very challenging to feed milk, most of the time have to try 3-4 rounds in order to finish 5oz milk.

6th Month :
Can turn on tummy, grab pacifier swing with her hands, Can only sit with some support,

7th Month : 
Can turn on tummy smoothly, can sit and balance but just for a while and then fall on lying down position, hand motor skills are good, very sharp and quick in grabbing things. She knows how to express when she dislike and recognises individuals, cries when strangers carries her. She can also crawl but reverse mode.
Sometimes can sleep from 8:30 - 2am Or 2am - 7am
She fell off the bed her first time

8th month 

She could sit up firm without any support needed. 

23 jan 2014 - for the first time she manage to push herself up into sitting position.

10th month
She starts to stand with support. She also tries to balance and walk a few steps with support
She knows how to hold and throw a ball / toys
She pushes the things away if she doesn't want it when offer to her.

11th month
She can walk very fast now. She can squad to pick up toy and then stand up straight.
She knows how to point to the things she wants
She can point to the ceiling if ask where "where is the fan" ?
Her night feed pattern is around 12am - 1am and then 5am - 6am (sometimes 7am)
After night milk she can go back to sleep on her own. No patting or singing needed

4 months old - Hand motor skills

At 4 months plus, Olivia now can grab hold of her toys and pacifier. Now she enjoys sucking on her fist and finger. She even prefer her hand rather than the pacifier :d.

Felt like I'm still behind time and couldn't catch up with how fast she's growing. Time flies and just another month to go she will be starting on feeding solids.

I find that I have this special strong connection with Olivia which I don't remember feeling the same with Isabelle. Not that I didn't have strong and special connection with Isabelle, but somehow with Olivia, it felt very different. Whenever I have the chance, I'll always want to hold and carry her. I enjoyed so much in carrying and rocking Olivia to sleep and seeing her falling asleep soundly in my arms, I wish I could just carry until she wakes.

Two sick babies

At 4 months old, this is the first time Olivia is sick. She caught the flu and cough virus from Isabelle. Even we have tried so hard to separate the both of them, they still pass the virus to each other. Belle is more cranky compare to Olivia. Both of them has a mild fever too. Is really hectic trying to take care of two sick child. :( Really hope both of them will recover very soon

Olivia 3 Months 3 weeks old

Olivia is 3 months, 3 weeks old now. She weights 5.6kg and Length 59cm.

Fuyoh ! Break my own record of EBM on 2nd Aug

It was the mid-night of the 2nd of August. I overslept waking up at 4am ( I was suppose to wake up at 2am) to express my breast milk. Which means instead of a 5 hours interval, it became a 7 hour interval pump. My breast was so engorged and I was so worried that it might be blocked. But thank god it went smooth. This is the first time I manage to yield almost about 10oz of milk in a session. I'm so happy :D

Olivia growing

My BM supply

Can't believe my milk supply is coming in so well. Actually I'm not sure too how come I manage to have so much storage of milk. By right baby drinks them all and at most will only have some extra to store. Feel so proud of myself this time that I've successfully produce more than enough milk for my baby Olivia. Having said that, I hope she would not refuse to drink frozen milk otherwise all these would end up being wasted.

Olivia started drinking 4oz at 5th or 6th week. 

This is as of 27th June - Olivia 2 months old.

My milk production

Breast feeding is definitely not an easy journey. I told myself that I would try my best to give Olivia breast milk at least up to 6 months old. Olivia is 6 weeks old now and she is fully breast fed. My supply is enough for her. It takes a lot of determination and sleepy hours to do so. Pumping milk every 3 hours and slowly I extended  from 3 hours to 4 hours so I can get some extra hours to sleep. 

This is my storage so far. I hope I can express more milk each session so I can have more storage and I could stop pumping sooner. 

Now I can yield 5-6 oz milk each session. My right side usually can yield more than the left. I'm hoping I could yield 10oz each session then I can accumulate more storage in my freezer. Not sure how long more I can last to continue the pump session especially the midnight session. It is really quite dragging to wake to pump. So so so sleepy. 

19th MAY - Olivia 18 days old

A blink of eyes is already 18 days since I gave birth to Olivia. Confinement lady had given Olivia sun bathing about 5 times and she's finally satisfied that baby's jaundice is almost cleared. I'm actually quite worried after all the sun bathing, baby might end up having dark skin :(

Right now Olivia can drink up to 3oz every feed. Not sure if its too much or not but when she doesn't get enough, she will cry and ask for more. I guess she knows very well how much she want and how much she can drink. Lucky now that my milk supply is still enough for her. I'm not sure why but it has been a week and my milk production is only 3oz no matter if I pump after 3hours or even 4 hours. I'm not motivated enough to carry on waking every 2 hours and pumping mid night if I don't see my milk amount increasing :(

I've started taking fenugreek capsules since last Thursday (4 days). Some say it would take a week or maybe 2weeks before seeing the results. I hope I can see results of milk increasing soon otherwise I'm really not sure if I can carry on the breast feeding journey.

But I'm lucky that at the earlier days when Olivia is only drinking 1-2oz, I've manage to keep up to 7 bottles of 5oz BM in the freezer :D I'm proud if myself for this. Hehehe. 

I'm also glad that Isabelle has been accepting baby Olivia very well. No jealousy at the moment. She loves baby very much and she always want to kiss and sayang baby. Am so happy to see that. 

Olivia's arrival on 2nd May

It was when doc open up and want to take baby out from my abdomen, he then realize something was not right. There was a smell. Baby has poop inside the sac and has swallowed the maconium. The whole reason why the sign of contraction is because baby had infection. She has to be out otherwise it would be life threatening for her. When she was out, I could her sound of suction and I think pead was trying to clean her up and suck out all the dirty stuff in her lungs.

Baby was brought to ICU & was in incubator with oxygen support. She was in ICU for 2 nights. During these 2 nights, I was not allow to direct latch to feed baby so there was no choice but had to give her formula. I am quite surprise that this time round, I could really be very determine to breastfeed baby so I pump every 2 hours. Even tho I couldn't get much but at least I could see the colostrum. 

Time of birth : 11:59am

After 2 nights at ICU, baby was brought up to the nursery. She was doing quite well and could breath without the oxygen support. Baby had to stay in hospital longer as she was on antibiotic for 5 days. After that, she had jaundice and had high white blood cell count so again had to stay another few days in hospital. At home, I was very hardworking pumping every 3 hours and am so glad my milk kick in very soon on 3rd day. I'm glad I've got quite consistent supply now. I can get 2-3oz every pump and the double pump really saves so much time. 

In total, baby stayed hospital for 8 nights and the bill came up to rm3.4k

Mommy's bill was around rm8k+ 

1st May - The Emergency

The pain started the midnight of the 1st of May 2013. I felt some slight pain at first but then the pain went on and it got more intense. The pain comes every 10 mins and last for 30 secs every time. This was the beginning of the contraction pain.

By morning, I couldn't hold the pain any longer so I quickly got myself changed and got hubby to bring me to hospital emergency. Nurses called my gynea to come in as it was a public holiday that day. Doc says I'm having a minor contraction. Baby is only 34 weeks. Why contraction so soon? Doc thinks I might have infection in me that cause my body to react as such. I was told my cervix has dilated 1cm. We have to stop the dilation. I was given pills to stop the cervix opening further, but the pills was not the pain killer so the pain still goes on every 10min.

I was lying on the bed in the labour room overnight with the pain went on and on. So basically I was in pain for 30 hours of contraction pain. Though I wasn't going thru the intense contraction pain but it was bad enough to endure the pain for so many hours. I've waited and waited and the next morning came. I was so glad to see my doc checking on me. He asked is I'm felling ok. Feeling OK? How can I be when the pain went on the whole night. I asked if I should just deliver my baby that same day 2nd May. Doc was a little reluctant as he is worried that baby's lung is not strong enough yet. He wanted for me to try to hold for another week or two so at least baby is 35 or 36 weeks old, But I couldn't wait. So I decided to go for csec to get my baby out

It was around 9am plus when I made the decision. 15mins later doc walked in with a piece of paper for my signature agreeing to the csec and he says the operation will start at 11am. I didn't even had time to discuss with my hubby and I had to quickly calls him around 10am ish to tell him bat the decision and that I'm going into labour at 11am.

Hubby quickly rush to drop Isabelle off to playhouse and joined me at the hospital. Everything happened so fast!

Baby finally arrived at 11:19am : 2nd May 2013

Week 31+

I'm 31 weeks in my pregnancy now. 

My weight : 64.7kg
Tummy size :   
Baby weight : 2.17kg

Looks like baby gain more weight than I did. Wow, there's 7 more weeks to go, i wonder if baby will become overweight but doc didn't say anything about asking me to watch my weight or food intake tho.

Songs that Belle sings

At 2 years 6 months old now, Belle has master most of the nursery rhymes songs and some songs that she learn from her playshcool. She can sing the entire song for:

Baa baa black sheep
Twinkle Twinkle Little stars 
Are you sleeping
Alphabet Song
Itsy Bitsy Spider
London Bridger is falling down
Humpthy Dumpty
The Finger Family
Row, row, row your boat
Rain rain go away
Good Morning, good morning

She speaks quite fluently I must say for a 2.5 years old child. She has also master playing 12 pieces puzzles and she is now on 48 pieces puzzle.

Belle seems to have develop interest in story books. She likes to pick up books and look at them, every night she request mommy to read a book to her before she sleeps. She also likes picking up books to draw, color and write on them. I have yet to find time to get some paints and brushes for her to explore more on painting but lucky thing that at her play-school, they do paintings with the children. I have to be more hard working to do more activities with her otherwise she might end up being a lazy bump like me :o

Classes and activities for Belle

I have recently just sign Belle up to a music class at MusikHaus. Before I sign up at this center, I've also sent her to a trial class at Gymboree. We didn't get to trial the music class at Gymboree, instead she trail on the playgroup session which is mainly just about playing and nothing else. The thing I didn't like about Gymboree is that they offer the package to me that was way too expensive. There will be 50+ classes but I will have to pay upfront of RM2300+ for all the classes. All I wanted for Belle is just a few affordable classes to give her some activity to do on weekend and at the same time to get to mix with more children other than those at her playschool. I think she's enjoying it :) At Musikhaus, I've signup for 10 classes for RM350 and after 10 classes I can choose to continue and signup more or stop.

http://musikhaus.com.my