Renzo's development - Month 02

Another exciting month have passed. There’s no vaccination done this month, so we did not do any “official” measurement at polyclinic but based on the readings on our digital weighing machine (basically Daddy Chan carries Renzo and takes a weight and thereafter, Daddy Chan takes his weight again and we take the difference), Renzo should be about 6kg by now. Yes he is really a big baby!! Can’t believe he can be so chubby now (erh I don’t like to use the word “fat”) compared to his size when he was first born.

Major development:

1. His feeding time dragged from every 1-2 hours to every 3-4 hours from Sep 24 onwards. And finally we managed to reduce his feeding time to 6 times a day from Oct 04. (used to be 8-12 times and even more). This is really a tremendous improvement as now I can have some time to catch 2 TV series and even cook dinner every night.

2. His neck gets much stronger and can lift up for quite a while.

3. He starts to drink quite a lot of water during and after feeding.

4. Able to differentiate milk and plain water clearly by rejecting his bottle when he does not want to drink either one.

5. From Oct 06, he starts to smile to himself while looking into the mirror.

6. From Oct 11, he starts to move his hands and legs and lean his body towards Mummy Chan for cuddling when being called for. (So touching, sorry Win, don’t feel sad if he has not done that to you yet, he just needs more bonding time with daddy)

7. Starts his baby talk very often, and besides “arh” and “orh” and “eeh”, sometimes he can making sound like “arh-orh” or “eeh-orh-arh” or even longer “sentence”.

8. We were quite worried about overfeeding him but now he takes about 850ml (+/-) of milk daily which is perfectly normal based on the guideline given on formula milk tin.

Daddy Chan and Mummy Chan's new worries from this month:

1. Ingrown nail

Our poor little Renzo had ingrown nail for his right thumb after a finger nail cut and recovered only after about 1 week time. We should have thought about that because me, my sister and my mother are all having this same problem. Now we dare not to cut his finger nails too short.

2. Scratches on his face

Since we can’t cut his finger nails too short, and he stopped wearing mittens after full month (for better development as baby learn new things through touching with their little hands), now we see more marks on his face. Luckily baby’s skin cells regenerate really fast so hopefully there will not be any scars left.

3. Need of cuddling

I have to cuddle him to sleep for a few hours at night, and during daytime he cries often while sleeping half way, and all he needs is just attention, so we have to spend quite a lot of time carrying him. My in laws advised us to use sarong, I am pretty sure it is going to help, but for sure we cannot let him sleep in sarong at night, so I rather just do without it then.

4. Way of carrying

From Oct 11, after a growth spurt, he started to prefer being carried in an upright position. We have not figured out the reason but if our bicep muscles are not strong enough, it can be a really big challenge.

Daddy Chan and Mummy Chan's worries from previous month:

1. Renzo is not sleeping much especially during daytime (Improved)

Same as last month, he is still not sleeping well, but at least now he seems to have a pattern. Usually he has 1 or 2 naps in the morning for a total of 1 to 1.5 hours. And then sleep another 1.5 to 2.5 hours in the afternoon. At night he can sleep for 3-4 hours after bathing, and then from 1am to 7am I will have to cuddle him to sleep for a few hours because he will wake up once I put him into his cot.

2. Vomiting (almost resolved)

I must say there’s really big improvement from 2nd month onwards as Renzo did not really vomit this month, despite spitting up a little bit sometimes. Of course we still need to be extremely careful while feeding him, because if we push the milk bottle teat too deep into his mouth, sometimes it really irritates him and cause him vomiting.

3. Awake after bathing (totally resolved)
Now we fixed his bathing time from about 7pm to 8pm. And usually he can eat a bit more as long as the previous feeding was about 4 hours apart. Or if the previous feeding was only about 1-2 hours ago, he can be very tired after bathing so he does not eat much. But the good thing is he can sleep for 3-4 hours right after that.

4. Passing motion (Improved a lot)

"Poopersaurus" starts to have 3 times bowel movement a day from Oct 01, and further reduced to only twice a day from Oct 08. Guess we should not call him poopersaurus anymore.

And my biggest achievement for the month is – I managed to understand Renzo’s cue a lot better, 80% of time I can tell when he wants to:
-fart

-burp

-past motion

-have milk

-have water

-sleep

But of course, the most satisfying achievement would still be when I call out to him "Want mummy to carry?" and then seeing his little body arching towards me and kicking frantically. That feeling is just pure magic... And the smile on his face - Priceless!!!