Renzo's development - Month 04

Our little boy (err nope we should say big boy) is growing really well during the past one month, both physically and mentally.
04 Month vs. 03 Month
Weight: +0.9kg
Height: +3.5cm
Head Circumference: not measured

We went for his 2nd dose of 5-in-1 on Dec 14, and he developed a mild fever of around 37.6-38.1°C for a short while, and quickly recovered (in 20 minutes maybe) after giving him 2.5ml of paracetamol.

Till now Renzo is still not able to sleep through the night, usually right after bathe he can sleep for 4-6 hours on average, which is considered a huge improvement as compared to the first 3 months, and he even had a record of sleeping for 7.5 hours at one night as he did not sleep much during the day. Looking on the bright side, we are really proud of our boy because at least we can completely drop the idea of using Sarong or pacifier to help him sleep better (in fact, never in my mind have I considered giving him those). Because I am 100% used to his night feedings at about 3am and 6am, and luckily 4 hours of sleep every night is quite sufficient for me and now I could even sleep for nearly 6 – 7 hours in total.


Major development:
1. He can support his head steadily.
2. He babbles a lot more and can even say words like “meh meh” (obviously there’s no meaning to it). And he is making more funny noises, e.g. after he sneezes, he will make a sound like “arhhhh”, or after he yawns he will make a sound like “eiyhhh”.
3. He smiles and laughs a lot more and sometimes it seems that he laughs just for the sake of teasing us.
4. He flipped from tummy to back once at Win’s parents’ house with a bit of help from Win.
5. He can hold his both hands together firmly.
6. Sometimes he can play with one of his feet using his hand.
7. He blows raspberries and sucks his fists very often, and he is also drooling quite a bit.
8. He can sit on his own without support for a few seconds.
9. He can hold his milk bottle (should say water bottle as the milk bottle is a bit too big for him) and drink on his own for a very short while.

Aside from Renzo’s development which is quite steady at this moment, there were quite a lot of thoughts and discussions going on between me and Win around a few topics:

To shave or not to shave?
Well since there’s no scientific proof that shaving baby’s hair will make it grow thicker, we agreed that we are not going to touch Renzo’s hair. He has this balding line around the back of his head, and the uneven look makes a few other people uncomfortable about it, including my father, my sister and brother-in-law, whom have all suggested to us to shave Renzo’s head, and keep his fetal hair and make a Chinese Calligraphy brush from that. But my mother supports our idea of not shaving since Renzo still has his cradle cap and that area is a bit soft and using a blade to shave over can be quite painful and dangerous.

Is Renzo ready for solid food?
It is not difficult to come to an agreement of waiting further until he turns 6 months old, despite the fact that my parents think otherwise. They are pushing us to give Renzo fruits and cereal from now on, but from our research and readings, it is not advisable as baby’s digestive system is not fully ready yet and he should be able to get all the nutrition needed from breast milk or formula milk even till he is one year old. So we will only start shopping for his utensils in another 2 months time.

How should we bring up our precious baby in a better way?
We have to face the fact that I only have a little more than 3 months with my current company, and it is impossible for me to get another job which allows me to work from home. We had this same discussion 2 months back, when we were going through our toughest period – Renzo was super difficult to look after, I was extremely tired during confinement and not getting used to the life of being a first time mum, my mother was struggling due to her bad health condition thus not able to help us for long, my father was planning to come over only next year due to his work commitment and I have to start work in Dec, Win’s parents offering to help only after Renzo is about 1 year old due to work commitments as well - in short we just have no one to help us besides we ourselves. At that time, my father helped us make this decision to hire our maid and till now I must say that’s the wisest choice, it just feels great when we do not have a need to ask for help from others. And what’s more important? Renzo is our baby and we have the responsibility to take good care of him, we should not even think about getting help from others in the first place.

So we’ve set our minds strong that it will be the same after these 3 months+, as long as we have no problem to maintain the current situation financially. The logic behind is pretty simple, I could foresee that things will only get better when Renzo grows bigger, that also means in no way that we cannot manage things on our own, since we did it and did it well even during the toughest period.

Dad has been reminding me many times that we must give our full trust to Aye Aye (our maid), and all grandparents (including themselves) will only spoil the kid, so the best person we can rely on is no other than ourselves and our helper. I truly agree that my father is right because he is the one teaches us to always put our baby’s benefits as top priority, instead of prioritizing adult’s convenience. Till now, Dad is still forwarding me those useful articles on how to educate and cultivate our kids at different stages, and the efforts he had put in that brought up my sister and me is really something that can benefit us and even our children in many years to come.

We might not be able to provide Renzo the best, but we will promise him our utmost!