We brought Renzo’s for his last 5-in-1 jab yesterday, and I must say time really flies. I could still remember vividly when we brought him to polyclinic for the very first time for his
and he was so thin and fragile back then. Now look at his growth during the past one month:
This time he did not develop any fever after the jab at all, yeah!!!
He did cried quite badly after Win brought him home (I was doing grocery shopping during that time), and when I came back and carried our boy, he stopped crying and fell asleep in a few minutes. But we still gave him 2.5ml of paracetamol since the nurse told us it can be given to baby if he is very grouchy after the jab. At the same time, he's been drinking barley water from the night before his jab and I believe it really has some cooling effect, as compared to last time, his body did not turn hot in the afternoon and evening.
This month a few of our friends visited Renzo, as were the months before. This pair is really worth mentioning, hehee.. Chang and Huiting are a super sweet couple, thus we strongly believe potentially they will be good parents and good in-laws.
So if they are going to have a baby girl (really high chance since they wanted 4 kids) in the future, maybe we can introduce our Renzo to their girl girl?
Yeah a picture of Renzo with his favorite neck float and "future in-laws"? Nah, too early to say... haha..
Another great visitor is our best friend Zheng Cheng, who bought us 2 nice books to help us understand our baby better as new parents, that's so thoughtful of him. And apparently Renzo also knows who is nice to him, he was making a lot of noises at first, but the moment he saw his uncle Zheng Cheng, he flashed a big friendly smile and even tried to tease Zheng Cheng by making funny sound non-stop. (We should have taken a picture of those two laughing together..)
I mentioned in my post the previous month, that although Renzo still cannot sleep through the night, he can sleep quite well after bathe for around 4-6 hours straight. Now during this one month, there are 2 major changes to his feeding and sleeping routine, one is good, the other one is really bad.
- The good one:
Around the last week of December, we decided to increase his daytime milk intake from 150ml per feed to 180ml per feed after he went on “milk strike” for 3 days, and at the same time we finally changed his Avent milk bottle teat from #2 to #3 as before that he was not able to handle bigger teat very well. Amazingly, he can finish a 180ml bottle in 6-12 minutes, previously with his 150ml bottle, it usually took him 25 minutes to an hour. So the culprit could really be the teat I guess and I should have thought about it and changed it earlier. Anyway although it is a bit scary to see Renzo finishing his full bottle in such record-breaking time, at least the good thing is, we managed to drag his feeding interval to about once every 4-5 hours. And he is having 5 feeds per day instead of 6. The schedule goes like this:
- 1st feed around 830am (180ml)
- 2nd feed around 1230am (180ml)
(nap about 1 hour in total in the morning)
- 3rd feed around 530pm (180ml)
(nap about 1.5 to 2 hours in total in the afternoon)
**Shower around 830pm**
- 4th feed around 900pm (240ml)
(sleep from 940pm-1020pm to 400am-420am)
- 5th feed around 420am (180ml)
(sleep from 430am to 730am)
- The bad one:
In the past, he is able to sleep for a straight 4-6 hours after his last feed, but recently, Renzo has been waking up very frequently at night, averaging about 5-8 times, and only 1 out of the 5-8 times, he is up for his milk, the others were for no apparent reason. Most of the time I have to give him a little bit of water then he will sleep back again. Sometimes he also can sleep back after I pat and rock him for a short while. Till now we are still trying to find a solution to this. We came out with a few possibilities after doing some research online:
1. Some mummies mentioned that according to PD, if baby can sleep through in the past but suddenly wakes up often at night, it could be due to over stimulation. So we try to dim the light immediately after his shower and play some classical music to help him relax and calm down.
2. Some mummies suggested that it could be a sign, that our baby might need to start on solid food. Well we are still trying to wait till he turns 6 months and meanwhile we will continue monitoring his situation first before we really decide to start him on solid slightly earlier than intended.
3. We might be giving him too much water in the morning. Well I have to say in a way our maid helped to cultivate this habit because whenever Renzo cries hard, she will try to pacify him by giving him water. And most of the time Renzo cries badly because he needs to sleep. So in the end it became his habit that he needs to suck on his water bottle to fall asleep. Therefore I instructed Aye Aye not to immediately give him water when he wakes up half way from his nap. Like Win once mentioned to me, the water bottle serves as his pacifier now, so it is better that we can do something to change this habit of him, or else it makes no difference from giving him a pacifier. But whether this is the root cause, we do not know because he has been drinking a lot of water since birth but only recently this problem surfaced.
So changing his habit of waking up many times at night for water is the next challenge we have and hopefully we can get this problem resolved within a month.
And maybe it is because of interrupted sleep at night, sometimes during the day Renzo can be quite tired, here’s the proof , he fell asleep on his own while playing half way in his walker.. :)
Major development:
1. He can sit on his own without support and play for quite a while.
2. He can reach out for toys and grab them very well.
3. He enjoys playing, laughing and communicating with people more.
4. He's been drooling a lot more than before.
Well those are the only major developments for the past one month. He still cannot flip, and according to his health booklet, we need to consult doctor if he still cannot roll over by 6 months. Now it is time to get him play on his play mat more often and encourage him to flip then.
To help with Renzo’s mental development, we have been playing baby rhymes during daytime, and “Your baby can read” DVD occasionally, as well as some classical music at night for Renzo. My father advised us that music is very important to baby’s growth and he has bought Renzo a whole set of musical DVD specially designed for baby’s brain development. I also tried to read story books for Renzo, but it seems that he is more interested in Ancient Chinese Poems. And the most “kiasu” thing I did (to our non-singaporean friends, Kiasu is a Hokkien word that literally means 'fear of losing' (In Mandarin: 怕输). , was to read up on the best childcare centers and top primary schools in our area. Well one day you people will understand why when you become parents ^_^
We will then decorate the room with beautiful cartoon wall decals, learning materials and a bumper playmat for him to learn sitting, crawling and walking in the coming months, it is going to be so fun I am sure!!
