"Love me tender"

Enjoy!!! I am this using Photo Story 3 by Microsoft. It's actually pretty easy.

-Lei

Sleeping Beauty

Isabel is almost 8 weeks old and things are getting better every day. It is as people say, 8 weeks is probably the turning point for most new parents. We are getting more sleep!

She is also such a good baby. We lucked out. She is consistently sleeping at least 5-7 hours at one stretch at night and actually slept a whopping 9.5 hour just two nights ago. Soon enough, we hope she will sleep 12 hours at night in one shot.

Keeping our fingers crossed.

- Lei

Saved by the Baby

I hit my lowest point last wed. After almost six weeks of sleep deprivation and intermittent pain from the c-section, I was exhausted. Adding hormonal roller coaster to that, I felt really overwhelmed last Wed.

I know "baby blues" are normal and in fact, I cry about 3-4 times a week when I have surge and start feeling overwhelmed or trapped. most of the time, it goes away in 20-30 min and I am fine again. Last wed however, my baby blues were quick significant and I started getting a headache all day and felt soooooo tired.

You would think this means I just collapsed and slept a lot. Actually just the opposite. I couldn't sleep even when Isabel was napping or taken care by Jaime's parents. The pressure from my head, the pressure to sleep according to Isabel's schedule, and the pressure of constantly having to breastfeed her all led me to have insomnia. I was so tired I couldn't tell if I was hungry or tired any more. I don't know if you ever experience that - the forever "in between" feeling.

Well, by night time, Isabel was sleep at 10, I was still wide awake exhausted and couldn't sleep until 1:30 and that was with a lot of soothing from Jaime (thank God for him). Luckily I was saved by my baby because Isabel slept until 4:30 that night, so i still got 3 hours of sleep. After feeding her, she went back to sleep for another 3 hours, so I got almost 6 hours of rest all together.

I feel extremely fortunately that our baby is so good to us. Her sleep pattern is improving so much. She is now not even 7 weeks and she slept 8 hours last night and the one before. So despite my minor meltdown, I recovered quickly as she allowed me to sleep 6 hour that night. It will only get better from here, I hope...

-Lei

101 Ways to Soothe Isabel

Isabel may look angelic in most of her photos, but this picture tells a different story. When she gets mad, she has some serious lungs and we are slowly learning how to sooth her.

Ok, so maybe we don't have 101 ways yet to sooth Isabel, but we have at least 10 to 20 ways.

There is usually five reasons Isabel cry
1. She is hungry / thirsty (this happens a lot)
2. She has a dirty diaper (this happens a lot as well)
3. She wants attention (this is happening more and more as we and the grandparents all want to hold her - she is getting used to it and can cry as soon as we put her in the crib sometime)
4. She has gas (this is hard to tell, but when the other 3 above is not the reason, we think is gas)
5. She is hurt (thank goodness, this has not happened yet, knock on wood)

So what do we do when Isabel is like this? Here are the obvious ways
1. BreastFeed her
2. Change her diaper (8-12 tiems a day)
3. Burp her (sometime take 5 minutes and she may still not burp)
4. cradle /rock her
5. Dance with her in my arms
6. car ride
7. walk with the stroller

Here are some less obvious ways
1. Swaddle her (even though she struggles once she settles, she likes it)
2. Jiggle her with a pillow on the knee (a nervous tick habit now comes in very handy)
3. turn on the hairdryer (see the other post)
4. Loudly shush her in her ear (invokes her calming reflex)
5. Manually bounce the bouncer she sits in
6. Rub chamomile oil on her to help with gas
7. Gave her a bath (she may cry loudly during it - but she passes out afterwards)
8. sleeping pill (just kidding!!! - just checking if you are still reading closely :-))
9. Turning on music loudly (sometime this works on its own)
10. Musical soother at her crib (it only works when she is not crying yet. It captures her attention for awhile)
11. Vacuuming (work similarly to the hairdryer - she loves white noise)

That's it for now. We will keep you posted as we learn more :-)

-Lei

Hairdryer - our new best friend

Two days ago, we bought another hairdryer to put in the baby room. No, the baby doesn't have enough hair yet to really need another hair dryer. We are using it for something else.

For the past few weeks, every time I used the hairdryer in the bath room, my mom noticed that Isabel, who maybe crying loudly, would suddenly stop and be quiet. It's quite amazing.

I guess it has to do with the white noise it creates because now we bought a dedicated one for her, so whenever she is fussy, we turned it on. The wind is away from her, of course, but the sound miraculously soothes her for some reason. Some people say it's because the noise reminds her of the womb. Apparently it's very loud in there for the last 9 months, as loud as a vacuum cleaner.

The effect doesn't last forever of course and we don't want to affect her hearing too much by putting it on too long, but even 10 minutes of extra quietness is amazing. The fact it works every time makes it my new best friend. :-)

- Lei
p.s: we can also use it to warm her bottom after diaper change which she loves.

Isabel is one month old!

Wow, how quickly time flies. Isabel turned one month yesterday. We went with her to the doctor and got a perfect clean bill of health and some key stats

- 10 1bs!! (80% percentile for her age)
- 22 inches long (90% percentile - will be a tall girl)
- 14.75 inches circumference for her head (60% percentile - I thought it would be higher since her head is so heavy)

She got her second shot Hep B and only cried 4 cries and just stopped. A tough girl!

On top of this, on her one month birthday, she
- slept 7 hours last night
- started learning how to use the pacifier.

We are so happy and cautiously optimistic.

- Lei

#1 Most Forgotten Useful Baby Product

Wife ---- This product makes all the other products more useful.

- Jaime

Top 10 Most Useful Baby Product (so far)

Isabel turns one month old tomorrow - yeah! For her first month, here are the top 10 most useful baby products

1. Boppy breast feeding pillow (see photo) - use it about 10-12 times a day (really saving my arms).

2. Of course, Diapers and wipes - She goes through 12-15 a day

3. Her wonderful crib and mattress - she sleeps in it every night and sometime plays in it during the day

4. Halo swaddle blankets - we try to learn how to swaddle with a regular square blanket, but this is so much easier even if it's $20 per blanket.

5. White long sleeve shirts with covers for her hands - Isabel wear this almost every day. We love the ones with buttons instead of the ones that have to be pulled over her head. The hand cover is a must since babies are prone to scratch their faces if their hands are not covered.

6. Baby Monitor - we have two receivers with rechargable batteries, so we always have one fully charged. We use this everyday.

7. Receiving blankets - we are using the receiving blankets for everything: to cover her, to cover the boppy pillow when feeding, to prop her in the right position for feeding.

8. Wash cloths : for wiping her face, for her sponge baths, for drying her bootie after wipes. We have two kinds (one for her upper body, one for her lower body)

9. Bouncer: so she can sit with us in the living room and play a little.

10. Car seat - Isabel loves sleeping in it after a drive.

- Lei