Why I Breastfed My Firstborn for 7 Months

It was supposed to be the postnatal checkup for 6 months after delivery of my firstborn, Pei Pei. It turned out to be the first prenatal checkup for my second pregnancy.

"To play safe... better not."

That was my gynaecologist's reply to my question - Can I continue breastfeeding Pei Pei during pregnancy?

A few days later, when we brought Pei Pei to the pediatrician for vaccination, the pediatrician gave me the same reply when I asked that question.

When I did researches online, some articles commented that it is ok to continue breastfeeding during pregnancy, and I knew some mothers who did that.

I was in a dilemma.

The final decision to whether I should continue breastfeeding during pregnancy was then made. The person who made this decision was Pei Pei.

She started to refuse drinking breast milk. Yes, I read that the taste of breast milk changes when the mother is pregnant.

Oh well, since she had made the call, I had to say good-bye to my best friends - breast pumps - for the next 8 months.

My two breastfeeding journeys are very different! My first breastfeeding journey was not very smooth sailing, but I learnt a lot from this experience, and was able to have an enjoyable breastfeeding journey with my second child, Hao Hao, for 13 months. In addition, I also gained confident to breastfeed in the public with my second child.

To all mummies and mums-to-be: 
Just follow your heart on whether to breastfeed or not, or how long to breastfeed. Your children love you for who you are, not how much breast milk you supply!

This post is part of a Blog Train hosted by Madeline at MadPsychMum. Head on over to read the other breastfeeding stories by Singapore Mom Bloggers!

The next mum on this blog train is Christy, an amazing FTWM with 3 young kids and handles her household helperless while still take time to share her parenting tips and thoughts at Kids "R" Simple. 

Her breastfeeding journey is adorned with stubborn pride, painful nipples, pumping milk at work under bosses' disapproving noses, while heart-ached over her 5mth old baby who refused to drink milk for 10 solid days after she returned to work! Catch her tomorrow at Kids "R" Simple to find out how she overcome all negative comments, post-partum blues, tears and fatigue just to give her baby the best milk in the world.

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Happy Horse Year 2014!

It is the year of the Horse! We wish you a great Horse year ahead!

p.s. 馬vellous = Marvellous

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Once Upon a Time, MaMi was a...

We have a few photo frames on the wall. In one of the frames, are the photos taken during our overseas trips before we got married and our wedding photos.

Pei Pei and Hao Hao like to climb up the table, and "admire" the photos.

Without fail, they would point at the photo of me in wedding gown, "MaMi, last time you were a PRINCESS!"

Yes, once upon a time, I was a princess. But no longer now... I have upgraded to be the QUEEN!

What do your children say about your wedding photos?

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Watercolour Painting and Printmaking Activities for Children

Pei Pei and Hao Hao like painting a lot. They love to choose their favourite colour, squeeze the watercolour paint tube, mix with water, and use their brush to give the plain white paper a new look. 

As young children, they love to mix the colours, and in the end, only brown and grey colours are left in the palette! Just to share simple steps for teaching young children how to mix colours and some simple watercolour painting and printmaking activities for children.

Simple Steps for Teaching Children How to Mix Colours

1. Ask the children to take the red, yellow, blue and white paint, and place the paint on the palette.
2. Guide them to mix, for example, red and yellow, together. 
3. Ask them what colour is formed.
4. Guide them to add some white colour, and observe the change.

Watercolour Painting and Printmaking Activities for Children

Activity #1: Hands and Finger painting

Activity #2: Bubble wrap painting

Activity #3: Printing with vegetables and fruits

Suitable vegetables and fruits include carrot, ladyfinger, potato and apple. I particularly love the print pattern using ladyfinger, which looks like a flower!

We will continue to explore more activities. Do share with us your ideas of watercolour painting and printmaking activities for children!

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DIY Cardboard Car

After participating in the creative cardboard festival on Sunday, Pei Pei and Hao Hao kept asking me to make a cardboard car with them. 

Initially, I cut the styrofoam cup into half, and used only the bottom to make the headlight. Then Pei Pei suggested to use the upper half too. I think her idea was brilliant, the headlights looked so much better! Pei Pei also suggested making a ladder and placed it at the back of the car. Sometimes, we adults should not underestimate the children's creativity!

Unfortunately, we did not have paint at home, so Pei Pei and Hao Hao decorated the car using coloured markers.

Pei Pei was helping Hao Hao to "wear" the cardboard car.

The wheels? Their own legs!

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Evidence of Our Overseas Trips on the Fridge

Before we have children, we travelled overseas at least once a year. Often, we bought magnets as memento, and placed them on the fridge.

Pei Pei and Hao Hao have not stepped out of Singapore yet. We are not very confident to bring them overseas yet, we are particularly worried about Hao Hao who is at his "Fearless Four", as he loves to run around and disappears in split second! 

I hope that we can add on the collection of magnets on the fridge soon. (p.s. someone please remind me to apply passports for Pei Pei and Hao Hao first!)

Make a guess which countries we have visited before?

What are on your fridge?

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Parenting Lesson at Maritime Experiential Museum and S.E.A. Aquarium

When we decided to bring Pei Pei and Hao Hao to the Maritime Experiential Museum and S.E.A. Aquarium at Sentosa, I thought I should not just bring them there to "see see look look", but should make it as educational and fun as possible.

This was the "grand" lesson plan in my mind:
Do you remember the book we read about deep sea animals?
What are they? Yes, they are sharks! Yes, these are jellyfish! Yes, this is a dolphin!

Sound interesting! I thought.

When we entered the S.E.A. Aquarium, Pei Pei and Hao Hao were still energetic, and were amazed to see so many fish.

Pei Pei used my handphone to take photos of fish.

Things seemed to run smoothly until we were queuing at the Discovery Touch Pool. The queue was very long, and the kids were so eager that they went all the way to the front.

Suddenly, both of them started fighting. As I was trying to separate them and talked to them in a stern manner, an auntie looked at me, shook her head, and said "Tsk tsk tsk".

At that instant, I felt like... hello? Who are you? What do you mean by "tsk tsk tsk"? Do you have children? No? Please shut up. Yes? Do you mean that you have never had such moment in your parenting journey as your kids are super well-behaved? Oh, please enlighten all parents how you have done that!

During my parenthood journey, many people have given me advice, guidance and comments, from family members, friends, to aunties and uncles whom we don't know, most of them advised me out of good intention. I still remember there was once I carried one-week-old Pei Pei to have sun tan as she had jaundice, an auntie approached me and shared with me tips on what food I must avoid (as I was breastfeeding) and what time to sun tan the baby. I do appreciate those advice.

To people who give me judgement when they do not understand the situation, I think I shall just ignore them.

After I cooled down, it was our turn. The poor starfish saw stars as Pei Pei swirled the water.

That was only a quarter of the whole S.E.A. Aquarium. Pei Pei and Hao Hao started to fuss and said they wanted to go home.

I tried to carry out my "grand" lesson plan, however, they were simply not interested in the sea creatures.

I thought they must be hungry, so we bought them some food. However, that didn't help much.

I thought they must be tired, so we sat down to rest. They still fussed and wanted to leave.

Ok, fine. We walked out of the aquarium.

To my surprise, they were suddenly energised when they saw this!

They ran and hopped and were chasing each other.

Then I realised something. They may be hungry and / or tired when we were inside the aquarium, but the main problems were that they did not like the crowd, and that they were not really interested in looking at the sea creatures for too long!

Another parenting lesson learnt - do not force children to do things that they do not enjoy.

Let them enjoy doing things that are not harmful to them.

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5 Must-Have from Daiso for Family with Young Children

I remember when I first visited the first Daiso in Singapore more than 10 years ago, I was amazed by the variety of products available! And each item costs only S$2! I can shop there for more than an hour!

Before I became a mother, I liked to visit the food section, and usually left Daiso with bags of snacks, cha-soba, instant curry.

After I become a mother, I change my attention to kitchen ware section and art & craft section! Because I love to make bento for my children, and to do art and craft activities with them.

Even Pei Pei and Hao Hao love to shop at Daiso with me!

In my opinion, these are the 5 must-have from Daiso for family with young children!

Not in order of merit...

#1. Popsicle maker

What beat cooling ice popsicles in hot weather? How about some green tea ice popsicles? The kids love them!

For a healthier choice, we can use fruits (e.g. kiwi, water melon, strawberries) and yogurt to make the ice popsicles!

#2. Vegetable cutters

There was a period of time when Hao Hao did not like to eat carrot. So I had to change the "image" of carrot to make it enticing for him to eat. These vegetable cutters did a great job! Now Hao Hao likes the carrot flowers!

#3. Egg mould

Another headache. Pei Pei loved to eat eggs, but suddenly, she lost interest in eggs for some time. So I used to same strategy as above to make her eat the eggs!

This is an example of simple meal with the use of the vegetable cutters and egg mould (See this post for the quick-fix recipe).

#4. Buttons

These are interesting craft materials. Other than sewing on clothes, they can be used to make decorative buttons to decorate greeting cards, notebooks, photo frame and so on. I particularly like to make pretty hair ties for Pei Pei.

I taught Pei Pei how to make the covered button, I think it is a good activity to develop a child's fine motor skill.

#5. Pipe cleaners

I am not using them to clean the pipes in the house. Pipe cleaners (chenille stems) are excellent craft materials for children. By simply cutting and twisting, many beautiful art works can be created!

The recent art-ivity using pipe cleaners is the making of firefly lanterns (See this post for the tutorial).

Feeling like going to Daiso to shop now? Here are the locations of Daiso outlets in Singapore!

East Point (Simei) #03-05/06

IMM (Jurong East) #03-48/50

Plaza Singapura (Dhoby Ghaut) #04-01

VivoCity (Harbourfront) #03-06/06A/06B

Sembawang Shopping Centre (Sembawang) #01-18

Rivervale Mall (Sengkang) #02-01

Bukit Panjang Plaza (Bukit Panjang) #04-03/04

ION Orchard (Orchard) #B4-47

Chinatown Point (Chinatown) #B2-01

Tampines One (Tampines) #03-17

What are your favourite / must-have items from Daiso?

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the management of the above mentioned products. Just want to share some of my favourite products from there. All the opinions are mine.

Disclaimer of disclaimer: I spent *cough cough* quite a lot of $$ shopping there. S$2 per item, how to resist??

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DIY Firefly Lantern Tutorial

It is Mid-autumn festival tomorrow! We had already digested our homemade ice-cram mooncake! Let's not forget another important activity - playing with lantern!

As both children are young, I am not too keen to let them play with lanterns that use candles, because I'm afraid that they would injure themselves if the lanterns accidentally catch fire. 

So we prepared a lantern that does not need candles or batteries - it runs on light stick! 

Materials:

Water bottle

Light stick

Chenille stems (pipe cleaners) x 4 long (for legs and wings) and 1 short (for feelers)

Markers

Scissors

Double-sided tape

White cardboard (optional)

Step 1: Making of the face

There is a logo on the cap of the bottle that we have, so we trace the outline of the cap on the white cardboard, cut it out, use double-sided tape to paste on the cap. Then we use markers to draw the faces of the fireflies!

Step 2: Making of the legs

Wrap a long chenille stem (pipe cleaner) around the bottle, twist it, and bend the two ends to form the legs. Repeat with two more long chenille stems.

Step 3: Making of the wings and feelers

Use a long chenille stem, tie a figure of 8 and secure the ends to the middle legs. Then tie a short chenille stem at the bottle neck, twist it and curl the ends to make the feelers.

Step 4: 

Tie a string around the bottle, and make a loop for it to be held by a stick (we use the balloon stick).

Step 5:

Break the light stick and place it into the bottle.

Once again, wish you Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋節快樂!

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Breakfast with Love

Pei Pei and Hao Hao were busy preparing breakfast for DaDi and MaMi on Saturday morning.

DaDi and MaMi are looking forward to the day then Pei Pei and Hao Hao really prepare breakfast for them!

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DIY Birthday Party Favour Tutorial

When Pei Pei and Hao Hao were younger, I would settle the birthday party favour for their classmates all by myself. Now Pei Pei is turning 5 and Hao Hao is turning 4 this year, so I decided to include them in the preparation of the birthday party favour. After all, it is their birthday, the day to commemorate my effort to deliver them, I shouldn't be doing all the work myself, right?

Here it goes.

I am in-charge of purchasing the materials, while Pei Pei and Hao Hao are in-charge of the production line.

We could have used Washi tape to decorate the paper bag directly, but I think it is too easy for Pei Pei and Hao Hao.

So they had to produce their own tape!

On the colour paper, they drew lines, or stamped patterns on the colour paper.

Then they cut the paper into strips and pasted on the paper bags.

Once the paper bags are ready, they put the goodies into the paper bags.

Yeah! The birthday party favours are ready to be distributed to Pei Pei's friends!

Important notice: Don't throw away the packaging box and the lovely paper bags!!

Here is the tutorial to what can be done with the packaging box and paper bag - making a pen / handphone holder!

Step 1: Cut away the top of paper bag, about 3cm from the top

Step 2: Cut away the folds on top of packaging box

Step 3: Place the box into the paper bag, fold down the two sides, press

Step 4: On the reverse side, fold down the two sides, press

Step 5: Press the triangle at the bottom

Step 6: Fold the triangle up and secure with tape or glue. Repeat for the other side

Step 7: Tuck the excess part of paper bag into the box

Step 8: Press the edges gently

Done!!

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