First Time Papa

Getting Prep for a new Generation

Gabbie’s sleep routine

September8

Phew*! I was taken aback (like REAAAAALLLYYY BACK) when i finally get the time (and inspriration :P) to login here.. and realise that GOSH~!

So much time has passed since I last updated my poor blog!! Of course the usual culprit is work(with ridiculous amount of travelling since late last year).. and of course taking care of Gabbie.. left me pretty much exhausted

But seriously, time REALLY does flies!  Gabbie is now 1 year and half already) .. and full of mischief and expanding her vocab at very fast!  ><

Anyway, OK. Back to the subject :P

We’ve tried establish some sort of sleep routine with Gabbie since she was a baby. Although it might not be perfect..but its good enough for us because she does go to bed between 8pm to 9pm and only fully wake up around 6/7am plus to terrorize us :P

So just to share with you the sleep routine that we tried to establish with when she was still a newborn.  It is important that this routine is established early =).  Following is what we done for Gabbie :

-Maintain nighttime routine going every night at the same time. :)

- Get her comfortable, changed into her pyjamas with fresh diapers and give her milk  (she get to sleep faster with a full tummy) :P.  Provide her with her pillows & pacifier (if she is using it).

-Lock the doors  (very Important if you have doting Grandparents/Aunt/Uncles who would not think twice of barging in to play with the little one regardless the situations… ><  nothing is worst thank a overexcited but a cranky & tired baby O.o”.  All I can tell u is no one is gonna get any sleep for a long whilte >.<*)

- Draw the curtains so that it create a cosy environement and to block out any external noise (we’ve got very noisy neighborhood ‘pets’ >.< .

- If its night time, turn off all the Lights and leaving perhaps a small table lamp (dimmed) or night light.

- Of course, get the room as comfy as possible (not too hot/cold), perhaps play some soft lullaby onthe background that she likes (be consistent).

- And try to sing her to sleep, or gentle pat her.  The secret to to maintain a consistent rhythm so that she can be lulled to sleep.  As she gets older, she don’t need any of these anymore because she is used to go to sleep at the routine hours ;)

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Look out for how you baby tells you he/she are tired, because its impossible for you to get your baby to sleep when they are not tired.  Cathing them at the right time and hussling them to sleep ASAP if not immediately is important because with Gabbie, she have a timeframe.  Exceed it, and when her sleepiness wears off.. you’d have to wait for some time before she will feel tired again.  And in the mean time..she will be as cranky as a Godzilla! >.<

Not a pleasant experience I tell u! hehe

Now that she is older, Gabbie will tell us that she is tired and she wants to  ‘Oo-Oo’ (her baby talk term for sleeping) by 7pm+/8pm.

Its quite easy for us to detect that she is tired, because she starts to rub her eyes, and sometimes gets cranky by pulling at her hair.. or when she walks wobbly/unsteadily :P

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Anyway, sharing with you picture on how Gabbie sleeps..she is a MESSY sleeper >< Haha..

We usually let her sleep on our bed before we move her back to her crib to spend the night =)

BEFORE : photo taken right after she dozed Off

BEFORE : photo taken right after she dozed Off

AFTER : 1 hour later. >.< she looks like she is in the Yoga's "sun salutation" pose @@ Rely salute Her~ LOL

AFTER : 1 hour later. >.< she looks like she is in the Yoga "sun salutation' pose. @.@ Really salute her~ LOL

Another Yoga pose~ the

Here Gabbie..with another Yoga pose~ the "Child pose" LOL. My girl is a natural 'Yoga-sifu". :P

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Well thats all for our sharing~  What is you baby’s sleep routine?  Lets share it here so that it can benefits other fellow Daddy/Mummy that are struggling to get their little ones to bed when they should! =D

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my Husband, the Father

May30
The moment a child is born,
the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed, but the mother, never.
A mother is something absolutely new.
~Rajneesh
I’ve got a story to share ..

2 weekends ago, Papa Jee and I went to Normah Medical Specialist Centre to pay a visit to my SIL. As we step out of the Level 3 lift (Level 3 housed the Maternity ward and the new born Nursery), I suggested to Papa Jee to stop by the Nursery; as I’m curious to see how the newborn are housed.. since I missed out on Gabbie’s :P

In KPJ the nursery are curtained at all time thus you can’t really view the infants inside without special request.

Anyway.. as we approach the Nursery we both heard the muffled sound of baby cries. True enough, as we peered through the glass door into the nursery - a newborn baby (a Baby boy, from the blue blanket) was howling angrily.. the baby obviously was very upset as he’s crying on the top of his lungs and were kicking his little legs angrily in protest!

Both of us watched helplessly as we see the baby cries and kicked in earnest. We kept searching with our eyes to see if there were any nurse present in the nursery.

Don’t they know that a baby is crying?

Is there no nurse present to provide comfort or tend to that little newborn?

What can we do? Can we go to the counter to tell the nurses there that a baby is crying and need attention? What if they ask us, who are we to the newborn? His family? Relatives?

O.o” To which we answer … No. We’re just some passer by.. a stranger?

All this were racing in my head as I watched the little baby cries and howls.. And I can see from Papa Jee’s face that he’s probably thinking along the same line.. We were both at loss to what we can do for the little guy and were very worried.. The mother in me wanted to just open the door (which is locked) and go in and give the little guy a hug and offer some comfort..

After what seems to be eternity, we finally saw a nurse walked out of the inner part of the nursery wheeling another newborn. Part of me were relieved, and yet I hear another part of me are screaming..

SO THERE WERE A NURSE IN THERE!

Why hasn’t she attended to the poor crying baby?!

Why has she allowed him to cried for so long??

We continue to stand there to make sure the nurse does attend to the baby and after some moment later, I tugged on Papa Jee’s sleeves and urged him to be on our way. I think we were standing at the nursery for a good 10 minutes before we finally tore ourself away from it.

As we walked slowly, we were both silent and deep in thought. Then I murmured, “Very pity ho, that baby. To be crying to that extend for so long.” :(

To which Jee the replied, “Yeah! Its outrageous how they kept him crying in such manner and did not attend to him.”

He paused for a moment more, looked at me in the eye and with gentle voice, touched his chest with his palm and says.. “My heart feels sore and kinda hurt you know.. listening to that little baby cries like that.. I never knew that I will felt this way, although that baby is not related to us.. I suppose with Gabbie’s arrival and being Father does changed things.. ”

He then chuckled to himself, as if he was embarrassed to have said that.

Hearing him saying that, at that very moment, a warm fuzzy feeling just filled my heart and if I ever have any doubt about him being a father, it all had disappeared there and then! And I just knew that I have loved the right man and he will be a Great father to our little Gabbie. :)

Oh! At that moment if its possible, I do loved him even more!

As we continue walking, my hand enveloped in his large and warm hand.. with him by my side; I feel that am ready to take on the many challenges of Parenthood.. whatever that may come our way.. as we continue to Love and nurture our little angel daughter and help her grows into a fine Lady.

Its funny how the arrival of the helpless, fragile little being that is our child can really change our life. Such is the wonder of Babies and the world of Parenthood.

Because of her arrival.. My husband.. is now a Father~

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posted under First Time Papa, Gabbie, Parenting, babies, dady, i'm going to be a dad | No Comments »

Baby Names II

November9

Anywayz, continuing where papa Jee has left off on the baby names. We’ve gave it some further thoughts and have arrived at the conclusion that, to enable us to start communicating with our dear unborn child, we need to call him/her by name now.. instead of some ambiguous terms like ‘baby’ or “kia’ (child in hokkien) and etcs. Haha..

SO.. to counter that, we’ve decided to choose a name that has both feminine and masculine form in which we can use interchangeably by its nick name for the time being :)

Smart Right! Ahem* Hehe..

We have 2 very handy little book to help us along the way. I picked them up during last Kuching Festival, from a stall that sells pre-loved novels and books imported from the States (i think..).

ALthough Its a bit worn and dog-eared after being flip through by the previous owner(s) but hey.. its comforting to know that this book has played it part in providing a Baby with its given name; ^.^

And best of all, its cheap! :D This beats scrolling through list and list of names from multiple websites and having to remember the URLs and such.

Books of Baby Names

Books of Baby Names

Following are a list if 8 shortlisted sets of Names.
We can’t seem to find of the short form/nick for some of the name, so it might be a problem. Anyway, its just for a thought. Its in PDf format, you you have to click on the link below to download and see it.

baby-names1

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jee’s criteria for a suitable Baby name is :

  • Not too common
  • Sounds nice
  • Had to match with his surname Tsan and will not sound too weird or be a potential joke material. :P

My Criteria :

  • Has a nice pleasant sound without sounding too exotic or unusual
  • Meaning and origin of the name are important. Traditional Christian names are just fine (personally I’d like the name to have a meaningful root. I’d like to think of myself as a traditionalist & sentimentalist..haha:P)
  • Easily pronounciable, so that our child would not have to correct his/her name all the time.

My personal favourite is from the root name of Nathan. I like the meaning - “Gift of God”. Although the child comes without us least expected it, We’ve come to realised that; this precious little bundle of Joy growing in me is a indeed a Gift from Above.

Send for papa Jee and Me to love & cherish, to bring joy into our Life. And I’d like the Junior’s name to remind us of this.. ^_^

WHICH one is Your favourite? We’ve love to hear from you! ^_^

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Parenting Talk on 21st Sept, KPJ Healthcare

September23

Last Sunday, Mama and I went to a parenting talk, hosted by the KPJ Healthcare group, (AKA Kuching Specialist Medical Center) where our gynae Dr. Philip Kho was one of the invited guest speaker on the issue of Parenting.

The talk was joinly organized by Wyeth (Baby fomula), StemLife (Stem Cell Bank) and KPJ.  Mainly “infotisment”, the 2 hour talk started at 2pm, with the StemLife people who took the first baton, and then to Dr Philip Kho who was “late” because the first session ended much earlier then expected

.

Dr Philip Kho on the "Journey of the Womb"

Dr Philip Kho on - Journey of the Womb

Read the rest of this entry »

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"Syiok" & "Shock"

August5

Gosh, being First time Parent is a tough call. First the “Syiok” then the “Shock”. (*Syiok in the local slang means “exciting & enjoyable exhilaration”)

It was really something, to know that you are becoming a father, the feeling is just immense. However, soon after, the reality sets in and the Syiok becomes Shock (well, not in a bad way, so Honey, don’t get me wrong).

So, there’s all sort of stuffs to study, it’s like I’d just enrolled onto a new course in Uni, and the exam is once every week! =) 40 exams for a full course to graduate as Daddy.

It’s already week 5 when we found out about the pregnancy, so, 5 exams to be taken in one shot.

First of, to understand the anatomy of the pregnancy, the weeks, the terms, the trimester, the nutrition, the foods, the supplemental diets, the “Gu-Leng-Hun” for mums (literal translation : “Cow-Milk-Powder”, basically formulated milk powder), the “pangtang-larang” (meaning custom & taboo practices), the gynecologist, the periodic checkups, the “Klinik Ibu & Anak“, the scans & the untrasounds, the labor locality, the confinement month, the confinement month helper lady, the diapers, the baby formulated milk powder, all the “A“s in the world (DHA, EFA, AA, SA, GA….. my old uni mate whose a straight A student did not have so many “A”s too… I wonder do they have PGA or FIFA or even FIA, RIAA, PIA.. hahaha). Wait, there’s more, still have to look into maternity wear, baby carrying sling (and yes, you’ll see me walking in the Spring with my precious baby strap in front of me), the baby cot (which is a very good hands-me-down from my uncle, thanks uncle Kia), baby toys, baby clothes, baby names, baby care, baby education, nursery, play school, the language to be taught as the first language, the primary education, the friends that my baby is going to make, the secondary school, the curfew and agreements with the kid on when to get into romantic relationships, the university, the graduation, the work-in-the-society, the kid’s marriage arrangement…

Well, that’s the feat ahead, but for now, let’s focus.

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