Bottle? NO WAY!

It is getting increasingly more difficult to breastfeed Julia. She is not a great eater to start. She will only feed when she wants to, not whenever I offer it and not on a schedule (like every 3.5 hours). She will only feed when she thinks she is hungry and wants to feed.

Lately she is biting on me due to teething, popping on and off because of distractions and drinking very little at a time. You can imagine how this affects my day and my life. All day, all I think about is when is she going to feed? I have to time my day so that it goes around her eating schedule. I am not comfortable breastfeeding in public or in the car. I can't go out to buy groceries or meet with a friend. I have no life. There is no structure to my day.

So this weekend, we tried to convert to bottle-feeding. No success. Julia is as stubborn as can be. She fed maybe 5oz on Saturday and another 5oz on Sunday. I was really worried that she is starving or that she may be dehydrated. As a worried Mom, I couldn't take it anymore so I breastfed her to her content on Sunday night. As soon as she got the first few major gulps of milk, she popped off and gave me the hugest grin. That smile I received made everything worth it.

So now we are back to breastfeeding and I am hating it. Julia has a weak latch and I can't seem to fix it. The latch wasn't always bad, but somehow it's changed and she pops on and off all the time so I believe her latch is very shallow. I don't have pain when nursing, like the first week when she was a newborn.

My milk supply is plentiful at the moment, thanks to fenugreek, blessed thistle, nettle and fennel. And I am pumping 15 minutes after every nursing session so my supply doensn't dip. I will try to bottle-feed again this week and hopefully it'll work.

Teething, Flipping Over, Feeding Troubles

Last night was terrible. I slept maybe 1.5 hours? Maybe... And the entire house listened to Julia scream her head off for about 2 hours I think. Julia is currently teething (her first tooth poked through the surface) making feeding difficult and she's trying to master rolling over as well.

Because her first tooth just popped out (can see a tiny white spec on her bottom left gum) when she feeds, I guess it hurts her. She opens her mouth wide to grab the breast and then as soon as she sucks, she pops off and starts to cry. She's hungry so she grabs the breast again and then pops off again and cries. When she does feed, she'll only eat very little, just enough so she is not starving. Sigh. She's not feeding well at all. My milk supply is starting to dwindle again.

Julia is really good at rolling from her back to her chest but she doesn't know how to roll from her chest back onto her back. That's a problem. When she tries to sleep, she rolls onto her chest constantly resulting in screaming all through the night until someone rushes in to rescue her (I'm her hero). She does this all the time. Seriously. I'm dashing into her room constantly. I have bad sleep, her sleep and everyone upstairs has bad sleep too.

Personally, I don't remember Jasmine having this difficult of time when she was teething and rolling over but I guess we just have to put up with it until it passes.

6 Months - First Solids

Julia turned 6 months a few days ago but we didn't get to see the doctor until today. Julia had her usual shots and had her measurements taken. Her stats are:

Weight - 14lb 15oz (30 percentile)
Height - 66.5cm (60 percentile)
Head - 42cm (30 percentile)

Looks like she dropped quite a few ranks since her 4 month check up but the doctor wasn't concerned. I was informed that asian babies are usually smaller than the statistics. Also, she had that nursing strike a while back which could contribute to her low weight gain.

Julia started eating baby cereal last week, although most of it ends up on the table and her bib rather in her stomach. I have a inkling feeling that Julia isn't much of an eater (just like Jasmine) and it'll be a while before she eats real food.

PNE fun? Not really.

The entire family (the 4 of use and the inlaws) went to the PNE today. There was free admission until noon or else each person would cost $20 to get in. We were lucky enough to find street parking (after 20 minutes of driving around) and just made it into the gates at 11:52am. Phewf.

There was so many people around, it was difficult to walk around. Good thing Jasmine and Julia happily sat in the double stroller for the first 15 minutes. And then started to fuss. I put Julia into my Ergo and carried her around. For Jasmine, we had to leash her in case she ran off (which she did many times!) Jasmine was like a loose animal, running here and there. THANK GOD we had that leash!

It was very crowded and took 30 minutes to walk from one side of the PNE to the other. There were huge line ups for everything. After 3 hours, we decided to leave, and we didn't even get to see anything. We managed to eat some ribs, perogies and soggy fish and chips ($30) before leaving. As we left the gates, Richard and I got a stamp, so that we could re-enter again later that night.

6 hours later - Richard, Lynn and I went back to the PNE after Jas and Julia are in bed. We really wanted to view the lottery house, eat some tasty chicken and sugar donuts. But we got there too late. The lottery house closed at 10pm and the chicken stand had only leftovers left. We did eat 2 bags of sugar donuts though.

All in all, this year's PNE wasn't as fun as we'd hoped it to be. Hopefully next year when Jasmine and Julia are a year older, it'll be a better experience for us.

Kesler 3 Month Party

We attended Kesler's 3 month party this weekend at Sun Sui Wah restaurant in Richmond. He is so tiny compared to Jasmine and Julia. Here's a pic of all of us (of course Jasmine turns her head away from the camera). Thanks Wrency and Rick for inviting us to the dinner.

Mary Had a Little Lamb Dance (video)

I'm guessing Jasmine does pick up alot of things from the TV when she spends her day with her grandpa Wong. Recently one of her toys played the song "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and she started doing a cute dance. I had to grab the camera and record it.

She wiggles her bum, twirls her wrist and hands. Looks like a hawaiin dancer. Take a peek (turn up the volume):

Jump Jump Jumperoo (video)

When Jasmine was an infant, at the stage before she could crawl, she loved sitting in the exersaucer and jumperoo. She loved it because she could sit up, look all around, see where all the adults are and of course play with the toys on them.

Now that Julia is 5 months and has a strong neck, we took out the old exersaucer from storage and set it up in the living room. We also bought another jumperoo for her (sold the old one because we had no space to store it). Julia doesn't seem too keen on playing with the toys on these yet (too advanced for her) but she loves jumping on this thing. Boing, boing, boing.

Here are two videos of the girls in the jumperoo. One is Julia bouncing away in it and the other is Jasmine in it (yes I know, she is wayyy too big for it).

US Trip and then Peanut Allergy Attack

We took a short driving trip down to Seattle today. It was Julia's first time out of the country! Too bad we didn't take any pictures of her during the trip though. Richard and I were both so occupied with keeping Jasmine safe (preventing Jasmine running into the street) and Julia entertained (I had to carry her the entire time).

Even though the trip was only 6 hours long, it felt like an eternity. I swear, in the 6 hours, 3 hours was used to take care of the kids, 1.5 hours used for driving and 1.5 hours used for shopping. It was a successful trip nevertheless (we managed to buy $100 worth of goods), but so tiring. I don't think we will travel anywhere, anytime soon.

As we were driving back to Vancouver, we gave Jasmine a a fruit/nut bar to eat as a snack. Once we got home, we fed Jasmine her dinner, as usual. But immediately after dinner (after we let Jasmine out of her high chair), she started to scratch her body ferociously. She started getting tiny welts all over her body, then the rashes started to spread. PANIC.

What is happening? She is having an allergic reaction to something. Was there egg in her dinner? No. Did she eat something with peanuts? No. ...um, maybe. Check the label! As it happens, the fruit/nut bar had peanuts in it! YIKES! So, we check Jasmine for any breathing issues. She seems to be breathing fine. Her rashes now spreading around her neck and face. We rush her down to the Children's Hospital Emergency.

We arrive at the Emergency around 9pm and was admitted within 30 minutes. (the last time when Jasmine bonked her head, we waited 8 hours). The doc checked her vitals, asked questions and then gave her some liquid Benadryl and a popsicle. Then Jasmine was released to go home. By the time we got home, the rashes were subsiding.

What a long day. We'll have to be extra careful when giving Jasmine any type of food to eat. Many foods contain traces of egg or peanuts in them and she may react badly to all of these foods.

Grandma's 99th Birthday

It was Grandma Leung's birthday this weekend and the entire Leung clan took over Ken's Restaurant on Kingsway (5 tables of relatives). Happy Birthday Grandma. I can't believe you are 99 years old! Here's a pic of our immediate family (missing Julia because she was super sleepy and I had to take her home in the middle of dinner to put her to bed).