Finally Bought a Crib

We got our tax refund yesterday so we decided to just go ahead and buy the crib already.  Baby is already 6 months and we've waited long enough. The good thing about this crib is that it comes with a toddler rail so there's no added expense to convert it to a toddler bed, and it can be used for a few more years. This is the crib we got:

It's one of the most basic cribs out there but for our space, basic is best. I bought it online so I haven't seen it in person. Plus, I couldn't find any reviews online.. But I'm trusting the website when they say that it is of very good quality. They have this rating system and other cribs in this price range are 2 levels of quality below this crib so I think it's a really good deal. I should probably write a review of this crib when I get it to help other online buyers who are more cautious than me. Just something that irked me though-- they gave me a total of $176.86 before checking out (it's the crib price + international fees) but after I checked out, they billed me an additional $8.84 for tax. I thought the taxes were all included in international fees.. If they bill me added tax when it gets here, I would be really pissed off. I think they charged GST but not PST.

I bought a lot of baby's stuff online: his pack n play (a good purchase but not a good deal), travel system (a really bad purchase but we were on a budget), sheets, accessories, toys... you get the idea. His pack n play was a good purchase because it's a really good product.. the price however sucked because I bought it from toysrus.ca (I chose but my sisters paid). Granted, it was a good price in Canada but I always compare prices to the US so I never get a good deal when buying here. It's actually more expensive than the crib. The travel system that I bought sucked bigtime. I bought it from costco (I chose, godmother paid) because it was the cheapest here. What do you know, our stroller got recalled.. it's a cheap recall too because they just sent us something to cover the dangerous part. Actually, as a new mom, I didn't know what features to look for in a travel system so even if I wasn't buying online, I still wouldn't know what to get.. I usually go for the cheapest but I found that it's not a good strategy. The differences actually are worth the price, I learned now.. like our carseat is probably the cheapest Graco carseat, it's safe and all but an important feature is missing: front adjustment of the belt. It's a lot of hassle (esp during winter when baby's clothes are of different thickness so I have to adjust the belt everytime)..

So anyway, let's see how the crib is when it arrives.. now I have to buy other stuff: a mattress, some sheets, a sheet protector would be nice too since baby leaks a lot, a mattress protector just in case the sheet protector didn't catch all the leaks.. oh no... more spending.

Sleeping Through the Night

The standard definition of sleeping through the night is if babies sleep for at least 5 hours straight. Baby has been doing that for a couple months already. However, my definition of sleeping through the night is when baby wakes up when I'm ready to. =D So he's not quite there yet but last night was a definite step towards that goal. Ever since we fed baby solids, he has been sleeping longer and longer. A lot of people say that eating solids doesn't have anything to do with babies sleeping through the night but I don't agree (for my baby anyway). I think they only say that so you don't start with solids early.

Anyway, baby slept from 8pm to 4:30am! (I gave him a bottle and he went back to sleep until 7am) If he was in a different room, I would not even have known because he didn't cry. He was just lying in his bed, awake, sort of moving around. I wake up at the tiniest noise so I woke up but I didn't go to him yet, he didn't seem to need me after all. After a couple minutes, I felt thirsty so I stood up to get water. That's when he knew someone was there so he gave a small cry. I checked up on him and saw that the whole left side of his clothes is wet (+ the sheets). This has been happening for quite a while now ever since he slept for longer periods of time. I actually bought Huggies overnights diapers (but they're still in the states) so I hope those work. I tried using a size larger at night but that doesn't work.

When baby was a newborn and woke every 3-4 hours, I was sleepy and tired every single day. A lot of people say it gets better during the baby's 3rd month. So that's what kept me going, the thought that he will turn 3 months soon. Also, I was getting used to the rhythm of waking up, feeding, then easily going back to sleep. He was really getting better sleepwise before 3 months, he can sleep 5 hours straight then wake up 2-3 hours after, then every hour until I finally decide to get us both out of bed. Three months came, we went on a week-long vacation to the states and then started sleeping hell. He woke up every 2-4 hours. Sometimes he would wake up at 3am and wouldn't go back to sleep until 5am. I was cranky and irritable every single day due to sleep deprivation. I wasn't good company at all. I started to read a sleep help book. The pedia even suggested to just let him cry it out. I just couldn't do it.

When he was 5-months old, we went on another vacation to the states. This time it was for 2 weeks. Since we were in the country and malls were like 1 hr away, I had no choice but to stay at home. This was actually a good thing. I was able to monitor baby and developed a schedule for him. We also became consistent with a nighttime routine: bath, book, bottle. When we came home from the states, he didn't relapse. He was still easy to put down for the night. By 8pm, he was asleep compared to 10-11pm before. Hubby and I were able to spend some quality time together - have dinner together, watch tv, etc. Baby would still wake up around 12-1am then again at 4-6am. But it was definitely better. When we started him on solids (at the 6-month mark), that was when things really began to look up. Now there's the new problem of leaking. But that's probably a better problem than sleep deprivation. The fact that baby's getting enough sleep is also good to know. He naps a lot better too: 1-2 hours twice a day and another shorter nap.

The past 2 days, I was even able to put him down for a nap without rocking him to sleep. He's definitely growing up. Some people choose to let a baby cry it out.. I was going to do it too because I was afraid if I didn't do it, baby would never learn to sleep on his own. But I learned baby has his own time. The times we tried letting him cry out (I only lasted 20 minutes of intermittent crying, when he started to cry like he was being abandoned, I gave up), I couldn't take it.. he probably wasn't ready yet. So I abandoned that method (for now I said).. I was thinking of trying it out again once he was older and he had his own room (which meant we had to move first hehe). But I guess I don't have to do that anymore (Thank God!). I only considered it because we weren't a happy family anymore because of all the sleep deprivation -- Dr. Weissbluth said a well-rested family is the ultimate goal and I agree with that. If I'm sleep deprived, I can't be a good mommy. But now, I'm getting enough rest, I don't even need a daytime nap.

6 months is definitely a good age =)

**Disclaimer to people who want to have a baby, every baby is different. My baby seems to be really difficult sleepwise but a lot of other babies sleep easily :)

**Before writing this blog entry, I put baby down for his nap. By the end of the post, he was asleep.

An update on solids

So far, baby has tried:
- rice cereal
- barley cereal
- oatmeal cereal
- peas

He seems to really like oatmeal cereal among the cereals. Next on the menu: green beans. carrots, sweet potato, apple sauce, pears, bananas. Then we move on to stage 2 meals! :)

"My Family" Book

A family friend gave me a great idea for baby: make my own book with pictures of the family, one person per page with label. I got a cheap 4x6 photo album from the dollar store (cost me $2 actually). Right now, I have 4 pages:
1. Title page with our family picture with the label "My Family"
2. Baby with his name
3. My picture labeled Mommy
4. Hubby's picture labeled Daddy

It's good because I can also put pictures of my parents with labels: Lolo (grandfather) and Lola (grandmother). That way, he will still get to know my parent's faces and won't be afraid of them when he meets them next (my parents live in the Philippines).

I'm just gathering some pictures of hubby's and my siblings and parents so I can add pages to the book.

Other great suggestions by this friend:
1. Buy glow-in-the-dark stars and spell out baby's name in the ceiling on top of his crib. I'm not sure I'll do this because we plan on selling our house in the next 2 years or so.
2. Make a cd (or I guess mp3) recording of mommy and daddy singing nursery rhymes so that's what he can listen to and the voices sound familiar.
3.Once baby starts crawling, put letters all over the house starting with A. Also put labels of things around the house (i.e. door, table, etc)

Free Gift from Rogers

I got a text to my mobile about a free gift from Rogers. I checked out the website and it seems to be valid, no purchase necessary. So I chose an envelope and got the consolation prize. I was given a choice among the following: free mp3 download, free magazine subscription, free mobile device skin, and some other stuff I don't remember. I chose to get the magazine Chatelaine (was choosing between that and Today's Parent but I figured I deal with parenting everyday, why not treat myself to a me-magazine). I've never seen an issue of Chatelaine so I'm curious about it.. I wonder how good Canadian magazines are.

Finally, I get something from being an overbilled Rogers customer.. We use Rogers for all our stuff: wireless, home phone, cable, and internet. We got free 3 months of service with the condo and we were supposed to cancel (and change to a smaller and cheaper provider) but we were salestalked into keeping our services for a lower rate :)

Crawling

So baby's trying his best to crawl now. Before, he would sort of grab tight on the sheet (in his crib) and pull himself forward. Earlier though, I saw him somewhat on all fours.. somewhat.. so he's getting there. Our condo has hardwood floors and I've been looking for the best foam mat so that he can play in the living room. Most of the ABC and 123 mats are rated 2 years and up but I saw this: Tadpoles 16 Piece Playmat Set. I like the blue/brown color.. I'll most probably buy it :)

An update on pooping + Potty Training

So today, baby didn't cry while pooping. He pooped twice.. first poop was pasty like the other days and the second poop was normal breastmilk poop. I'm thinking the prune juice that he drank yesterday actually worked for today. Plus, as soon as I saw he was trying to poop, I laid him down and bicycled his legs.. he was beginning to cry but when I did that, he thought it was funny or something and gave me smiles all the way.

Remember yesterday after drinking prune juice, he immediately pooped? After he pooped, I tried giving him more prune juice but he wouldn't take any because I think he thought it was the cause of his hard 'labor' LOL. Anyway.. I thought he wouldn't want to take prune juice ever again, but today he actually drank some more. Thank God for limited baby memories :) It's funny everytime he takes a sip of juice, he makes this face.. so cute. Today, I actually helped him finish his juice (I make a lot more than he is able to drink because I want the liquid to reach the top of the cup for easy drinking). After he takes a sip, I take off the cover and pour the juice on my mouth (without touching the cup).. What do you know, I make the same face as he does.. it's really sour even when diluted. We had fun taking turns drinking and watching each other's reaction as we take a sip.

I'm looking for a potty chair now. Checking out Amazon, I'm thinking of buying the top rated potty chair: BABYBJÖRN Potty Chair. The problem is, I don't want to clean the thing so I'm looking for something with a liner.. maybe something like this: Precious Ones 4-in-1 Potty? But it doesn't look comfy and it can get pretty expensive.. I might just have to suck it up and clean the poop... OR buy a potty seat: BABYBJÖRN Toilet Trainer? I know baby's only 6 months but my mom told me to buy one and start training him already. I'm not even sure if these seats on the market will be okay for such a young baby.

Some thoughts on this potty training thing... I used to think it was so weird how my mom and dad say I should start potty training baby right away. Like what they do when they help me out is when they think baby is about to go, they would open his diaper and hold up his legs. I thought it was okay for them to do this with us because we were girls. When I'm changing baby, I do it as fast as I can to not get sprayed.. So anyway, I thought that was such a weird thing, especially now that my mom is telling me to buy a potty seat. What I usually see online is that potty training is done at around age 2. So I've been doing some research lately on potty seats when I came across this article on infant potty training. Turns out, late potty training is a thing of the west and it's pretty common in other parts of the globe to do potty training early on. So as soon as I am able to buy a potty training seat (which will be in the next month or so because my sister's visiting from the US), I will start training baby to do number 2 in the seat. The plan is to race him into the seat once I see that he wants to poop. Maybe to start I can do it with diapers on? Goodluck to me.

/*edit*/ I found the potty seat I'm gonna buy!! It's perfect for a small baby.. See below:

Rice Cereal

So for 2 days now, I've been giving baby rice cereal at around 9am. I give it to him after he's had a bit of milk to drink. I don't think he has any allergic reactions to it, but he has trouble pooping. He cries the whole time he's pooping. The poop is not that hard, it's just probably more solid than he's used to (he pooped the 2 days he had cereal). Today, I gave him a bit of diluted prune juice just to help things along. Right after he had the juice, he pooped! BUT he still cried. I'm gonna check with his pedia if this is normal. It doesn't look like the poops are super hard but the fact that he's crying so much is worrying me.

It shouldn't be funny but it actually looks like he's giving birth. I'm at the foot end trying to raise his legs and cleaning the poop as a long portion comes out (sorry if TMI) and daddy is at the other end comforting him. And you can really see if he's pushing from his face, cry, and the view from my end. I hope everything gets better for him.

Recipe: Tomato Cream Sauce with Tuna

3 cloves garlic crushed
1 smll onion chopped
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
0.5 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pc chicken bouillion cube (I used 1 tsp chicken bouillion powder instead)
2 cans tuna
1 can Nestle cream (I used fresh cream instead)
1 cup water

Sauté garlic and onion. 
Add tomato sauce, water, sugar, and chicken cube. 
Stir continuously until slightly thickened. 
Add tuna, cream, salt and pepper to taste.


Goes well with 1 small box of spaghetti.
Makes 5 servings.

I made this recipe for hubby's birthday dinner (on left in picture). I doubled the amounts for everything because I was serving 9 people, there were still a lot of leftovers but it's so yummy, I didn't mind eating it the next day too.

Solids!

Okay... I said I'd wait until after his 6-month appointment but I'm just so excited. I bought Heinz Rice Cereal just now and I am giving baby his first taste of solids tomorrow! He's just been playing around with his tongue so much and making chewing actions lately; he'd also look at us intently while we eat so I think he's ready for it. PLUS, I'm meeting with his pedia next week so I can discuss problems if they arise. On a side note, I also bought prune juice just in case he gets constipated.

In other news, I am now an Avon lady. I thought I can make some extra money while taking care of baby :) I'll probably make a blogspot dedicated to Avon e-brochures so watch out for that!

Poop and Stuff

Yesterday, I had to give baby a suppository. He hasn't pooped in 4 days and since he's half-formula, half-breastfed, I started to get worried. The last time this happened, my mom (a pedia) gave him a suppository so I figured I had to try it again. Poor baby was like all red with an i-need-to-poop-now face (my hubby actually pointed at him and laughed out loud). Anyway, I always worry about giving a suppository because I don't want baby to be dependent on them.. but good news- he pooped again today. When he's already having trouble now, I hate to think what will happen when we start solids.

Baby has been able to say the syllables da-da for a while now. I'm trying to teach him how to say mama. I'm expecting it to be hard for him because he almost never closes his mouth and his tongue is always out. So to teach him how to say mama, I close his lips while saying ma-ma. Funny thing, while I close his mouth, he forcibly pushes his tongue out to keep his mouth from fully closing. So earlier today, I saw him trying to practice saying mama. It was a silent mama but you know he's really trying to close his mouth. It's pretty funny, I have it on video but I'm too lazy to transfer it from my phone to the pc.

When I was at Bayview Mall to buy baby's suppository (it was a super quick errand because I left baby with busy hubby), two people talked to me. One was a middle-aged south asian guy. He was pretty friendly, asked where Yorkdale Mall was. I was like: 401, exit Allen Rd (yes, I know my stuff LOL). He wanted to chitchat some more, he said he was new in the country and was looking for a job and heard that Yorkdale Mall had a lot of stores. Anyway, I hope I didn't sound rude when I said I had to go because my baby's waiting. I left baby on the jumperoo with an alarm for 20 minutes and told hubby to get him when the alarm sounded (I also told him to keep an eye on baby). The next conversation was with the A&W cashier, she was like: "I like your bag, where did you get it?" I said: "In the Philippines".. she commented about it being a good size, etc etc, and then she said: "They make good bags there, huh? How much was it?" I was like: "around 50 bucks (canadian)".  Funny thing is, my bag is XOXO.


When I got back to the condo, the alarm was wang-wanging and baby was in the jumperoo whining. Hubby thought the alarm sound was coming from the jumperoo. In his defense, it did sound rainforesty. Good thing I was pretty quick and the alarm had just sounded like 2 minutes before I came in.


By the way, I'm on a "How I Met Your Mother" marathon. That's why I'm not posting as much. And reminder to self: Go to LCBO to buy ingredients for hubby's birthday jell-o shots.

Online Purchases

I got 2 of my online purchases yesterday - Messeez High Chair Cover and my breastfeeding cover.

The high chair cover is exactly what I expected. It's made of very thin raincoat-like (nylon) material but I think it will do the job of protecting the chair from messy feedings, so that means easy cleanup for me. It also fit the high chair pretty well. I got it from CyberBaby Mall (because they deliver to Canada) so it cost me USD20 + 6.50 shipping so it wasn't such a good deal (plus they really only spent USD2.53 for shipping). The Amazon price of $17 + free shipping would have been the better deal, but it's fine, I just won't think about it :)

The breastfeeding cover is the one I got for free, I just had to pay shipping (USD 9.95 but really, the postage price was just USD 2.10 -- I guess shipping and handling is the correct term). I got it from Udder Covers using the promo code Cuddly2 (but if you search online, there are A TON of promo codes that work). I don't like the pattern too much. It's my fault, I was the one who chose it. I was swayed by the pretty pretty model, darn! The material was thinner than I expected but I think it's so the baby can breathe. I like the metal thing that let's you see the baby. That's the main reason why I ordered this one. With my current cover, I have to either ask my hubby to help out or I hide my head under the cover to see what's going on. A friend of mine has a similar cover which she got for $50 but I only had to pay the 10 bucks so it's totally worth it! I'm tempted to order another one (either the black or the lilac pattern) but I don't really need it so I'll quell the urge for now.

I'm still waiting for one more purchase -- hubby's birthday gift! I got him a customized Starbucks card. He will LOVE it!! I'm also tempted to buy some Ferrero Rocher cupcakes from Sugar Baking, his birthday could be a good excuse to order =D online ordering of cupcakes, i love it!