Tantrums

28 May 2008, Wednesday

Could it be what they call the Terrible-2 syndrome? Of late, my son has been quite difficult to handle:

Screams At The Top Of His Lungs
1. When he doesn’t get his way
2. When we take something away from him

Clings To Mummy
1. I am not allowed to go anywhere in the house without him
2. I have to carry him everywhere I go, even to the loo!
3. Wants to sleep on the same pillow as me during bedtime

Acts Defiantly
1. Purposely does something to make me angry, when he knows its wrong
2. Throwing rice grains on the floor
3. Throwing toys out the window
4. Throwing milk bottles underneath the TV console

My colleague once told me that when she was pregnant, her 2 year old son started acting protective and clingy. Even though the little boy did not understand it, maybe there was a sixth sense that mummy is in the "nesting" mode and he felt threatened.

Well, I certainly hope that Aiden will get out of this mode soon enough as it really tires me out and puts my patience to the test. Then again, just when I'm about to slap his hands, he will turn around, smile and call me "Mummy, Mummy…." hugging my leg.

Mummy says if I'm naughty, I'll need to sit in the basket and cant come out till I say sorry

Trip(s) to the Barber

21 September 2007, Friday

*backdated post*

Aiden absolutely hates the trips to our local barber. The first time we took him there, he was apprehensive. Especially when we placed him on the wooden plank. Here he is when he was about 9 months old - preparing to give his loudest wail.

The second time we took him there was just before his first birthday; he barely had his tush to the wooden plank (placed across the arm rest because he's too small for the chair!) when he screwed his face up in preparation of what's to come. This time he cried from start to finish.....

My poor baby..little does he know it, but we're set to go meet Mr Barber very very soon..

Home Sick

09 July 2007, Monday

This confirms that Aiden pines for his bedroom and bed when it comes to sleeping at night. Hubby and I went for a wedding dinner last Saturday (auspicious 07-07-07) and I was a little apprehensive on how he would behave during bedtime. We took him to Mum's place in the evening prior to going out.

When I called in at 9pm, Dad told me that Aiden refused to go to bed. Each time Mum took him upstairs, he started to cry. They resorted to switching off the lights but he still cried. Dad said that they may end up going for a car ride to get him to fall asleep.

The second time I called at 10pm, Aiden was already fast asleep. But not until my parents took him on a car ride which lasted for at least 20 minutes, before he fell asleep.

It's strange that babies can really differentiate between day time naps and night time sleep. Well, I guess my boy will need more training, because Hubby and I will be going on a holiday later in the year and he's staying home with Mum or MIL!!

M-M-R Jab and Allergy Test

26 June 2007, Tuesday


Aiden went for his M-M-R Jab on Saturday morning, a quick pinch of his bottom left cheek by the paed and he gave a loud Wail! Ouch !!! But after 5 seconds he was alright. He seems okay so far and no fever has developed.

Some of you would already know that I wanted to have an allergy test conducted because of this. His paed suggested some group of foods which we may potentially start since his now 1 year old; so we decided on these:

Pork
Chicken
Fish - Cod
Ikan Bilis (Anchovies)
Egg White
Egg Yolk

It's weird the way seafood was categorized, and fish was specifically Cod. We reckon that if he tested negative for Cod, we'll still go ahead and try other types of fish. We selected anchovies as it is usually used to make stocks for porridge or soup based noodles.

The allergy test was different from the skin scratch test done on Bee in Australia. Our doctor recommended blood to be drawn and sent to the lab for testing. It was really a traumatic experience for Aiden as blood needed to be taken from the vein of his arm and when the medical technician prepared his swabs and needle, Aiden could definitely sense what was happening (maybe because he could feel me tensing up) as he started whimpering even before the needle got near his arm. It took a long time for blood to be drawn, as it is more difficult for babies – possible the vein is small, and the technician kept poking and prodding him for nearly a whole minute. All this time Aiden kept wailing and wailing; we had to hold his other hand down and I was glaring and telling the technician off!! I think he got really pissed at me as I was grumbling to my hubby that he didn’t know what he was doing, and he was taking so long. The technician just told me "I told you it was difficult for babies!" and he huffed off…. What gives man!!

Sorry no pictures here as both parents were so stressed out by the whole affair that we forgot all about it! So keeping our fingers crossed and that the tests will come out negative. I'll update with the results next week.

Eczema

21 June 2007, Thursday


I have not shared with many of you that my little darling has eczema since he was 3 months old. Many people say that this is quite a common occurrence amongst babies under 1 year old, and most of the time it will go off when the baby becomes older.

This condition is hereditary, and from the looks of things, I don’t think that it will go away in the near future. We've gone from one skin lotion to another cream and right now I have a cupboard which has a range of unfinished bottles of lotion all from the experiments/trial and error we had to go through to find the right one from him. He now uses Cetaphil lotion which costs a bomb (thank god I can claim for these through my company benefits). On occasions, when the skin gets red from scratching, I have no choice but put some steroid cream to avoid infection. There are new findings in the market on non steroid creams available but unfortunately there hasn’t been much clinical trials conducted on babies/toddlers. I dare not try it on Aiden and his paed has not encouraged we do so too.

Every night, we have to put 2.5ml of antihistamine (either Zyrtec or Piriton) so that he gets a good night's sleep. I really pity him when he cannot fall asleep because of the itch.

I've had many advices from friends / relatives on alternative methods from using yam powder to oxidized water (?) to relief his itch. Sorry, maybe my brain has been wired to evidence based medicine after having been in the pharmaceutical industry for the last 8 years.

Aiden has not been able to go on seafood as of yet, so no fish and I only tried chicken once. Right now, he has his daily intake of 1 bowl of porridge, twice a day with a mixture of pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli or baby spinach. I usually mix 3 different coloured vegetables with at least 1 sweet tasting vegetable daily. I also recently started him on red rice, millet and quinoa bought from the organic shop for health reasons.

I think this is also one of the reasons why he wakes up in the middle of the night as he is uncomfortable from the itch. Nevertheless, Aiden is a happy and healthy baby. I guess this is something that we have to manage as there is no cure for eczema. We are taking him for an allergy test (see baby Phoebe's allergy test)this weekend as we intend to start him on dairy such as cheese/yoghurt and at least chicken so he has his intake of meat protein.

My Playful Boy

07 June 2007, Thursday

Aiden is at the stage where he's totally aware of the surroundings and is able to response to questions/commands. He kind of knows the consequences of the actions that he takes, and will usually do the complete opposite of what we tell him to.

2030 - 2100 hours
Obediently goes to sleep in his own cot. Either me or hubby will keep him company until he falls asleep.

0100 - 0200 hours
Wakes up, stands up in his cot and goes "huuh" "huuh" "huuh". He wants to get into our bed to sleep with us. At this point, I'm too damn tired to think of consequences of my actions and will usually comply.

0200 – 0700 hours (on good days which unfortunately I can count with 1 hand)
Sleeps right through without any incidents

0200 – 0700 hours (on most occasions)
Wakes up once in the middle of the night, we don’t know what time as it's still dark, to play. Will usually pull at mummy or daddy's hair, nose, mouth and pull himself to standing position at the headboard. Will play 't-i-m-b-e-r' by himself aka let himself fall backward onto the bed. Usually accidents will happen because he'll hit our head or body!!! Goes back to sleep after half hour to one hour.

0710 hours
Mummy and Daddy will usually wake up groggy and with a backache cause Aiden takes up most of the space on the bed even though we have a king size bed

H~E~L~P : I need advise on how to stop Aiden from waking up in the middle of the night. We tried to ignore him, but he will cry if we don’t bring him to our bed!

Tummy Upset

September 11, 2006

We suspected that Bb had a tummy upset yesterday. My Mum mentioned that he was crying and upset for most of the day and that he had poo-ed again in the afternoon. Bb now has a schedule of poo-ing once every 2-3 days ever since he turned 2.5 months. Since he already pooed on Sun, we only expected him to do so again on Tues. So when I asked how it looked like, Mum mentioned a little softer than normal but not watery which may be a sign of diarrhoae.

So we brought him home last nite, he was alright and with a nite feed at 7pm he knocked out by 8pm. Alas, I may have been mistaken by his quiet and good nature. I woke up with a start at 5am this morning (Dont know why but it must be mother's instict) and to my surprise, I heard Bb go 'mmmm'. He usually makes that sound when he needs to do the 'number 2'. So, I got up and went to him, and to my surprise, he really was doing his business in his sleep!!

I quickly woke lou kong up and both of us in jammies, in our sleepy state, waited till he finished his poo, and woke him up to change him. Once again, the stool did not look like his usual colour and constituency. Being first time parents, we were definitely worried and whilst I fed Bb (now turn into hungry cries) , out came our Books with lou kong scanning thru the index looking for either diarrhoae or tummy upset.

Bb went back to sleep soon and lou kong too, leaving Mummy awake for the next half hour wondering if I should take him the the dr in the morning. Morning soon dawned, Bb looked fine, in fact happy (he's always smiling when he wakes up) so with a heavy heart, I took him to Mum's with instructions to monitor his well being for the rest of the day.

Now I am wondering if it is something I ate over the weekend ~ Bread Story buns, Genki Sushi, pasta, fish soup. Hmm, can eating raw fish, in this case salmon sushi cause a tummy upset for Bb? I got a little paranoid and also called to tell my maid to be extra careful with sterilising his bottles and also making sure that the EBM is kept in fridge until it's time for his feed.

Keeping my fingers crossed that Bb will be okay...here's another photo of Aiden (taken a week ago just as he got up at 8am.)