As you read from my blog, I'm the first time mother with no experience in taking care a baby and honestly motherhood is a learning process for me, an overwhelming yet joyful process.. I learned a lot from my mistakes of taking care little EJ, each stage of his baby life, I made a mistake but I learned something from it. From these mistakes, I promise myself to do things differently when I have my baby #2
10 Things I would do differently when I have baby #2
1. Breastfeeding
When I have baby #2, I promise myself to try hard to latch the baby on directly. No bottle introduction at all until the baby learns the right technique of latching.. The purpose is to prevent nipple confusion.
I promise to latch on every 2 hours, no excuse of being too tired from delivering a baby
When milk hasn't come yet (although I understand that newborn can survive a few days with just drops of colostrum, but the idea of starving my newborn tortures me & makes me feel extremely guilty, so this is not an option to say "let's wait until the real milk comes...") or if my baby is still learning the right technique to latch on, I WILL NOT give up that easily and to just give the bottle to my baby.. Truthfully, I won't let my baby go hungry (although many mommies will say "Babies have reserve in their tummy for a few days), I just won't take the chance of a baby going hungry, I will still go by the guidelines in feeding my newborn :)
My prefect solution would be supplementary nursing system, the one offered by Medela is pretty good, I will use that during "the waiting time for milk to come.. " I would supplement my newborn with some formula milk using what it called "Supplementary Nursing System" I will put some formula milk inside the tube and feed my baby from my breast, just like shown in the picture
Another solution is to use syringe feeding, it's a replacement of bottle. It will at least prevent nipple confusion.. I will put some formula milk in the syringe and feed my baby :)
Image credited from Medela website
Having said that, I will still try my very best to latch my baby on and do milk pumping to stimulate milk production.. Once my milk comes, I will feed my baby exclusive breast milk :)
2. Feeding
When baby EJ was 2 months old, I swore he was the most difficult baby to feed.. He would cry, get upset or fall asleep during feeding and it took us 1 hour just to feed 100ml of milk.. It was very frustrating for us.. We were constantly worried if he had enough food and we often force-fed him when he was sleeping..
When I have baby #2, I wouldn't want to feed my baby during sleeping time.. I would just let my baby to sleep peacefully and feed after the baby wakes up.. We heard that sleeping is good for brain development, better than eating, so why would we disturb that on-going development process? We will take it easy!
3. Bottles
We will ONLY use anti-colic bottles.. The newborn baby EJ was fed with normal bottle and he was a little colicky.. Could it be the bottle? Next baby, we will do more research on the feeding bottles and promise to learn more before buying
4. Clothing
Oh boy, baby EJ has so many clothes and some clothes, he didn't even have the chance to wear it because he had out-grown his clothes before he had the chance to wear it!
When we have baby #2, we will buy less clothing, re-use baby #1's clothes and of course buy bigger size clothes.. Plus don't buy more than 2 pcs of "going-out" clothes for each size (although it can be very tempting).. Baby stays at home and doesn't go out that often!
5. Crying is OKAY
We used to get really stressed out when baby EJ cried hysterically. But hey, relax, when we have baby #2, we will stay calm and be convinced that crying is totally okay and normal!
6. Sleeping on tummy is OKAY too
Baby EJ sleeps on his tummy at night and as first time parents, we were very worried and we heard from a friend that sleeping on tummy all the time could squeeze baby's little organs..
We have checked this from our pedi and it's totally OKAY for baby to sleep on tummy.. so relax!
7. Baby Skin Care
I bought a lot of unnecessary skin care products for baby EJ from the market, I was lured by the super convincing advertisements and you know what, almost 80% of it gone to waste.. Baby EJ is now using skin care as prescribed by his pedi for different skin care needs
When we have baby #2, we will trust the pedi for any skin care products :) (Baby will often get skin rashes and doctor's prescription is much better than any commercial products in the market)
8. No Vit D + other supplements needed for breastfed baby
We let baby EJ drank Vit D + Iron once (as prescribed by his pedi, although he was a full term baby with no other complications and with no blood test done prior his supplements prescription), what happened was his poop becoming super stinky, unlike the usual sour poop scent and the color was scary algae green.. We stopped giving him supplements, did our research and we found out that breastfed babies don't need supplement! The breastfeeding mother should take prenatal vitamins and it will be transferred to the baby via breast milk
So, when we have baby #2, there will be no Vit D + other supplements when the baby is absolutely healthy.. Don't try to fix if it ain't broken!
9. Mommy's weight gain
When I was pregnant with EJ, I had this mindset that I was eating for 2, so I pigged out whenever I had the chance, as the result, I gained 25 kg during pregnancy and it's just crazy to gain that much weight..
Next pregnancy, I promise myself to eat in moderation with some extra calories, but definitely not to eat for 2..
10. Walking & Carrying weight during pregnancy is OKAY
When I was pregnant with baby EJ, I was too afraid to walk for long or to carry weight (even a little), thinking it could hurt the baby
I promise, next pregnancy, I won't worry about this because I know it's totally FINE
That's about it!!
I guess I have more to share, but for a mother with only 4 months experience in taking care an infant, this is all what I can think of.. I will definitely share again when I learn more from taking care baby EJ, I hope you, mothers to be or new mothers find this post useful and yeah Good Luck!
Until Next Time,
Momma Netty
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