The 1st Month Milestone

Dear Little Nomi,

If there’s one thing you will learn about your Mummy, it is that I am not the best at meeting deadlines, especially deadlines that I set myself, like trying to post a 1-month update on you on the day you turn 1 month old. I have other good qualities, I promise.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about you. You, my sweet little angel, who have waltzed ever so quietly into our hearts over this month. When we brought you home from the hospital, we couldn’t believe that a baby could sleep so much, and sleep over and above all the ruckus that was going on around her. From the first day, you’ve shrugged off the noise and your brother clambering all over you with ease. My colleagues Aunty HK and Aunty L came to visit the other day and marvelled at the fact that your were sleeping — and continued to sleep — soundly in your rocker throughout, oblivious to your Gor-Gor shouting and playing, our chatter, and the noise from the renovation work going on in the next block.

For this, we are extremely thankful. We prayed that we would have an easy baby, and you have been the answer to that prayer.

When your brother was younger, we could hardly ever bring him out and enjoy a meal together because he didn’t sleep that well, especially when out of the house. I remember looking enviously at other couples out for dinner dates with their baby sweetly asleep in the pram next to them wondering why we could never do the same. With you, we now get to be those people. We were, shall we say, more relaxed with the confinement period this time round and within the short 1 month of your life, we have brought you out a couple of times. Aside from the frequent jaunts downstairs, we brought you to the Botanics for a walk. You slept through it. We brought you to The Tanglin Tree for lunch. You slept through it. We brought you twice to the Paed to check your jaundice levels. Aside from crying for a minute each time when you were pricked for the blood test, you slept through everything, including the breakfasts that your Papa and I had at the hospital cafe both times.

You have fallen asleep every time I’ve put you in the sling, and you even seem to like to sleep in the stroller. What a miracle. Seriously.

The problem that I have is trying to wake you up. You, my dear, sleep like your Dad. Sleep is your top priority. As a result, you have no schedule because you just refuse to wake up when I want you to, or eat when you want to sleep. So for this month, we’ve mostly just gone with the flow. It surprisingly hasn’t been too bad because you showed that even after sleeping most of the morning and the whole afternoon away, you can still sleep at night. Wow. Still, I keep trying to keep you more awake in the day because lovely as your eyes are, I really don’t want to see them wide open in the middle of the night. And good as you are, there have been nights when it takes a while to get you back to sleep after a middle-of-the-night diaper change.

I wish I could get away with not changing your diaper in the night, but you do wet yourself quite a fair bit and I’d be faced with a full and leaky diaper (and wet bed) by morning if I didn’t. Plus the fact that you don’t stand for poop in your diaper too much. Fortunately you’ve only ever stayed up for an hour max. On most nights after the midnight feed, you only wake up once though, so it hasn’t been too bad at all. In fact, recently you’ve shown signs of cluster feeding around 8-10pm, then sleeping all the way till 3-4am. I’m hoping this continues!

In any case, we’ve discovered that your favourite position to sleep is on Papa’s chest/shoulder. I don’t blame you — I find it incredibly comfortable myself! Papa loves holding you anyway, and since we’ve discovered this, he’s been cuddling you a whole lot as you nod off to sleep. It’s also helped a lot of your gas issues as you burp more easily being held this way, and you’ve been grunting and releasing gas a lot less these days as a result.

I think all that sleeping has helped you pile on the pounds. We have not taken you to the Paed this month because your next appointment is a month away, but I am itching to weigh you, so we’ll see whether we can bring you in to borrow the scale sometime soon. You certainly have been heavy to carry around! I am surprised because you aren’t the greatest drinker. Then again, it might just be that I think that way because you nurse fairly quickly and it’s been necessary for me to pump quite a bit. When you drink from the bottle, you easily take in 90mls each time, sometimes a mere 2 hours after an earlier feed. I guess the cheeks tell the real story eh?

Sometimes it feels like the only way to wake you up is to give you a bath. You love this. You would stretch out and kick and we rarely hear a squeak from you while you’re in your private spa. Now if only you’ll stop that habit of peeing on me while I’m trying to wash your hair…

I must admit, it’s been fun having another girl in the house. At least I can finally go crazy with all that pink! It’s true, girls are that much more fun to dress and I’m enjoying dipping into your wardrobe and creating outfits for you. You have been blessed with a whole host of hand-me-downs all-round, so much so that I’m convinced that you have more clothes than I do. I can’t wait for when you are bigger and the dresses and skirts come into play!

I can’t write about our first month together without mentioning your brother, who has been there every step of the way. Our first month with you is admittedly rather different from our first month with him. You have had to share the attention with your Gor-Gor Noey, and I’ve sometimes just had to leave you to your own devices while I go sort him out and tend to his needs. I sometimes feel guilty about that and the fact that you have not been able to receive the full benefit of my attention.

But I comfort myself knowing that you get the privilege of having calmer, more seasoned parents, and more importantly, a built-in playmate of your own. Whether you know it or not, I know that your Gor-Gor Noey loves you. It’s been a bit difficult at times for him when Mummy has to spend time feeding, changing and carrying you, I’m therefore not able to do the same for him. But every chance he has, he will try to kiss you. I’m convinced that’s why you have so many pimples on your forehead!

But aside from the manhandling, your Gor-Gor Noey has also tried to involve you in some of his activities. We went for a walk together, the 3 of us, and your Gor-Gor Noey spied a large snail by the side of the path which he got very excited about. After exclaiming about it, he surprised me by turning to you and saying “Mei-Mei! Did you see that? It’s a huge snail!”. I was so happy to hear him say that.

I know in my heart of hearts that the two of you are going to be close, even if you do drive each other crazy occasionally.

Welcome to the family little Nomi. We are so glad to have you with us. Let’s see what next month will bring, shall we?