Travelling to Penang - Day 2

Today is my second day away from Little Jen and Hubby. I just done pumping a total of 5oz and again, this will have to go down the drain. Chilled expressed breast milk (EBM) has to be consumed within 3 days from expression but there is no way my Little Jen will have access to this EBM. I will only be back after another 3 days of travelling.

Mummy is really tired and really missing Little Jen. Daddy put on the webcam and had Mummy on but seemed like Little Jen could not recognise Mummy's face or voice at all. He showed not reactions. Probably the resolution was too poor and the sound was too different. Little Jen could not have forgotten Mummy, I am sure (*smile*).

Travelling to Penang - Day 1

Finally at 9.30pm, I get to pump and release myself from engorgement. I have been nursing Little Jen only at night for about 2 months now and therefore, I am really surprised that I am still able to get about 10oz within 15 minutes of pumping.

Here comes the sad part, on the way here to Penang from KL, I kept my ice packs with 6 cans of Oldtown White Coffee in a polystyrene box. Along the way, I stopped in Batu Gajah and Chemor for customer visits. Had dinner along the way to my hotel on Penang island and by the time I checked into my hotel, the ice packed were all molten but the Oldtown White Coffee was still cold. This means if I freeze my expressed breast milk (EBM), they will not stay frozen for 12 hours until I reach home.

So, tonight and tomorrow morning's milk will have to go wasted. I have no way to bring them back (*sob*sob*).

I miss Little Jen so much! And, Hubby too of course. This is the longest time I am away from them since the boirth of Little Jen..

Little Jen on Formula Milk during day time

I had completely stopped nursing or expressing breast milk for Little Jen between 8am to 6pm in the evening since he was 8 and a half months old. He relied on the expressed breast milk stored in the fridge for more than a month and finally he finished the last pack. So, now, I am buying him S-26 formula milk for 6-12 months old.

During his stay in the nursery right on his first few days out of the womb, he was fed with that particular brand of milk. No allergies and discomfort. So, shall be buying that for him until he can take cow's milk which is A LOT MORE ECONOMICAL. One large can of S-26 only lasts him for less than 2 weeks, and mind you, he only takes formula milk between 8am to 6pm, which is about 4 feedings in total.

Good thing he was exclusively breastfed in the first 6 months and then continued with EBM during the day and nursing at night for the following 4 months. That is a lot of savings!

Travelling while STILL Breastfeeding

Buzzy Mummy will be travelling whole of next week to some foreign land, not so far away. Shall be in Ipoh, Penang and Kedah. Shall be bringing all my Breastfeeding Gadgets along and do what I have to do when I have to. However, on the last day of my business trip, I shall have to bring along all my Expressed Breast Milk (EBM) along with me for a whooping 12 hours! I have to buy a new chiller box big enough to keep all of them inside and along the way, shall have to buy ice cubes to help keep the milk chilled or prevent  the frozen ones from thawing. Ice packs will not be sufficient.

Hopefully everything will go smoothly as planned (*wink*)!

Breastfeeding at Work - Gadgets

Breastfeeding while working sure need some help in order to maintain supply.

I am using the following pump. It is a single electronic pump but in actual fact, it is a 3-in-1. Manual, electric and battery. I usually bring all out when I am outside so that I can pump manually if there is no electric point or use the battery if I am too lazy to pump manually.

Only the electronic parts i.e. the elctronic head and battery casings are kept in the bag shown above. I got the bag free by buying S-26 Mama milk powder and it is really useful and suitable to be used this way.

The rest of the parts including the baby bottles and manual pump will go into the bag below.

And for storage of the milk, I am using pre-sterilized bags as shown below. The benefit of using bags to store the milk instead of bottles is that it is more convenient. The bags are already pre-sterilised and so, you can just pour the milk directly into it and then prepare to be kept in the fridge or freezer. I used to label the bags with date, volume and time. Later, I became lazier and labeled only with the date and volume.

Labelling with dates is very important as that will give you an indication of the expiry date. Chilled milk can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 days and frozen milk can be kept up to 3 months.

When I am home, I will seal the bags using a heat sealer which is actually a really good investment. By heat sealing, you can leave the bags flat to freeze in the freezer compartment. Once frozen, you can keep them like the way you arrange books.

I kept the milk in this manner in separate plastic bags according to the month the milk was expressed. This is important so that we can keep track of the expiry date by batches since we do not want to throw any expried milk out, it will be such a waste.

When I am outstation, I will use cable tie to seal the bags. This is a cheaper option but may take up a lot of freezer space.

Ice packs are must-have necessity especially since I am doing Marketing and I can spend whole 8 hours out of house or office. This is to keep the milk chilled until I am able to store them in the fridge or freezer.

For hygiene purpose, I have a separate scissors for cutting and slitting when the need arises i.e. to separate the pieces of bags and to cut open any milk storage bags.



Oh, last piece of advise - Always store the milk in 2-3oz and nothing more! I had so many stored in 5-oz quantity cause I wanted to save on the milk storage bags.

My son rarely take 5-oz at one-go and I had no choice but to throw the balance as thawed milk must be consumed within an hour and cannot be frozen again for storage.  

Little Jen - Fever Again..

This time, Little Jen seemed to have fever since noon yesterday because he kept resting his head on our shoulders whenever we carried him around. Only at night we could all feel that his body temperature had risen. In the middle of the night, measured his temperature with a thermometer and it read 38.1 deg C. Since it was not considered high fever and he did not seem to be disturbed in any way, I did not wake him up for medicine. The next morning, fed him with rice cereal and fever syrup which was given about 2 weeks ago. Poor him, fever again after slightly more than 2 weeks from the previous one.

Pray that Little Jen will be a stronger boy after each and every fever, cough and flu.

House Renovation - Budget

Hubby and I bought a house back in 2009 and that was almost 2 years ago. It is a double storey 18 x 65 ft terrace, freehold and is located in Cheras. Now, 2 years later, the house has appreciated about 30%.

We are eagerly waiting for calls and letters from the developer to inform us to obtain the keys from them. May be in March or April 2011. Hopefully soon..

In the meanwhile, no time is wasted as we are busy checking out on quotations for kitchen extension. The kitchen backyard is about 18 x 4 ft and though Hubby was not in favour, I insisted to fully extend the kitchen as 4ft is still a lot of space to be wasted. The kitchen cabinet will be in a straight line and total will be about 17ft long, minus the fridge area.

Oh, we have bought our fridge and also booked the hood, hob and oven.

The balcony will be fenced with concrete walls and the window at the master bed room will be converted into sliding doors with steps. Since the porch will be left with no space after parking 2 cars, I shall have to use the balcony as my little garden. This should be pretty beautiful, I hope.

We are looking at not more than RM45k for the whole house's renovation, plus furniture and electrical appliances. Let's see how much all this will add up to, hopefully they will be within budget, within reach (*smile*).

Teething - 9 Months Old

Little Jen still has only 7 little pearls in his tiny little mouth. The last of the 7 teeth sprouted when he was 7 months old. So, I was expecting his 8th to sprout when he reached 8 months old. Now, he is already 9 months old and still there are only 7. I guess I can only be thankful that he has 7 which is better than none at all. But I just cannot wait to see his next little pearl growing out of his gums. Hopefully soon (*wink*).

Breastfeeding at Work - Schedule after 8 Months

When Little Jen was 8 months old, I began to relax on my breastfeeding schedule. I lengthen the time in between pumps for e.g instead of pumping between 8-9am and lunch time, I was pumping only at lunch time. Then after work, I breastfeed Little Jen directly and refrained from pumping unless I felt too engorged.

Eventually, I was able to go through the whole working day without any pumping. That meant from 9am till 5pm, plus minus an hour or two. The good part was that I suddenly felt I had so much extra time and I could spend more time with my Little Jen.

After doing so for about 1 month now, I am facing low milk supply. Little Jen is now only able to nurse happily right after my working hours and the following meals until his bedtime, he has to count on the expressed breast milk stored in the freezer. I am happy that it looks like the supply will be enough to last for a another month or two.

When he cries for milk in the middle of the night, I am still nursing him directly but I guess this will also be gone soon. Appreciating the moments while I am still still experiencing it (*smile*).

Breastfeeding at Work - Schedule in First 7 Months

Breastfeeding for working Mummies is no easy task but with the help of the following, things are much more convenient. Although I am working at home, I still made sure that I did what other Mummies would do when they were out at work while still breastfeeding their babies.

My Little Jen would have his last feed in the morning at about 7am and then between 9am and 10am, I would pump once. The next session would be during lunch and the last session would be after 5pm. The rest of the day, I would nurse my Little Jen on demand.

When I was outstation for business, I would pump again at between 9pm and 10pm and then again between 6am and 7am. That would mean pumping 5 times a day. However, 5 times a day was only good for few days, longer than that, the milk supply would drop quite significantly.

That was in my case, I am sure, every individual is different.

Little Jen Down with Flu, Cough and Sorethroat

I guess it is the season again where a lot of people will fall prey to the hot weather. My Mother In Law was first to get attacked by sorethroat and cough, and soon, the whole family including my Hubby got infected. Little Jen was infected slightly earlier than myself.

It started with running nose and that night itself, I woke up suddenly to find Little Jen feeling hot all over. I got worried and chucked a digital thermometer in his armpit while he was still asleep. The thermometer reading went up to a shocking 38.8 deg C. In the middle of the night, there was no way we would get any Doctor to have a look at our baby. I immediately went to get Little Jen's fever syrup prescribed by the Doctor when he had fever last 2 months. Woke Little Jen up and fed him the syrup. He cried a little but went back into deep sleep very soon after that. To help relieve the heat, I put a wet towel on his forehead and checked on him for the next 2 hours. Finally, his temperature seemed to reduced a little and I dozed off to sleep myself unknowingly... Too tired I guess. Little Jen had not been a good sleeper for the past 2-3 nights, so, obviously, I was affected too.

The next day, Little Jen's fever had subsided but he still had running nose and it also sounded like he had a bad throat. Went to the Doctor for check up.

We also told the Doctor about Little Jen's fever and he commended that the fever was considered high for a baby of 8 1/2 months old. He gave us some medication which was to be inserted though the anus, just in case of any high fever next time. That would really be helpful, especially when Doctors are out of reach.