Love is a friendship set to music.: June 2016

I was scrolling down old photographs of Reena and Irman when they were babies. Idros and I sacrificed a LOT to provide them with their daily essentials. We wanted them to have the best comfort a baby could have. Reena, being the first, and us being first time parents at that time was naturally fussed more.

I recalled sleepless nights with Reena. She will cry every hour or two and it will be extremely exhausting (especially while I was recovering from c-section) to move up and down to her crib. We ended up letting her sleep with us on the bed. We bought Graco Crib which had an automated self vibrating button and it played lullabies as well. We turned it on if Reena did not cooperate in sleeping. My friends gave us an auto bouncer as a gift. The bouncer bounces and emits lullabies as well automatically at a touch of a button. This worked better in putting Reena and Irman to bed. Despite that, we had a Yao Lan as well to soothe them to sleep.

Irman was an easy baby. He slept through the night. The only problem he had was the 20 minutes demand of milk supply. I didn't have much milk, but the lactation nurse from Parkway East kept reminding me that a mother's milk is best for newborns until preferably, 6 months. It was quite stressful for me. I took supplements to ensure that Reena and then Irman had sufficient breast milk. I took fenugreek pills and bought teeth tissues to clean their gums after each feeding.

To boost the milk supply, I expressed while direct latched my children. Was definitely not easy. But alhamdulillah, I managed to breastfeed them for 7-8 months.

I had a funny feeling that I will not have much milk supply, so I geared up some milk powder as well, for this we did our little research and purchased Babynat Organic milk powder from France for Reena, (both Reena and Irman consumed a mixture of milk powder and breast milk), it was a bit difficult at that time to purchase it so we switched to S26, Bellamy's Organic, all of which did not work well for Reena. Then finally, until now, she drinks Friso, Irman drinks the same milk powder brand straight after birth as well ( we were physically and mentally prepared when Irman came along).

We were again, new and overly excited parents, who wanted to ensure that Reena does not get colic or and upset tummy after each feeding, we did our research and bought her Dr Brown's bottles. It was the original creator of bottle vents which supposedly

Helps reduce feeding problems
Helps preserve vitamins
Helps digestion
Vent and nipple create vacuum-free feeding

It worked okay, until it came to washing the vents, the vents were extremely narrow which required extra attention during every wash. They even had a special brush to brush down the vent. We find it frustrating and a hassle, Reena was more than happy in drinking from Piegeon brand milk bottles. We then slowly converted her bottles to that. Irman was relatively easy, he drank using Avent's Natural bottles, up till now.

Then came the question of skin care products. I noticed Reena was allergic to Johnsons' baby products. Did my fair of research, liked Buds Organics the best and restocked Buds Organics proudcts monthly. Reena had a bad case of nappy rash at one time, we used Buds Organics Nappy Rash treatment cream and it worked really well. I even did a good review on their website and facebook page on it. Alhamdulillah. Even Irman had sensitive skin, Irman initially used Maison Boo's Organics, it was only available at NTUC Xtra at Changi Business Park, which was quite a hassle for me to purchase. We switched to Little Innoscents, which was then discontinued by Mothercare. That was when we switched his skin care products to Buds Organics as well. I love the smell. I love the products. As they grew older and their skin have become more adaptable to other skin care products, I started using Sebamed Baby, which worked quite well, but didn't smell as beautiful as Buds Organics.

Their strollers were a never ending story. Now, the in-thing is baby wearing (I used baby bjorn) but should have considered what mothers' are opting for now, the natural cloth baby wearing techniques, which seems to work much better as compared to baby bjorn. But 4 years back, strollers were widely used as compared to carriers. We bought Hauck stroller and baby seat for Reena. Shortly after we sold it and bought a lightweight Lucky Baby then Mama & Papa's stroller from a friend. When Irman came along, we bought a tandem stroller which was heavy. We finally switched to Quicksmart stroller, lightest and most compact by far. It can be folded and fits nicely into a bag. Which was not fully utilised after Irman was 18 months old. Hence, the seriousness of not buying too many strollers like I did.

(Behod, the evolution of strollers)

The pink pillow is a support pillow called sunggin go to ensure that babies are seated and heads are propped upright on their strollers/car seats/bouncers

Looking back, we sacrificed, worked hard and did everything we can to provide the best comfort to both Reena and Irman. We went a little crazy, but learnt our lesson afterwards. Parenting is exhausting, financially strenuous on the pockets, time consuming, but above all rewarding. Reflecting back on what we did, made us realise how much they mean to us, and how much we love them. The most rewarding bit is to see them grow healthily.

Reena as a newborn.