5 months old

Another month has passed.... baby Erin is now 5 months old !


About her:

1. Weight - 6.5kg

2.She still smiles a lot, though slightly less than a month ago. She loves to "talk" i.e. shriek away in a high pitch voice when someone talks to her.

3. She knows how to grab things now.

4. Drinks a higher proportion of formula milk compared to breast milk these days. Starting from last week it's an average of 2 bottles of breast milk (5oz each) and 3 bottles of formula (5.5oz each) on weekdays. Some days, ratio is 3 bottles of breast milk to 2 bottles of formula. On weekends, it's either none or 1 bottle of formula.
*sigh* I seem to be a on a losing battle with breastfeeding :(

5. Had her first taste of medicine last month due to slight fever and flu. Luckily nothing serious.
(I was a bit surprised though. Thought breast milk should give her better immune system. Elyssa jie jie had much less breast milk but has a stronger immune system.
But one common thing with jie jie is that Erin seemed to enjoy the medicine. ha ha)

6. She loves it when I blow into her belly button. Normally chuckles in glee!

How much Breastmilk??

I'm confused...... how much milk should a 4 and half month baby take??

I've just upped my expressed breast milk from 4 to 4.5oz per bottle BUT Erin cries for more milk after approx 2 to 2.5 hours when she has been on a 3 hour cycle for quite a while now.

She takes about 5 and a half feeds a day (half for the midnight nursing) so that works out to approx 25oz per day.

My supply just can't keep up to her demand. I get only an average of 30z when I pump in the office so I need 3, sometimes 4 pumping sessions to get TWO bottles of milk.

I have been steadily draining my EBM stash of precious 21 bottles collected before I started work and supplementing with 1 bottle of formula a day during weekdays. (On weekends, she's fully on breastmilk, but I end up feeding her every 2 hours)

She just finished her box of formula, so I went hunting for another box just now. Got a big shock when I saw the required intake for her age. Enfalac - EIGHT ounces. S26 - SIX ounces.

So much? And I thought 4.5oz of breastmilk is a lot for her age. Have I been underfeeding her? Then again, my sis said her baby Jo Ern drank 3oz per bottle until almost 1 year old. Using that as a comparison, am I overfeeding Erin?

I ended up buying S26 just now. So does that mean she should take 4.5oz when it's EBM and 6oz when it's formula? Or should I increase my EBM to 6oz per bottle? (which means I need to pump twice to get one bottle. Aaaargh!)

I'm CONFUSED!!!????!!! Help!


ps: 1. She is gaining weight. Quite round these days.
2. She takes ALL of whatever offered to her.

Ipoh Trip

The main purpose of our Ipoh trip last weekend was to visit hubby's grandma who had a fall in the house (luckily she's ok already). Since we were back, we also combined it as a eating and "sightseeing" trip. He hee....sightseeing in inverted commas cos this is our own hometown!

1)1st stop - Taman Rekreasi Gunung Lang
Our first time there.

At the entrance

Nice and serene place

BUT boats were not working so couldn't go across the lake like we planned to.

Only other activity was to feed fish (*yawn*)
Luckily, Elyssa enjoyed it.
She spent almost 20 minutes throwing the fish biscuit ONE-by-ONE into the water.

Baby Erin with MIL
I think this is a lovely photo :)

2) Next stop was to Ling Seng Tong cave.
I've been there a couple of times before. Nicer than the more famous Sam Poh Tong.

Outside

Inside

More fish feeding
With Elyssa's ONE-by-ONE feeding, the RM1 packet of fish food (bought at our first stop) lasted very long!

Our "sightseeing" ended with late lunch at Nam Heong kopitiam for fried kway teow and white coffee. I wanted their famous egg tarts but there was a long queue so I didn't bother.

That night, Elyssa had a fun time jumping on the hotel bed like a little monkey. She happily sang the "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed" song :)

Yummy Food

We were in Ipoh over the Hari Raya Haji long weekend. I'm drooling just thinking of the yummy food we had :)

Springy beef balls

@row of hawker stalls near Sam Tet school

Fresh fruits and Ice cream over shaved ice
@ the same hawker area. RM4 only!

Assorted "liu" and fat crunchy bean sprouts
@ Kum Kee coffee shop in Pasir Pinji

Ipoh White Coffee
@ Nam Heong in Old Town

J&J Swissrolls
This is the 1st batch we got. Box #1 - coffee walnut & chocolate. Box #2 - assorted mini swissrolls. For the 2nd batch (no photos), we bought cempadak & durian plus another pack of assorted mini rolls.

So much good food, so little tummy space!!!