During the Thanksgiving holiday, Nina was constipated. Possibly due to the change of environment, busy outing, or the introduction of the new solid food; banana. Soon after we got home, I smelled her poo, so I asked Ron to change her diaper. Sure enough, it was a poo. He told me to come over. She was still going. I figured this is the perfect opportunity to introduce EC (elimination communication) to Nina, since we caught the action. I brought over the brand new Baby Bjorn potty seat, and let her sit while I made a sound of grunting, like nGoooh. (This will be the cue sound next time). As I kept making the sound, her poo kept coming out. It was the longest log I've ever seen from her!



Later the day, I saw her looking like she's wanting to go again. I quickly took her diaper off and put her on the potty, and made the cue sound.  Amazingly, she went for another log!!!  I was so thrilled and motivated to try again, especially after feeling hesitant about starting EC.  It was a successful start.

As she starts solid food, her poo has become thicker and pasty. Today, we were so proud of her that she completed the avocado meal (even thicker than yesterday), took a bottle and drank about an ounce without crying, and took a nap on her crib twice!!! At each nap, she fussed for a while, but I kept patting her back and sang a lullaby softly and eventually she stopped crying and fell asleep. Today was an example of feeling-good day.

Downs-

Lately Nina wakes up a lot duing the night. She goes to bed around 7pm, I dream feed her between 11 and midnight. She wakes up around 3am, sometimes 1am when it's worse. Then 5, then 6... Finally I decide to get up after 7am. She used to fall right back to sleep after I feed her. But lately she's been more awake and very vocal in the middle of night for this past week or so. Usually I find her awake, on her tummy, talking something like "mMamamamah~~". And it gets louder, if I don't do anything. I'm hoping that this is due to the developmental phase, (introduction of solid food, or something) and is temporary, cuz it's not fun being sleep-deprived.

Ups-

It has been 10 days since we introduced her solid food. And she finally appeared to have mastered swallowing puréed food.

We started with a table spoon of home-made brown rice cereal, mixed with breast milk for 4 days. Then did the oatmeal in the same way for 4 days. After that, we moved on to avocado. Today was the 2nd day of avocado. I learned the lesson from day 1, and I used 1/4 of avocado, puréed and thinned with 1-2 tbsp of breast milk. The consistency was so perfect that she completed the meal! We liked avocado because it's less messy.

Nina hates bottle feeding. it's not that she doesn't know how to use it. In fact, she used to use it in the very beginning when I was supplementing formula for about a week. But now, she's so used to be comforted and nourished by the breasts that she refuses the bottle. She would even skip meal if I'm not available to nurse. We hate to hear her scream but Oh well, we gotta keep trying.

Yey! She is napping like a baby today. I was able to put her to sleep on a bed successfully by using a pacifier. It's the first time in a while that she's napping on a bed, not while I hold,, nor in a car seat.

Lesson: Try the trick that didn't work earlier. It may work now.

These are the two pairs of pants I made recently with old sweaters. These will keep the baby warm during the freezing New York winer.

It is super easy to make - you just trace the pants that fits the baby to create a pattern, cut the fabric, and sew them together.

I finally start noticing some hair growth in her head and eye brows.  It feels a little fuzzy, like she's going to have a curly hair. 

We keep our car on the street. And I have to move the car twice a week in the morning, typically between 8:30-10am for street cleaning. It sucks but I utilize the time for grocery shopping/ Nina's morning nap opportunity.

Although Nina still hates her car seat/ car ride, she often takes a morning cat nap during the trip, otherwise she hardly sleeps at home around this time of the day.