Baby Friendly Shopping Center - Ikea

I begun to fall in love with shopping@Ikea especially bringing cubbies along. Its very baby-friendly environment which is so convenient for us. 

• The spacious setting allows us to push around the single & double stroller conveniently, we do not create obstructions towards other diners even after parking the strollers next to the table.
• Lots of baby high chairs are made available, especially we need to get 3 
• Availability & location of Baby room which is near to the restaurant.
• Baby room provides free disposable diaper.
• Very comfortable baby room with warm lightings.
• Availability of Hot water at the restaurant which makes our carrier bag lighter.
• There's microwave where I could heat up baby food.
• Minimal noise pollution.
• Refillable coffee/soft drinks.
• Children area with TV.

Solid Food - Bananas

Cubbies are trying new food again...

Today is Bananas!

Early in the morning, after changing cubbies into their playsuits & send them downstairs, I start to prepare their breakfast.

Breakfast:
Rice Cereal with Banana Puree

6 tablespoon of rice cereal mix with milk

2 ripe bananas - blended (suppose to mash it, but it is too time consuming)

Mix the banana puree with the rice cereal

Final result - Banana Rice Cereal

Cubbies love it.  Bananas gave the sweet & fragrant flavouring to the plain rice cereal.
The cons - have to serve fast, cos the bananas will turn brown in very short time.

After breakfast, wanted to try if cubbies ready for some munching action.
Tried letting cubbies biting the whole banana (of course, with me holding on to it)
To my surprised, cubbies know how to bite the banana from my hand & start to munch it.
They love it, especially cubby HungHung, he kept asking for more.

Hence, I'd decided to give lumpier food for cubbies during lunch time.

Lunch:
6 Tbsp Smashed Potatoes &
Munchy Bananas

This time, instead of blending or mashing the bananas, I use cutting method.
I cut the bananas into very small cubes - the size that brings no choking hazard.

small tiny cubes of bananas

Cubbies took some time to get used to the lumpy texture.
Will try it again tmr.

Triple joy: Helena and Kenz’s amazing birth story.

28 April 2011 at 11:28

Helena and Kenz’s first pregnancy joy tripled when they found out that they were going to have triplets. They share their amazing journey from pregnancy till the birth of their three boys Evanz, Enrique and Eytan Lee.

The best Chinese New Year gift


Helena:
It was around Chinese New Year (February 2011) and I was around 10 weeks pregnant when our excited doctor showed us three heartbeats on the computer during an ultrasound scan.

Our (or rather Kenz’s) initial reaction was one of disbelief. The triplets were conceived naturally and since there was no history of twins on both sides of our families, we were naturally surprised. We informed our families immediately - they shared our surprise, joy and excitement.


Finding the right hospital


Kenz:
Our first few antenatal checkups were at a private hospital in Selangor.

In the meantime, we were still looking at various options as to where Helena would deliver our babies. This was no ordinary pregnancy and we knew that apart from our need for quality medical care, we also had to take into account the cost factor as having triplets was going to be expensive. We not only had to account for the delivery cost but also for the neonatal care for prematurely-born babies, common in the cases of multiple births.

Government hospitals provide antenatal care and delivery services at minimal cost so we made trips to a few hospitals within Kuala Lumpur and Selangor such as the Universiti Malaya (UM) Hospital and their Specialist Centre (UMSC), the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKM) and Selayang Hospital.

Finally, we decided on Selayang Hospital. We felt that this was the most baby-friendly hospital (for us) and it had an impressive NICU unit.

Although Selayang Hospital is a government hospital, we chose to with a ‘full paying patient scheme’for the antenatal care. We paid more for the medical services and got to choose our medical specialist (for birth and antenatal care). We also had shorter waiting-time during our visits and got ultrasound scans every month.

These medical checkups including the scan, blood tests, medications and supplements cost us around RM60 per visit.


Three-in-one delivery


Kenz:
Carrying our triplets was hard on Helena even as early as second trimester. On doctor’s advice, we had to be extra careful and I helped to ensure Helena had a lot of bed rest with limited walking and no other strenuous activities including cooking or washing.

We were advised to prepare ourselves for an early c-section delivery. The initial estimate for delivery was at 34 weeks. However, Helena’s water bag broke at 32 weeks and she had to have an emergency caesarean.

Helena:
Our three little ‘cubbies’ (they were born in the year of the tiger) Evanz, Enrique and Eytan arrived on August 11, 2010. They were healthy with birth weights of 1.8kg, 1.6kg and 1.1kg.


It was overall a very positive birth experience as we were comfortable with the doctors and well cared for by the rest of the medical team.


Postnatal care


Kenz:
After her delivery, Helena stayed for about a week in a private room at Selayang Hospital. The whole cost for both the c-section delivery and for her week-long stay at the hospital cost us less than RM1,000.

We went back to Selayang Hospital for Helena’s postnatal check-ups twice. We also registered at a government Mother and Child Health Clinic near Petaling Jaya, Klinik Ibu Dan Anak Kampong Dato Harun, that provided free infant checkups and routine immunisations for our babies.

Helena:
I was well cared for at Selayang Hospital with plenty of encouragement and guidance on breastfeeding my triplets. Although the hospital serves vegetarian food (I am a vegetarian), I opted for home-cooked meals. All my confinement food was prepared by my mother-in-law.

My babies stayed for almost a month in the NICU unit at Selayang Hospital. It was a confined area, strictly parents only with 24-hour care. They were breastfed throughout.


Feeling blessed (three times over)

Helena:
We are indeed very tired but also very happy parents. We are also proud and see our boys as triple blessings from God.

Also, I am extremely grateful that we chose Selayang Hospital for their optimum medical care and for the fact that we didn’t have to mortgage our house to get it!

Kenz:
Selayang Hospital felt like a private hospital; everything was clean and new with plenty of warm and caring doctors and nurses.

At times, looking at my three identical boys, it almost feels surreal. I am indeed thankful that we were blessed with triplets and for Helena’s overall healthy and smooth delivery.

I do occasionally think about having twins next – girls this time!

Published in www.babycenter.com.my

The triplets were once so small & tiny...

Was looking thru my birth photos and it seems like this is the first time I actually look at every picture in detail.

Trying to identify the triplets cubbies but all babies do look alike. I could only judge it from the sequence of photos taken.

Saw one of the photo where baby cubby-Syuen was taken with me, he was so small and tiny. He's just like the size of my big head. And now, the 3 of them are growing up healthily. I'm so blessed!

Till now, I could still recall the moment I heard their first cry. I was so excited at that moment and glad they were safely delivered. They even had a mini orchestra to show their happiness in the arrival.

Thank you to all the O&G, Operation & Paediatric Team (which consisting almost 20 professional personnels) who did a great job!

Baby Cubby's first kiss

Baby Cubby-Syuen (2nd Triplet) peeping at cubby angel or may be he is sensitive to camera

Homemade Cereal for Triplets - Barley

Trying out new grains for triplet's porridge - BARLEY

This requires slightly more tedious steps in preparation.

Barley

After grinding it with blender - several time of grind & sieve

Results of quite fine barley powder

Cooking the fine barley powder gives very smooth creamy texture. Sometimes I do add in a bit of the less fine barley pieces to create slightly lumpier texture.

Optionally, I tried cooking the barley from the whole barley and then blend it. It looks like Barley Purée! Texture: very smooth & starchy (add in more water to reduce the starchiness)

Cubbies prefer this texture

Shopping @ Ikea

I'm so proud of little cubbies today. I kept telling cubbies & cubbydaddy about how well behave they were throughout the 5 hours shopping at Ikea.

We had spent 2 hours having lunch at Ikea Restaurant. Cubbies were happily sitting on the baby high chair. They sat on the high chair playing with toys and at times enthusiastically wanted to grab the food from the table. I regret not bringing their food along. During the lunch, we had our meals; cubbies had their milk. Many diners were staring at us, but we are getting used to the 'fame'. Some diners will approach us to 'confirm' what they saw are true -- seeing triplets; some will just observe from afar and quietly pointing to each other to look at us. Today a malay family of 5 were sitting next to our table, they were excited with cubbies, (As usual, Malays believe this is 'Rezeki') they even offered to carry HungHung & JuinJuin. They managed to put HungHung to sleep. Thanks to them, cubbies were entertained while we enjoyed the refillable coffee.

After lunch, we start to shop for baby stuffs which we'd planned to buy. HungHung helped in choosing the night light between the pink flower or the green firefly. He was quite determined on his decision on the pink flower, even though I'd swap the position of the both several times. Obviously, he'd understand what is decision making.

Bought 2 of the night lights since one will looks lonely on the wall.

Other than night lights, we bought 2 baby high chair. With these 2 additions to the current high chair at home, cubbies will be able to have their meals together which would save my time. Feeding one at a time is very time consuming. With 3 of them around, we have to carefully plan and manage our time. We have to constantly evaluate and improve the daily activities in order to be more efficient.

Rashes!

This is the 3rd day Cubby Hung has rashes all over his face. Not really sure what is it, the rashes only appeared on his face. But today, there are some on his left hand.

Last 2 days applied papaw ointment on his face, since it does not show any improvement, today I had decided to stop the papaw ointment and instead apply cooling water powder (bedak sejuk). I remembered during pregnancy when the acnes on my back itch, I apply cooling water powder all over my back. The cooling sensation can help to ease the itchiness. Hope it works for cubby Hung.

Could it be food allergy? Although he had started new puree 2 days ago, pear sauce shouldn't be giving any allergic.
Could it be eczema?? Not sure.. just continue to observe it. Hope it will reside by tomorrow, else have to consult doctor.

Tips on Dressing up baby after Bath

Bathing baby is not the most tiring and exhausting thing.... the dressing up part takes up more energy and time.

The challenges of dressing up baby
When the triplets were younger, changing or dressing them is quite effortless.

However, as they had master the rolling over action (at around 4-5months), they tends to roll over once or twice during a diaper change.

6-7 months, when they are able to roll both ways & start crawling, they have the tendency to keep flipping over. And they will start to crawl away too.

Now, when they are 8-9 months, they had mastered efficient crawling skill. The moment they are placed down, immediately they wriggle to free himself and crawl away. This make changing a real sweating and challenging chore.

Tips on attracting baby's attention
When they were younger (4-5 months), I will usually keep a soft ball in the room which they won't be playing it throughout the day except after the bath. This is to keep the toy 'fresh' and 'new' to them. Once the ball is given to him, then he will quietly explore the ball with his fingers & tongue too. This allow us to have ample time to apply lotion and dress up the baby.

For 6-7 months, try dressing them up in front of a mirror. It works great for my triplets. They enjoy watching the baby in the mirror and start to converse with them. With this distraction, dressing up became easier.

Now, with great sitting, crawling and standing skill, it's no longer possible to dress them up with them laying down, unless there's an interesting toy for him to 'chew' on. Try changing in sitting position (when he's able to sit unsupported), or even with the baby in standing position (provided he's able to stand independently or grab on tightly on your shirt). Standing is an interesting activity for baby who is learning to balance. But have to be careful as he'll tumble down any moment.