So what else is new with Nathan? He’s now into his ninth week and is talking a bit more. There’s more variation to the coos and gabbles he makes which is very funny. He’s also smiling a lot more which is so terrific each time he does it. Things that make him smile currently include: 1. Seeing mummy’s face pop above the crib in the morning 2. Listening to his musical toy in his baby gym 3. Mummy singing ‘I’m in the Lord’s Army’ and ‘Happy All the Time’ while helping him do the song actions with his arms Nathan is a very good baby most of then time. He hardly ever cries and even his cries are not the typical wailing type cries. He mostly makes ‘ah-ah’ noises in short bursts, pause for a while, then let out a slightly longer ‘aaaah’ , and pause again. He’ll repeat this until someone comes and see what he wants. He’s presently having a ‘witching hour’ phase every night around 8 or 9pm until bedtime. Sometimes its not very convenient as it’s the time where I’m trying to clea...

Some anecdotal updates… Hubby did his first hands on cloth nappy change last week! I had a mini workshop session to run him through our cloth nappy stash and show him how to use them. He was a little overwhelmed at first at the variety of cloth nappies but in the end he was fully supportive and on board the system. Nathan has grown. I know this for a fact because he can finally fit some of the clothes given to him which he was too small to wear at first. Here he is wearing his funky tie-dye onesie – pressie from his er-chiu. He wore it out on Sunday. It was also the day I decided the road test my Itti Bitti D’lish cloth nappy for an extended session out. We put it on at 9.30am and left for church. He nursed at 10.00am and I put him down for a nap. He slept soundly in the creche room all throughout service with no problems at all. I intended to change him around his next feed before we left for lunch about 1.00pm but we got so caught up getting organised to leave that we f...

How do you wash them? That’s the number one question surrounding the cloth nappy system. It was the number one question on my mind as well when I was first exploring this system . I used to think I had to do a lot of pre-washing, scrubbing and soaking with the nappies. My initial idea was that I had to keep a bucket of soapy water nearby to chuck the dirty nappies in to soak until laundry day. Sounds so mafan right? My thoughts exactly. Imagine my surprise when I learnt that you don’t have to do this. In fact it’s recommended that you don’t. They call it the dry pail method. Basically after removing a soiled nappy. It’s as simple as chucking it into a dry pail. Hence the name. Apparently soaking actually wears down the elastic on the modern cloth nappies and possibly sets in some stains more – which makes sense really now that I think of it. And why would I want a bucket of smelly gooey water, filled with slimy pieces of cloth sitting around my house? Pretty disgusting actually i...

So following the background story , here’s the overview of the cloth nappies I have and how I use them. I’m writing this mainly for the benefit of my hubby as a sort of pre-reading assignment prior to the hands-on workshop he will need to undergo soon! I have six types of nappies/nappy systems: 1. Basic flat muslin and prefolds The muslins you’re probably familiar with – there are different techniques of folding them to get them to fit well around baby’s bum. Prefolds are a step up – they are basically layers of cloth sewn together so you don’t need to go through any complicated steps to fold them. Here is what a pre-fold looks like… My favourite way of folding is the newspaper fold or angel wing fold and I secure the nappy with a snappi like this… However it does take some practice and can be challenging to execute with a wriggly baby while having to balance handling the previous poopy diaper and simultaneously avoid getting shot in the face with pee from baby. A couple...

After my last post on my foray into cloth diapering, I got few interested and curious comments. So I thought to expand a little bit more on what I’ve discovered about cloth diapering and how I’ve started applying it. Also, I need to get hubby in on the game as well… he’s observed me doing a couple of nappy changes, but has not done a hands-on one himself. He’s currently away on a company trip and said he’ll learn how to do it when he gets back. There’s quite a bit of knowledge and info to transfer, so since I know he reads my blog, what better way than to start the process with a bit of Intro to Cloth Diapering 101! (hehehe…) First of, how did I get into all this? Most of us are familiar with the muslin kain lampin type of nappies our parents used on us. They would fold it into the classic origami style and fasten it on us with a safety pin. I had about of dozen of these in my stash which I had intended to use just as wraps and burp cloths and hadn’t thought of using them as na...

I’m aware that my blog entries have become increasingly erratic. I have to resort to cluster blogging whenever I manage to find a spare hour or two in between nursing, cleaning and cooking. Nathan is currently 7 weeks old and his routine is getting more established. He nurses about once every 3 hours during the day, and during the night is gradually increasing his sleeping hours to longer stretches. He’s very alert during wake times. After a feed, he will either spend some time in his baby gym, have some tummy time, or sing or flip through a picture book with mummy. Nathan is keeping mummy busy every day… although he is the smallest person in the house, he creates the most amount of laundry… At this stage I don’t mind it, in fact I find it very satisfying and adorable to see all the teeny tiny outfits hanging out in a nice little row on the clothesline. I decided to take advantage of my energy and enthusiasm for all this baby stuff to take on something new… cloth di...

It’s been a whirlwind past few weeks. To sum up, it was all about family bonding time over food, conversation and Nathan. Everyone wanted a turn to soak up all that lovely Nathan essence… Nathan was given the princely treatment. If there was the slightest indication of discomfort, there was a whole team of people at his beck and call. Here’s jia-po and jia-gung working hard to keep Nathan cool in the hot summer weather… We had a lot of trips and outings (images from Sam’s iPhone)… View Full Album …Nathan was very good at sleeping in capsules and prams, so this was his view of everything for the most part… It was good to have lots of people around to set a happy and loving atmosphere around the house. CNY lou sang … Family photo… So happy that Nathan has so many people around to love and adore him.