Life with 1 new born and 1 toddler- still surviving as a working mum

Level up – surviving as a working mum with 1 toddler and 1 baby

Slowly, after adapting the life of having a baby; and after the baby turned into a toddler, I start planning for another baby. I have no choice but only to “gap them” for almost 2 years apart since my biological clock was ticking :P

Conceiving while taking care of a toddler

Conceiving while taking care of a toddler was still manageable except for the month where I had serious “morning and night sickness” and my toddler became super demanding. She seems like able to sense that I was having a baby hence started to demand for more attention from me. In the evening after picking up JY from the baby sitter, I could hardly cooked as she will be crying until I stopped cooking and paying full attention on her. Daddy’s console and hugs are not helping at all. I was so stressed up during that whole month!

Luckily this passed quickly after I entered second trimester of pregnancy when the morning sickness started to subside. I then resumed my lifestyle like before conceiving, continued playing with JY in the playground whenever I have time. Knowing which I will have to spend less time with her after the second baby is borned make me wanting to fully utilized the moment we have together.  I could hardly recall how many times I went to the playground nearby my house with JY before delivering the next baby. I have even sprained my ankle while hanging in the playground with her when I was 8 months pregnant.

I brought JY to the beach when I was almost 5 months pregnant while she was 14 months old. I am glad I did it as It would be a long time later when I can bring her to the beach again. 

10 months passed away peacefully with my busy working lifestyle. I only started taking leaves after my due date and it happened that my second daughter was born 3 days overdue. Knowing what to expect, I went to the hospital with the letter written by the doctor from clinic who thought that I was 8 days overdue by then. Two doctors had been giving me two different due date which was 1 week apart and I have been following the later due date since it had taken my period cycle (longer than 28 days) into consideration.  I was lucky that my stomach ache approaches me before the doctor decided to induce the delivery process. Thank God that the whole process from labor pain to complete stitching only took me less than an hour this time. My second baby, JL was successfully delivered naturally. I was very grateful to the Indian midwife who had leaded other nurses to help me during the delivery. She gave very clear instruction on what to do, when to push so that I could deliver my second baby with minimum tearing and within shortest time. I felt indebted to her.

Confinement

I have my confinement at home with my mother coming over to help me in cooking and taking care of the baby when I am tired. As I was breast feeding, I took care of the baby at night and let my mother rest. It was a good experience having your own mother to help you for confinement. We could voice out whatever practices that we don’t like and our mother will normally give way to accommodate our needs. I also took the opportunity to understand my own mother better when she was here for two months. 

If you want to know what to eat for confinement, I recommend drinking a lot of soup such as black bean soup, peanut soup, fish and tomato tofu soup etc. These soups helped in promoting lactation and hence ensuring sufficient milk to feed the baby.  Effortlessly, I have pumped and stored 30 over bottles of milk (around 3 oz each) in the freezer for my baby before going back to work. I only pumped milk during second month of maternity leave as I was very tired during the first month. I was happy with my confinement as I was able to fit into my skinny jeans again after 2 months. 

Needing more tips for confinement? Here you go:

        1. Sleep whenever your new born is asleep to ensure you have enough rest

      2.  Breast feeding on demand. This will enable your uterus to shrink back to its normal shape faster and 

              keeping you fit.

      3. Eat less salt during confinement to slim down faster. Salt resulted in water retention.

.     4. Brown rice is better than white rice for slimming purpose and supplying you with more nutrients

      5. Do not watch too much TV or hand phone or even reading too many books during confinement. This 

              will strained your eyes and our eyes sight will be affected later if we do so.

      6. Drink red dates drink every day to promote circulation

      7.  If you are unsure of what vegetables to consumer, eat broccoli, kai lian or spinach. These vegetables             will not be too cooling for confinement purpose
      8. Consume multivitamins if you do not consume enough variety of food on particular day.

Going back to work after confinement

Two months passed in a blink of an eye.  Resuming working after being away for so long is challenging! I have to wake up earlier than last time before having the second baby, JL. To ensure continuous milk supply, I cook soup every morning before heading to work so that we can have soup for dinner.

Here is how you could cook soup easily and saving your electric bill. First of all, you need to invest in a thermo cooker（焖烧锅). Upon boiling the water and dumping in all your ingredients for soup, you only need to boil them for around 15min before putting back the cooker into the thermos and leave it there until you come back from work. By then, everything will be tender soft and ready to eat. You just need to re-boil it for a while, adding salt to taste before serving!

To save time cooking for dinner, I just buy two dishes and go back home cooking rice and re-boiling soup. This ensures that we have good food everyday without breaking the bank. J

Having two daughters is the key to a happy and harmonious family life, according to a study

Researchers came to the conclusion after examining the lives of families with different combinations of children, both male and female.
The results show of all the variations, two girls make for the most harmonious family life as they are unlikely to fight, will play nicely and are generally a pleasure to be around.
It also emerged two girls rarely annoy their parents, make limited noise, often confide in their parents and are unlikely to wind each other up or ignore each other.


'BEST' TO 'WORST' COMBINATIONS OF CHILDREN:

1.Two girls

2.One boy and one girl

3.Two boys

4.Three girls

5.Three boys

6.Four boys

7.Two girls and one boy

8.Two boys and one girl

9.Three boys and one girl

10.Three girls and one boy

11.Two boys and two girls

12.Four girls

The above information was abstracted from www.telegraph.co.uk.

If this research is true, I am going to have the most happy and harmonious family life, with the birth of my second daughter... :D However, being a researcher myself, I don't trust in research outcome. They normally differ from case to case as a results of various factors isn't them? And if it is true, my parents should be having a least happy family by having 4 daughters!! :P

Me and my biological sisters.

Perhaps we are not the least happy family because we still have another brother (holding the camera)...