Emma turned 7 months old!

Emma turned 7 months old!

She was down with the whole package - fever, cough and flu just the day before she turned 7 months old. It's the first time she had fever and I was really worried. She started off with mild cough on Sun and got worse on Wed. She was temping at 37.1 degree, hence, we still sent her to ifc. Her temperature increased to 37.9 degree 5+pm and has subsided to around 37 degree when she got back home in the evening. Indeed, her body was fighting the virus.  

She was feeling better until Thurs evening when her cough turned barking. She seems to have difficulty in breathing and was rather cranky. It was late to see pd by the time we fed her milk and settled her down. Hence, after asking my mummy friends, we decided to wait till the next day to bring her to pd instead of bringing her to down to A&E. We brought her to our bed to sleep with us so that we could watch her. Visited the pd on Fri and she was given nose decongestant, medicine for swollen airway, cough and flu. It has been almost a week and she is slowly recovering. - no more fever, but still having cough and flu. It really pains me to see how uncomfortable she is. I am praying that she will get well soon.  

Statistics: Emma weighs 6.7kg at 7th month and measures 66.cm (8 Mar). She is still hovering the 50%tile for height and 25%tile for weight. I have been trying to top up her milk feed but she seems just satisfied with what she has and couldn't finish up the additional milk. Looks like she is probably going to be small size like us?

Emma has small head circumference at birth (so really pointy when she was younger) and has increased the circumference over these 7 months. However, she is still at the 3%tile for her head circumference. She has really high forehead (like both of us) and I am wondering it is the reason why her head circumference is smaller.

Health: Following up on last month update, Emma recovered from her cold. She had her final vaccination for her first year on 8 Mar and she will have the next one after her first birthday. She did fine without having fever but has some cough since sun. It seems to got worse on Wed.

On a happier note, she got her first 2 bottom teeth cut out soon after she past 6 months! It is half-way out but we could already see it clearly. She manage it quite well without fever or crankiness.

Diet: Emma has dropped her 1030pm feed and she is down to 5 feeds of 150-180ml plus 1 feed of cereal right after her 3rd milk feed per day. Her 1030pm feed affected her morning appetite and so I decided to stop the dreamfeed. I tried to compensate by topping the rest of her feed so that her total intake is almost the same but sometimes she couldn't finish up the additional milk. Looks like her cereal feed is filling her up.

Emma started eating brown rice cereal daily 1 week after she turned 6 months old. We have only managed to introduced carrot and she seems rather neutral about it initially. So, we gave another try again. She loves it and managed to finish up the carrot puree on Sat. But on Sun, she suddenly changed her mind and couldn't finish it. What a tickled-minded girl. She is very interested in food and would always lean forward when I place my bread or fruit (she had a 'bite' of my apple) in front of her.

I used the combi food maker (gift from friend) for the first time and it was quite coarse. Hence, I used a hand-down manual grinder the second time and it turns out smoother. Mother-in-law just passed me a electrical bullet blender and I am hoping to do some other puree for Emma to try out.

 

Sleep: She is still sleeping by 845pm/9pm. As for daytime naps, she would usually nap for an hr or so 2-3 times a day. Guess this lady has her good sleeping genes from her mummy. yawn~ hehe. We are starting to notice that she finds it hard to sleep when there are many people around, seems like she wants to play!

Social/Outings: Weekends seems shorter with lessons and school stuffs. We had a quick outing to Kings Albert Park before it is long gone.

Other than our usual family visitings, we went to my colleague's baby shower (a couple more coming up!)

Activities: She is still doing what she did the last month with a new trick on her list. She loves to roll and push herself over distance to get to the place she wants and grabs the stuff that attracted her. She has been testing her boundaries and always got out of our big playmat. We are impressed at how well she could control her neck/head so that she could land gently on the floor. She loves the stuffs that aren't meant for her and would attack our handphones, tissue boxes, breastpump and pail.

Milestones:  

Emma has advanced to pushing herself over a distance. Hence, she is getting to places and things that interest her. She also has her first two bottom teeth and is enjoying (biting) her teethers more. :)

She is not sitting up yet. We didn't sit her up often as Hubby thinks that she could sit up when she is ready and we should go slow to avoid straining her back when we put her in tripod position. Hence, I would just propped her up in tripod position for a really short while before Hubby nagged at me.

Postpartum: I'm still weighing 1.5-2kg more than pre pregnancy weight but I am already happy that I could fit into few more pieces of old dresses. Gone are the days when I could go for monthly facial. It is becoming a quarterly affair and I have only went twice (Dec and Mar). Looks like I am going to take a long time to finish up my facial package at this rate. ;p

The past 1 month has been tiring and I can't wait to complete my module in May!! It has been kind of a juggle and shuffle among family, work and school. I start my day at 530am (6-630am on weekends) and knock off by 1130/12pm. Chicken essences and milk teas aren't working for me anymore!

For the first 2 months back at work, I try to pump twice (12+ and 4+) if I could. However, I started to drop the 4+ pump few weeks ago shortly after I started school. I didn't want to stress out my body too much. I am pumping out just sufficient or short of few ozs each day. I'm at the 7th month mark and left with another 5 months to my target. I'm just going to do my best and see how far I can go. 6 months is the recommended period and any longer would be bonus. :)

Press on!

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He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40 : 29-31