Sunday, January 24, 2010

Full moon 满月

Aelig turned one month today. It is called full moon in the Chinese culture. If she was born in Malaysia, she would have a full moon party, and we would distribute the full moon gift packs to friends and relatives. The packages consisted of delightful treats such as glutinous rice, hard boiled eggs dyed in red, and ensemble of Chinese cakes. The gift packs have been modernized these days, some parents just give out KFC packs.


As far as I know there is no such tradition in France. Some families just buy a cake and celebrate within close family. We bought her a cake and she got more gifts from the family.


Being young parents, this one month was joyous but tough and sometimes furious for us. She is not an angel all the times. The main problem being that she doesn't like to sleep on her bassinet nor our bed. She is colicky almost every evening until 1am. During the day when hubby is working, she would sleep on my arms, on my laps or on my shoulder. Once I put her on her bassinet, she cries. Sometimes I have to eat with her on me. Thank God I have my aunt here taking care of all the house chores, plus she helps me calm her down. My aunt has a lot of patience, when Aelig cries non-stop, she would hold her on her arms for hours as this is the only way the little angel could fall asleep.


When daddy gets home he takes the relay. Aelig is active during the evening so it is very tough for daddy to get her to sleep. He has to rock her for hours before she finally doze off. Sometimes when he put her beside me, she wakes up and he has to redo everything. When she finally falls asleep on bed, it is usually after 1am and I guess that is because she is exhausted, not that she wants to sleep on the bed.


When daddy goes to sleep, I'm all alone to take care of her. During the good nights she sleeps through and wakes up every 3 hours for milk. During the bad nights, she wakes up screaming and crying every 20 minutes, sometimes I have to stand and hold her for like 20 minutes before she could finally go back to sleep but the cycle continues. I couldn't sleep as she would wave her hands from time to time as if she is scared of something.

The situation has worsen. When she was in the hospital, she slept well during the nights. When she got home, she was still sleeping from time to time on her bassinet and on our bed. From the third week on, she refused her bassinet, the most we could get her to sleep on it is 15 minutes. Sometimes I feel so helpless as she won't go to sleep after nursing, she cries non-stop no matter how many positions I tried, at the end mama cries with her too. Two days before she turned one month, both mama and papa couldn't get her to sleep and both were totally wore off with her cries, my aunt came for rescue and it was the first time she didn't sleep with me.


We consulted the doctor and people around, everyone said this is normal, especially for a small baby (she weighted only 2.7kg when she was born). My friends from USA recommended mylicon as apparently she has gas problem, but I couldn't get this in France, instead my doctor prescript her Calmosine. It didn't work much, she still kick her legs when she is in pain with the gas, she would slightly relief only when she manages to fart.

Well, the doctor said this is a transition period that most babies have to go through. I hope she would get better when she gets older.

13 comments:

  1. good luck and courage, Ronan was the same until his 3 mounth

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  2. Hello,
    She looks so sweet! I can totally relate. I had a really colicky baby as well who used to just cry and cry from 19h to midnight every night non-stop. I was an emotional wreck! Even though it feels like it, it won't last forever. My little one used to get lots of stomach pains all day. I don't know if you can get this but I used something called Colief - which helps to break the lactose down (I don't really know the exact details) and I found that it seemed to really help. I know it's a cliche but honestly, at about 6 weeks, her colic seemed to improve dramatically. Hang in there!

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  3. I was in your old blog years back and was cleaning out the links and kaypohed over. If you're nursing: I used to be a really colicky baby for months until they found out my mother ate too much of that ginger wine stuff and all those chinese herb stuff. When my daughter was having problems I refused to drink all that and stopped the ginger wine stuff even too much onions and garlic and she was fine. Maybe its our constitution and maybe its the part angmor thing. HTH

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  4. My eight year old daughter was a colicky baby. Everything you mentioned is like driving down memory lane for me. I didn't know how or what to do with her because her cries were so long and sounded painful at times. I agree with MM's comment. Turns out it was what I was eating that caused her to have the colic reaction. I understand the significance of the special diet that new moms go on "within the month" but since you are out of the month, try to have a balanced diet. If you eat too much heated food such as ginger, well at least for me, the colic worsens for my baby. Good luck! If I remember anything else, I will let you know.

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  5. I'm not eating confinement food anymore and only two days left to finish the red date tea. Hopefully she will be better.

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  6. Oh yes, I forgot that it depends on what food you eat bcos your baby can get gas from the food you eat. Your little angel is hard to please. :) Mine is a different set of problems. She had major constipation problems once she started on solids.

    See if your family can send you gripewater or anyone from UK can buy and send it to you. Gripewater helps with wind pains. I bought a bottle for V but never used it as she never had this problem. Unfortunately it expired in July 2009. Do u think it is still useable? If yes, I can send it to you.

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  7. What is gripewater called in Chinese? Do you think I can get it from France? I will see if situation improves, if not will try to ask someone from UK to send it to me. Thanks I thought this only exist in US.

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  8. I think it's a lot cheaper to get someone in UK to send it to you than from Malaysia. U can't find it in France. If you can't find someone in UK to do it for you, let me know.

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  9. Hello again,

    This is the Gripewater that we get over here in the UK - the one I know about anyway. A couple of friends said that it worked for their babies. Let me know if you want to try some.

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  10. Oops - forgot to post the link
    http://www.boots.com/en/Woodwards-Gripe-Water-150ml_1816/

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  11. thx for the link. I will buy one online, it is very convenient.

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  12. I also tried this and it worked well for us.
    http://www.boots.com/en/Colief-Infant-Drops-7ml_1822/
    Hope all is going well.

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  13. This is surely to late, but well it might work for future babies : while you are breastfeeding the baby you can drink some "tisane d'allaitement", it has some herbs like anis, fenouil, verveine that helps prevent colics for the baby.

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