MadPsychMum | Singapore Parenting + Travel Blog

Saturday, 31 July 2021

Breastfeeding Baby #3: Beyond 2 Years, Ending at 30 Months!

Filed under: Faculty of Breastfeeding, My Breastfeeding Diary, School of Parenting, Warning: May Contain TMI

I never thought that I will still be breastfeeding my Littlest Girl past 2 years old!

I'm a breastfeeding purist (i.e. only full breast milk and no formula) for the 1st year of each of my child's life; however, once my babies turned 1 year old, I will usually wean them by starting them on formula. Why? Because I'm a full-time working mum who really did not enjoy a toddler biting my you-know-where or pumping constantly at the office. It's a good to have but not necessary.

Slowly but surely, my two older children would realise that I didn't have any more breast milk and decide on their own to stop breastfeeding. The Eldest Girl decided to stop nursing at 18 months old when I went back to work full-time while the Boy stopped abruptly at 13 months old.

Not my Littlest Girl! It has been more than a year of drinking formula but my Littlest has not given up on breastfeeding! Perhaps the situation was also special this time as she had access to me throughout the day since I was working from home since Circuit Breaker last year. Even though she has finished a bottle of formula milk, she would still climb on me and 'beg' me to breastfeed her. She is very determined and I find it hard to refuse her! 😅

However, because my Littlest Girl has started preschool in April this year, we needed to transition her to less reliance on breastfeeding.

I started by slowly reducing the number of daytime feeds, breastfeeding her only in the morning and at night. She seemed to be ok with it so I removed her morning feed as well, replacing it with formula milk and other food.

For a month, she was only breastfeeding at night before bed as I wasn't able to remove her night-time feeds because she relied heavily on breastfeeding in order to sleep. I also wanted it to be a gradual process and did not believe in going 'cold turkey' (I'm a psychologist you know).

Slowly, by May, she was only breastfeeding every alternate night before bed (or when I couldn't get her to sleep!). She also no longer woke up in the middle of the night to nurse! 🥳🥳🥳

By June, she was only nursing whenever she needed comfort, though I barely have any milk left!

Sometime around July I stopped breastfeeding her completely and she seems to get by just fine without it.

Once in a while she would put her face on my chest, take a deep breath and say "boob, boob!" Don't ask me where she learnt it, I don't remember teaching her to say this! In response I would say, "no more, mummy doesn't have any more milk" and she would take it in her stride and did not pursue the matter further.

With that, I've breastfed my littlest baby for 30 months, the longest I've ever breastfed at one go! In total, I've breastfed for 5 years! 😊

And here's signing off on my breastfeeding diary series. Thanks for joining me on my journey.

P.S: if you are struggling with breastfeeding, feel free to reach out. I can't say for sure that I can solve your problems but I can certainly lend an empathetic ear if you need one. Stay strong and press on!! You can do this 💪🏻

~~~~~

This post is part of my series My Breastfeeding Diary, where I document the highs and lows of my breastfeeding journey.

Thursday, 24 June 2021

Girleejay's 11th Birthday Staycation at Fairmont Singapore

Filed under: Department of Birthdays, Family Staycations, Kid-Friendly Activities, Pop the Poppers

After the boy got to celebrate his birthday with a staycation at Sofitel, the girl said she wanted the same for her birthday as well.

Since school would have started already on her birthday, we decided to celebrate one week earlier on the last week of the school holidays.

We chose Fairmont Singapore for our staycation this time due to their value-for-money packages.

My eldest girl and I dressed in matching yellow top and Beauty and the Beast stained glass skirts (the girl's dress and my skirt were from Our Fairy Godmama and my top was from The Closet Lover). The littlest also joined us in her Belle dress!

We arrived early to try our luck and see if our room was ready. Sadly, it was not so we went shopping at Raffles City Shopping Centre while waiting.

At around 2.30pm, we went back to the lobby to enquire if our rooms were ready and they passed us the keys to our rooms! 😊

We booked the Signature King Suite with Balcony and $100 dining credits package for 2A2C from Klook. The suite was rather spacious and well-stocked with the necessary amenities.

Our must-have in all our staycation bathrooms is a bathtub, which this room has (picture of it later) 😊

The suite has a spacious living room and separate office table, which was great for dining in since our family of 5 cannot dine outside at the restaurants (our staycation happened during the Phase 3 Heightened Alert where only 2 can dine together outside).

Beside the king-sized bed, the hotel had also prepared the baby cot that we had requested.

The cot also came with a bag of baby amenities, blanket, towel and water! I really appreciated this gesture from the hotel because some hotels don't even provide a blanket with the cot (I had to order extra from housekeeping). The bag of amenities contained wet wipes, shampoo, bath foam, powder and lotion for the baby! So very thoughtful! 😀

The living area was also very spacious, with more than enough space for my active kids to run around.

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A post shared by Madeline Heng (@madpsychmum)

Our suite had a little balcony, where we could enjoy the view. I liked that the balcony ledge was transparent so the littlest girl could enjoy the view without attempting to climb the ledge to see it.

As we had 2 rooms, the hubby's youngest brother brought Cousin E to join the fun at the Mum-in-law's room. As we couldn't gather in groups of more than 5, we split up and took turns to go to the pool (prior booking was made online).

So while Cousin E and my boy played in the bathtub, the hubby and I brought our 2 girls to the pool first.

There were 2 pools, one for wading and a deeper one for swimming. The littlest loved the huge wading pool, which she can swim around in with ease.

The eldest girl however, got bored after a while and asked to check out the swimming pool. It's actually quite nice that they have marked out 2 lanes for people who wanted to do laps! It also doubles as a good separation between the groups of guests.

After 1.5 hours, 'group A' headed back to the room while the boy and the rest of 'group B' got their chance to enjoy the pool! 😁

As usual, we were all hungry after swimming, so we ordered in-room dining with our $100 dining credits per room. The food came in a table with wheels, left outside our room to keep it as contactless as possible. This meant that instead of having the staff set up the table like we were used to, I had to set it up for us (wasn't too difficult though).

We excitedly ordered a good spread of food but alas, the food looked way better than it tasted 😔 Definitely not as tasty as our in-room dining experience at Shangri-La Hotel. *sigh*

After dinner, we celebrated the eldest girl's 11th birthday! 🥳

I had to get creative with the decorations because there wasn't anywhere on the walls that I could hang them. Hence, I hung them between 2 of the lamps beside the TV, which turned out quite nice. The girl was delighted!

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A post shared by Madeline Heng (@madpsychmum)

We gave some cake to Cousin E, who went home with her dad after she ate her cake. We all had a good night's sleep on the comfy bed and woke up early the next morning for breakfast.

Breakfast was served at Prego restaurant, and we had to be seated in groups of 2.

Service was slow because of the multiple tables of 2.

When the food finally arrived, it was not that great. As far as breakfasts goes, this would definitely not too my list (and I've got a pretty long list).

We hung out in the room after breakfast and checked out as usual at 12pm. We headed to Gardens by the Bay for the last time since our Annual Pass was expiring that day.

It was quite a good visit since it was a weekday and there were very little people.