Why I decided not to use a dummy/passifier

January 12, 2021January 9, 2021Leave a comment

As part of being an Early Childhood we deal with a lot of children and all their emotions. Some know how to self regulate and others don’t.

Self Regulation

A baby learns soothing through sucking on her mother’s breast. Later when babies find their hands, they start putting their hands in their mouth’s to self regulate. I’ve decided not to use dummies as it forces the regulation on an external object. Imagine this scenario : A little girl falls down. She feels hurt and starts to cry. The mother tries to console her, a natural response, but now, all the girl wants, is her dummy.

Speech development

In addition, research has proven that prolonged passifier use can “distort the development of s,z,sh,ch,t,d,n’ sounds eg ‘sun’ might sound like ‘thun’. This is because the dummy encourages the forward-backward movement of a baby’s tongue which results in these sounds being pushed forward.” Extract from a research article called The Impact of Prolonged (meaning beyond 18 months) Pacifier Use

Oral fixation

The above mentioned refers to long term use but from experience I know that for some children it’s really hard to get rid of the habit of dummy sucking. Oral fixation is therefore referred to the habit of fixating on an oral object. Oral fixation is a term first used by Sigmund Freud in relation to getting fixated on the oral stage of development. These children may then as adults get fixated to other objects related to the mouth example, cigarettes and or food. Read more https://theeducationlife.com/oral-fixation/

There are certainly benefits to dummies and pacifiers but I have chosen not to introduce yhem.to my baby. I would love to hear your opinions on this no matter how varied 😉

Spending Christmas with a sick baby

January 5, 2021Leave a comment

I absolutely love Christmas. This year I was super excited to spend it with my little girl, it being her first Christmas and all. We planned on dining at a friends house on Christmas Eve and then visiting another friend on Christmas day.

We set off to meet our friends at 5:30pm. When we got out of the car I thought Hazel felt a bit hot, but as you know the car seat can make a baby feel warmer. After having welcoming drinks we sat down to dinner. I had finished my first plate of food and was planning to get a second helping when I felt that my little girl was really feeling hot now.

Luckily my friend has 2 little boys and she suggested that we take her temperature. It was 39 degrees and we decided to take her to the Emergency Care Clinic.

The clinic was pretty busy so we had to wait. Apparently having a high fever isn’t seen as that important. To me, fever means danger. When I was young my parents always said we had to get the fever down or break the fever. They would even put us in icy cold bath water to try and break the fever. Breaking the fever was the most important thing. So naturally, I thought a high temperature is an emergency. The doctors reassured us that it’s the body’s natural response to a virus. They said they would put a urine bag on Hazel to check whether she had a UTI but they forgot.

We only got at around 11pm and sat up all night sponging her head to get her to cool down but to no avail. By 5 am her temperature was under 38 degrees and we thought we were out of the clear. By 9 am on Christmas day, her temperature spiked again and stayed at 38.5 most of the day. By 10pm it went up to 39 and we went back to the clinic. This time they referred us to the hospital. We waited for Hazel to have a wee in order to check her urine for a UTI test. At first she missed the bag and we had to wait some more. During our time at the hospital her fever broke and her temperature came back to normal. We only left the hospital at 5 am on the day after Christmas.

The rest of the day we periodically checked her temperature to make sure that it stayed low. That night it sounded like she had trouble breathing and off we went to hospital again…turns out we were just paranoid new parents

On Sunday night she developed a rash all over her face. We phoned the healthline and was advised to head back to the Emergency Care Clinic.

This time the doctor was able to explain to us what we needed to look out for in the case of a bacterial rash and told us that a rash iften appears after a viral infection. He was very informative and to be honest, the best doctor amongst all the doctors we encountered over the weekend.

All in all we’re glad she’s better and hopefully next Christmas we’ll be able to have more fun with Hazel.

Hazel’s Birth Story

December 22, 2020December 19, 2020Leave a comment

Today my little girl turns 4 months and I thought I’d share her birth story with you.

She was due on Sunday the 27th of July so naturally I stopped working two weeks prior to get ready for her arrival. I packed my hospital bag. Bought apple juice, mini water bottles, some nut bars and fruit and nut mixes. We had our birth plan ready. I wanted to have her all natural. I even bought the Hypnobirthing book and downloaded birthing meditations. The plan was to breathe through the pain and only gas if neccessary.

Come week 40 and I was patiently waiting for my contractions to start….

By Wednesday she still hasn’t arrived. I then opted for sweeping. Still nothing. I did the sweep 3 times. When asked whether I wanted to be induced I declined, hoping that my little girl would make her appearance all in her own. But no…

Towards the end of 41 I was induced. I was admitted to hospital at 7pm on Friday night. At 10pm I was inducted with the gel. At 11pm, the contractions started. I had 1 every 10 minutes. I didn’t sleep a wink. Luckily I was able to walk around and sitting on this big leather chair was my saving grace. The chair was nice and low and I could pull my knees up to my chest, this helped a lot

At 11 am I only dialated 3 cm and the nurse broke my waters. Unfortunately there was meconium in the water which meant that now, labour had to be hurried along and I was immediately put on an oxytocin drip. Hazel did not like that at all, and her heart rate dropped. I was taken off the drip for an hour. After being examined again, I was still only dialated 3cm and there was talk of a C-section, which was honestly the last thing I wanted.

After an hour I was put back on oxytocin. Hazel’s heart rate was constantly monitored. Since she was posterior, I had to lie on my side the whole time, and let me tell you, that’s the most uncomfortable position to be in when dealing with contractions. After about an hour of this I asked for an epidural, baring in mind that I’ve tried the gas but it made me extremely sick

At around 5pm my midwife arrived. She turned on a diffuser and it calmed me right down. At around 6:40pm I could start to feel my contractions again and asked for a top up on the epidural. My midwife suggested that we check the contractions first. I have dialated 10cm. She said we shouls start to push. At 6:58 I started to push and by 7:19 our little Hazel was born.

It has been the best moment in my life even with all the ups and downs leading up to the birth. I had amazing support from my husband and my midwife was just fantastic. Even though I wasn’t able to Hypnobirth, I’m still happy about the outcome…a beautiful healthy little girl

Pregnancy Dinner Ideas

May 12, 2020May 12, 20202 Comments

I’ve recently been gifted the HelloFresh food boxes and really enjoyed the variety it provided. It however takes me longer to make one of these meals, and estimated 40-50 minutes, compared to when I cook my own meals, only 30 minutes. I’ve decided not to continue using the food boxes but to rather make my own little weekly menu of things that I like and that I can make.

SInce I am pregnant I do crave a lot of things, sometimes unhealthy foods like the donuts or chocolate I have once or more a week. These meals are just things that I either know how to make or that I’ve discovered online….today 🙂

Let me know what you think of my selection

Broccoli and Blue Cheese Frittata

Obviously I’ll change the blue cheese for Edam cheese, since that’s what I have at home

Recipe from www.kidspot.com.au

Strip Steak with Lemon Mashed Potato

The idea of these mashed potatoes with lemon makes my mouth water

Recipe from Countryliving.com

Thai Pork Stir-Fry

Doesn’t it look yummy

Recipe From Kraft Canada

Roasted Veggie Pasta Salad

I first tried this at the first house I stayed at in New Zealand. The lady I lived with use to make it all the time and I loved it. I also didn’t know what Chorizo was, I just know its something that Coco’s dad choked on in the movie COCO 😛

Recipe from A Saucy Kitchen

Shepherds pie

Recipe from The Wholesome Dish

South African Style Braai

We’re planning to have a South African style Braai on the weekend with either potato salad or garlic bread but if it rains then we’ll just have sausage rolls

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Image from Adelaide’s Outdoor Kitchen

What are your dinner plans for this week?

Having a dog in Korea

April 28, 2020April 20, 20202 Comments

In 2017 we got a dog. At the time, we have been living in Korea for almost 4 years and since we had just signed a contract to stay at our then current work place we decided it was time to get a dog. Generally dogs provide a lot of joy and is also a good stress reliever. Research even suggest that people who own pets, are happier than those who don’t. Therefore…. since there’s research involved… we got a dog

Getting the perfect puppy

If you do research about where to get a puppy you’ll come up with a lot of bad reviews about dogs from pet shops. Furthermore, if you walk into some pet shops you can immediately see that some of those dogs are either under fed or already looking sick.

Therefore we decided to get a puppy from an owner who already has his own dogs and is not a dog breeder. We were in luck as my friend heard that we were looking for a dachshund and she saw an advertisement in the local ‘cafe’ about dachshund puppies for sale. Luckily the owner was really particular about giving his puppies to a good home and to us, it meant that he really cares for them.

Because we lived in an apartment we had to crate train her, which really helped her. Even today she still finds her comfort in her little crate although we changed her crate from a plastic one to a cute fluffy little house. She knows that she’s safe there and even though she eats my shoes, I won’t touch her in there. The crate training also helped her a lot when we traveled across Korea and overseas.