I'm a full-time mummy

We went to Genting Highlands recently for a short family trip and this time, I accompanied Ben to most of the rides (when possible as I still gotta nurse my girl throughout the trip).

Picture below taken by hubby as we tried to flash the peace sign to him. Check out Ben's peace sign!

Okay... not a peace sign for sure... looks more like a gun sign right? But it's close, and with more practise, I'm sure he can do it!

Peace baby!

So how about your kid? How does their peace sign looks like?

Wow! I can't believe it's been 3 months since I started my tandem nursing journey!

It's been a bitter sweet journey, of course I had to struggle and battle the negative emotions at the beginning stage, but thank God, I have found support from my husband and through my many bloggy friends. Thank you all for helping me get through it!

In the beginning, Ben wanted to nurse when he saw me nursing Alyson. I then got to limit down his nursing to twice a day, before his afternoon naptime and before bedtime at night. I will either be tandem nursing them both (Ben on my left, Alyson on my right) or I'll let my hubby take care of Alyson in the next room or I'll nurse her until she's asleep and then spend the time with Ben before he sleeps and asked for his feed.

3 months on, Ben is down to nursing once a day most of the time, which is before his bedtime at night. I don't know how we eliminated the afternoon feed, it just happened. One moment I was nursing Alyson and I told Ben to watch his Fireman Sam video on my iPad while I nursed Alyson, next moment I found him asleep already. It happened a few more times after that and Ben is no longer on his afternoon feed.

As for bedtime, Ben nowadays will tell me 'OK time to sleep!' and I will get ready and then he will tell me 'This side!' (pointing to my right breast) which I'm taking the advantage of that to teach him the difference on left and right. He will then nurse while I talk gently to him, telling him what he has done good and bad for the day and that he should and should not do anymore and we pray and thank God for the day and so on.

I will then tell him 'OK, enough' after a few minutes, to which he will normally tell me 'Last only!' meaning he wants another go at the nursing as a last time and I will usually relent and let him nurse a bit more and then when I tell him 'OK, enough' again, he will unlatched and tell me 'Mummy hug Ben-ben' to which I of course, will hug and cuddle next to him and we will keep quiet and he will fall asleep after that.

I love these moments! I'm not sure how long our tandem nursing journey will last, I will cherish it while it lasts!

When Alyson was born, I was quite worried with Ben. During the first 2 weeks, he'll either find ways to hit her (not hard) or ignore her when we asked him to look at his baby sister. I know he doesn't like that our attention has shifted to his baby sister.

Frankly, I envy those parents who tells me how their children bonded nicely when the baby arrives and often wondered what else can we do to make him feel that he's still part of the family and we are not alienating him.

During his hostile phase, it was quite difficult and I cannot trust myself leaving Ben with his baby sister. I've seen him hitting her (again, not hard) when he thinks I'm not looking.I had to constantly watch over them, what more during the first few weeks post partum I was having tandem nursing aversion.

But now, almost 3 months down the road, I can see improvements already! Ben is showing signs of brotherly love towards his baby sister! Ben was no longer hitting Alyson from this month onwards but he will still not want to touch or look at her unless we asked him too, that also for just a few seconds.

The picture above was the first I managed to capture on the spot - secretly of course. Alyson was lying on the bed while I went to grab something from my desk leaving Ben waiting (he was having his breakfast that time) and I was as usual throwing a careful glance at them and I saw it.

Right in front of my eyes... Ben holding Alyson's hand and fiddling with her tiny fingers gently. Then he glanced towards the TV and watched his  Disney movie and didn't realise I was scrambling to take the pictures of them.

And then there was the time when we put Alyson on our bed for her tummy time and Ben went and lie down in front of her, just looking at her trying to move and stay up.

The picture below was taken just last week when Ben squeezed onto the chair I was sitting on while Alyson was lying on my legs as usual. Ben just casually took hold of her hands as I gazed on in total admiration.  

His brotherly love is growing!

Nevermind that it took Ben almost 3 months to slowly display his affection for his baby sister, I'm just so glad that it happened!