How much does it cost to keep a baby alive (ok that's an exaggeration) for the first 4 months?

$10,709!!!

Most of the cost, more than 75% of it, comes about to keep baby healthy and to engage professional care-giver. Pediatrician will include vaccination done for baby, which we went the private route instead of polyclinic, which will be a lot cheaper. Reason being our company's health insurance cover for it.

Other items are relatively more affordable and breakdown to come in the next post.

Pacifier or to pacify

To use pacifier or not to use pacifier, that's the question. This is one debatable issue with proponents citing how effective it is in calming baby down while opponents of it will mention the difficulty in removing this habit when baby grows older.

We went from using pacifier to not use it and now back to it again, after the advise of the infant care centre. What i found with baby is that he will search for alternative to calm himself when you remove this from him. Which means he form other habits like putting his fist into his mouth(yes fist, not fingers) or constantly require latching or the need to carry.

So at the end of the day, it depends on which you think is the lesser evil and which works well with baby. It would be better to decide on one and stick with it rather than flip flopping. But for first time parents like us, it will have to be trial and error.