Complexity of a little fellow

In a blink of an eye, the little baby has grown into a little boy, and with it a higher order of thinking and demands.

A common scenario of feeding him some fruits and the reaction at different age:

12 month
Daddy/mummy: choose random fruit for baby
Baby: munch munch munch

15mth
Daddy/mummy: choose random fruit for baby
Baby: purse his lips and point at watermelon
Daddy/mummy: feed baby watermelon

18mth
Daddy/mummy: ask baby what fruit he want and permission to feed him
Baby: nod head and point at watermelon
Daddy/mummy: feed baby watermelon
Baby: refuse and point at fork
Daddy/mummy: use spoon to feed
Baby: refuse and continue pointing at fork
Daddy/mummy: use fork to feed

One year of visits to Pediatrician and TCM

The most expensive category after infantcare, and it is not just cost, but also can be emotionally and physically expensive for both baby and parents. Living in Singapore, a brewing pot of culture and race, you get a lot of options and of course recommendation. We use both Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for both baby and mother.

Western:
Baby had jaundice a couple of days after he was born and he had to stay an additional night at the hospital to undergo light therapy. His Jaundice level was close to 15ml, which was on the high side, and eventually after the 1 day of intensive light therapy, the level was down to a more managable 11ml. Mummy was devastated to leave baby in the hospital while she discharge. It was also devastating on the wallet. For the one day, the cost was $1162.60. Sunbathing in a 5 star hotel in some exotic place can be alot cheaper. But we were just glad that he was fine.

Then there are the usual immunisation that baby need to go through. You can see from the table the type of vaccine that were administered. Nobody likes needle, including baby, and his protest can rock the house down. Now, at 1yr+, his U shape mouth become 'n' with a pout whenever we see the doctor. He already recognise the place at such a tender age, so you can imagine it is traumatic for him. The topic of vaccination is debatable and different mummy's have different opinion, but we went with the notion of doctor knows best. In terms of cost, it is cheaper to go to polyclinics and the only reason we went to Raffles Hospital is because vaccination is covered by my company insurance and his PD is there.

First 6 months Raffles Vaccination package and what vaccination baby receive: https://www.rafflesmedicalgroup.com/docs/default-source/package/vaccination-package-for-baby-39-s-first-6-months.pdf?sfvrsn=2

9 to 18 months Raffles Vaccination package and what vaccination baby receive:
 https://www.rafflesmedicalgroup.com/docs/default-source/package/vaccincation-package-for-9-18-months.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Babies are also typically not born perfect. People say dimples are a form of deform. Baby had dimple (I use 'had' because it seems to disappear as he become older) and Neuvas Sevecus as well as Nevus of Ota (diagnosed after 2nd opinion). Neuvas of sevecus is a small growth and usually appear on the head. Baby has one on the top left and initially we all thought it was because the gynae accidentally scrapped his head when she broke mummy's waterbag during labour. The PD was more knowledgable and told us the condition. There is no medical threat except a small % probability of cancer, and it is covered by his hair so he can still look handsome. He can decide when he is older if he wants it removed.

Then there is Nevus of Ota. It's appearance is quite similar to mongolian bluespot, but usually happen on the face and is a pigmentation. Baby has it around his left eye socket, and given how active he is, some people thought he knock himself and have a bruise on his head. It also resemblance a panda, ableit blue-ish not black. So this is likely to create some social stigma when he grows up and if we are not careful a potential factor to have low self esteem. I scout through the internet and found that laser treatment actually has a high success rate with little to no known side effect. Indeed that's the case. After 6 treatments with Dr Lynn, the pigmentation is no longer obvious.

The biggest drawback for putting baby in infantcare is that he fall sick a lot more often. The babies in the centre don’t like to share toys but they definitely like to share their viruses, and so everyone gets their turn to fall sick including baby. Being so young, there are not many medicine in western doctor's arsenal, and mummy found this TCM place (Yu Guo - they are now at Kembengan Plaza) where they specialise in treating babies/children. They are so popular that it is always crowded and the wait can be as long as 1-2hrs. Also, typically you have to go back 3 times for Tui Na (massage), so it is time consuming. But it is effective on baby and that's what matter. Somehow, baby doesnt like the idea of someone massaging him and he will cry his lungs out. 

For those mummies who just gave birth, we got 4 packs of medicine to brew for mummy that will supposedly improve mummy's constitution after labour. You can try it at Ban Choon Chan which is situated at Marine Parade.

Finance 101 - updated

Contrary to some advice, I always believe in credit cards. They give cash rebates or points for your expenditures, and since a baby cost $30000 a year to raise, the amount you receive can be substantial. The trick of course is not to leverage and pay your credit card in full every single month. Below are details of how much I receive from banks and how it was done:

Credit Card:

Specialist cards:

1)      Citibank Dividend Card – used mainly to buy groceries. Gives 5% cash + Citi rebates. If I apply this to Babyfood($812.85) and BabyDiapers($624.66) – see http://accountingforbaby.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-cost-of-raising-one-year-old-baby.html/ for detailed one year expense, I receive a total rebate of $71.87 for one year.

2)      OCBC 365 Card – used for medical expenses. Gives 3% cash rebate. Pre-requisite is to spend $600 per month, otherwise only receive 0.5% rebate. In addition, total spending above $500 per month will increase your 360 saving account interest rate by 0.5% per annum. If I apply this to pediatrician($4290.53) for the 3% cash rebate, I will get  $128.71 per annum.

3)      UOB One Card – used to pay infantcare. Gives 3.33% rebate paid quarterly if spent above certain level. In addition, total spending above $500 per month will increase your UOB One savings account interest rate. If I spend $800 using this card, I will get $320 per annum.

4)      Stanchart Bonus$saver Card – Used to pay infantcare. Charge above $500 to earn 1.88% per annum for deposit.

Generalist cards:

1)      Amex True Cashback Card – Gives 5% cash rebate for first 3 months. Subsequently, 1.5% cash rebate. No min spending.
2)      ANZ Travel Card – Gives equivalent of 1% cash rebate. No min spending. Redeem cash rebate after hitting certain points.

Assuming I spend 1/3 of total expense ($10000) using generalist cards at 1% cash rebate, as a conservative estimate, I get $100 per annum.

Total cash rebate from credit card is $51.70/mth.

Deposits:

1)      OCBC 360 account – You can qualify for 2.2% per annum interest rate by doing the following: (1) credit salary to get 1.2% (2) pay any 3 bills online or giro to get 0.5% (3) spend at least $500 on OCBC credit cards to get 0.5%. The 2.2% applies to first $60000 of your account and you get $110 per month. Details herehttp://ocbc.com/personal-banking/Accounts/360-account.html/

2)      UOB One account – Similar concept to OCBC 360 but with more tiers. See details herehttp://uob.com.sg/personal/deposits/chequeing/one_account.html . Basically for a $50000 deposit, with UOB credit card spent + 3 Giro transactions will give you an effective interest rate of 2.4%. That’s equivalent to  approx. $100.80

3)      Stanchart  Bonus$Saver – Simply spend more than $500 using Stanchart Bonus$aver card to get 1.88% on first $25000 of deposit. You will receive $39.10 a month. More details herehttps://www.sc.com/sg/save/current-bonussaver.html/

That’s a total of approx. $250/mth of interest. Add in the monthly cash rebate from cards, I get $301.70 a month. That is equivalent to free diapers and milk powder every month!

家

The 2nd character of your Chinese name(家 - family in chinese) was debated. Your mum did not like the sound of it, but I was adamant that 家 forms part of your Chinese name. What it represent is something I hope you place an importance in your life.

Moving forward to today, I continue to battle for the idea of spending time with your grandparents. Your mum prefer time spent with us rather than spending time travelling or visiting grandparents on a regular basis. Understandable,  especially how she preferred to live her life prior to your birth, but something I cannot fully agree. I think spending time with your grandparents, every weekend, build bonds that will exist for the rest of yours and their life.

I believe it is important that you have interaction with your grandparents, to learn and experience from a different generation, from people who love you other than your parents. The first time you laugh was when your grandma make funny faces at you. The first time you kick a ball was when your grandma places a ball at your feet. The first time you travel in a car without your mum was with your grandpa.  And I have never seen such happy faces from your grandparents until you are born.

These experiences will not only form your growing up memories but also the values you will build along the way. I always think a child close to his family, will learn respect and always be humble. They will also, to quote a Chinese phrase, yin shui si yuan. I think these are very Chinese values, are easy to say but difficult in practice, but eventually values that will provide you with a good foundation in life. 

You have been spending quality time with your grandparents and I hope we continue to give you that chance.

penguin parents

The parents of young penguins work as a team to feed their young. One parent go to the ocean to eat and find food for their young while the other tend to the young. Then they take turn.

So its the same for us with baby. It is difficult to put him on the dining table, sitting in a docile manner or joining us with our meal. He will have to take the forks, the knifes (yes all things sharp), scream, having ants in the pants and cant sit still. So we take turns to eat and one of us bring baby out for a walk.

Not a perfect way to teach baby to eat properly during meal times, but we are patiently hoping we evolve from penguin to humans.

training to be soldiers(daddy), fight for our land(nap)

During basic military training, it is compulsory for the recruits to go through a 24km road march towards the end of the program. We will be carrying our fbo(full battle order) which include a damn bloody heavy havesack. After 10km, you will find many of us naturally in a hunchback posture.

Today, many years later, i have a different form of road march as a daddy. Baby still cant take his day nap without carrying and it has been a routine for me to put him into a baby carrier and walk around my estate. On average, i walked close to 1.5km/day to put him to sleep! On bad days, it can be more than 30mins walk, with a weight infront and body arching backwards(more conducive for baby to sleep). Backbreaking!

So it has come full circle. In my younger days i march hunchback and today i march with an arched back. Maybe thats the way my back will eventually become straight :)

special talent

Everyone of us have an innate talent that shines through, sometimes from very early on.

Ethan, you have an immense ability to male the young and the old smile through your friendliness and wide grins. sometimes, you like to approach the older folks, sitting at one corner, and give them whatever you were holding on to (including dirty leaves and tissue papers) or give them a high five. They look geninuely happy and it warms my heart.

Sometimes, out of nowhere you have some girls a couple years older than you, come out to touch you and play with you. Most time, you get irritated by those touches and run to daddy/mummy. Today, there was a little girl that was grumpy with stomachache and sitting down while her friends played on. You approached her, stand and looked at her. A smile appeared on her face. She got on to play, whispered her friends about u, and 3 girls started following you!

Hope this 'people talent' follows you for the years ahead.

One year of Diapers

Diapers, by per piece, bought during the month. Some variation due to bulk purchase during promo period.

I spend $624.66 in diapers for baby's first year. This translate into roughly $0.38 per piece when pampers is on promo (the best price so far for Large size is $18 per pack. I am paying $25.9 at this point in time with no promo. Having said that, not much promo from Pampers this year.) and close to $0.50 per piece when not on promo. That's a difference of 20%, or for my case, slightly more than $100 of savings a year!

Baby have diaper change on average 5 times a day and generally after 9 months or so, night changing is less frequent as his stool comes once or twice in the day and pampers can hold liquid over night (some leakages still when its bursting full).

Looking at the number of diapers we got (1823 pcs), I cant imagine we have changed baby more than a thousand times already and its still a struggle to get him changed sometimes when he refused to be lying down! In that regard, the walker diapers are really convenient when we are outside. Good to get some in case of emergency.

Full details below:

Previous comment on diaper review.

A year's worth of milk

Milk Tins purchased per month. Started formula milk from 8 mths old. First 2 months were a mix of formula + breastmilk. Pretty consistent consumption over the months.

When baby was still in mummy's womb, we went to quite a number of seminars on prenatal and infant care. Many sponsors setup booth to give away free samples and of course the milk powders were quite popular. In fact, they quite one whole tin. And I think, this is a marketing genius. In our case, we went about starting off baby on his first milk tin by using the largest sample we had - NAN Pro. Baby did not had an adverse reaction, and we continued till today.

Guess what, we have already gotten 18 tins by his first birthday, or equivalent to $728.50. From the looks of it, this will not stop. So that one tin of freebie has turned into a recurring income for them, from us.

There are promotional offers for milk powder, especially if you buy more than 1. For NAN, they had a buy 2 for a discount of 7.5% per bottle. However, I couldn’t find the discount in Feb this year and paid the full price. Now he is on NAN Pro 3, which is alot cheaper ($34.50) than Pro 2.

Full details below:

The cost of raising a one year old baby

It's not cheap. $29979 to be exact. 

Below are the breakdown:

The numbers here are on the conservative side because (1) as diligent i try to be, not all receipts are captured. (2) did not include expenses such as increased in utility bills, groceries etc.

More than 2/3 of the cost goes to medical and infantcare. Indeed should a pro-baby government want to promote a higher birthrate, this 2 aspect should be tackled.

If we strip out the non-recurring like Gynae (until the next baby comes), Pediatrician (unless we are talking of chronic illness) and Enrichment classes as well as having Grandparents or relatives take care of baby instead of infantcare (not getting into the pros-and-cons yet), the recurring cost is a lot lower than the headline figure may suggest.

Stay tuned for further breakdowns into the cost of each category.

Thank you, father of modern singapore

Thank you sir, for your life's work.

Under your leadership, you have given your people both dignity and confidence in life. We are now a wealthy society compared to 50 years ago, are educated and a first rate justice and enforcement system. Without economic success, we would be easily trampled on. Who would look up to a society with mass unemployment? Without education, we would be ignorant. And without law and order, we would not be safe. How can a society have freedom without a sense of security?

You allow us to dream, instead of facing survival and how harsh reality can be. My mum tells me how difficult it was in the pre-independence day. Now they retire comfortable, with a roof over their head, adequate retirement fund and their children, with good jobs.

This week, i learn more about you at a personal level, and it touches me more the person you are.

Ethan was cranky the whole day, but quieten when your cortage drove pass and again when the nation held a minute silence. He seems to understand the situation. I hope he will grow up learning about you and understand the foundation you created and how he must preserve all that is good.

Sir, may you RIP.

Lky speech

Lee Kuan Yew - Youths dont know what its like to be poor.7.: https://youtu.be/MnlPfvx7Cgg

How you have grown!

Cheeky little boy...we took out ur scooter box from the store-room to assemble the scooter for u to play. All this while u kept trying to close the box and carry it to me seemingly with an objective. Didnt know what u are looking for. Finally u pointed to the store-room...eureka! You close the box so u can pass it to me to keep it and open the door to ur favourite storeroom so you can play in it!...cheeky...very cheeky

How you have grown!

You make me laugh, whenever i smack your hand for something you should not touch and you walk away with a cute expression of a 'ouch' look mixed with a sly 'i will be back' smile. All on that little face of yours.

P/s: of coz i laugh still with a stern look on my face :)

How you have grown!

You have grown to be a cheeky fellow. You know you are not suppose to touch the electrical plugs and you:

1) pretend to swipe your hand around the area so you can "accidentally" touch it

2) when i am around, you will walk briefly away and suddenly make a u turn to touch the plugs

3) you look at me, smile and touch the plug