Life's simple pleasure

When baby open his eye and mouth wide in shock whenever the vacuum cleaner goes to work...cute moment for the onlooker :)

Life's simple pleasure

When baby finds humour in walking fingers, creating drum beats on the bed  and when daddy/mummy sneezes

Life's simple pleasure

When baby gives a big smile every morning, when he sees you and when i give him a stern lecture. On the last bit, maybe not when he is older.

Life's simple pleasures

Simple pleasure is when baby slowly fall asleep in your arms with his hand grabbing tightly, while you sing twinkle twinkle little star. A slight burp along the way adds the icing on the cake.

What you need in the first 4 months

A survival list of some of the selected items you can expect to get for the first 4 months of baby's life. Mainly the poo-ing part, the drinking part, the keeping warm/decency part and the doctor fees. Hopefully this will give expectant parents a guide as to what to expect, and perhaps join in some sprees or buy in bulk for some savings.

Diapers:

You will need around 600pcs of diapers for the first 4 month, and that work out to about 5-6pcs a day. Some practice changing diaper every 3 hours during the day, and longer at night if baby sleeps longer stretch (a big IF). It is $0.30 per pcs, and if baby poop immediately after you change, 30 cents goes down the drain.

Size-wise, my experience is that Huggies newborn diapers are really good for newborns because they are small enough to fit nicely for baby below 3kg. There-after, Pampers remain the choice for us and there are some good offers at NTUC Fairprice. We switched to Pamper size 3 when baby is around 6kg.


Baby Wipes:

You will need at least 1300pcs of baby wipes for the first 4 months (numbers here are under-stated. We had some free ones which is not accounted for here). It would be safe to say you need 2 or more wipes per diaper change.


Lotion for the buttock:

You apply this during the process of changing diaper to prevent nappy rash. It is 100ml per tube, and we were attracted to this brand because it is organic. We recently got Desitin Maximum Strength to apply when we spot rashes on baby buttocks. Otherwise, its GAIA then.


BreastMilk Storage Bag:

This is to store the precious breast-milk to store for use later. Milk in storage bag, when stored in fridge can last around 2 days and if you put it into freezer, it can last for 6 months. Depending on the milk flow, you may need more or less of this. Some even end up buying an additional freezer to store more milk bags. In any case, would be good to get a pack or 2 to standby until you can ascertain the supply.


Milk Bottles:

  
My advise if to get a sufficient amount of bottles if you want more sleep and convenience. Hygiene is a big part in your daily care of baby, and washing as well as sterilizing takes up time better spent with baby or resting. More importantly, you can prepare the milk bottles with milk in advance, and avoid pouring milk in the middle of the night, half awake. Imho, it would be good to start with 6 bottles and work around once you work out your routine.

Teats need to be changed every 2 month or so as their quality drops with usage and frequent sterilization under high temperature. We used silicone (apparently the texture is closer to mothers) and this wear off faster.


Liquid Cleanser:

To wash baby's bottle and stuff.


Clothes:

We change baby to long sleeve shirt and pants at night from bodysuit he wears in the day. Some hand me downs not included in the numbers here. The more you get the less washing you need to do. No need for branded items here, since they grow so quickly that depreciation is going to be very high if you get an Armani bodysuit.


Pediatrician:

There will be a first consultation 1 week after baby is born, especially if baby has jaundice, it will be the time for pediatrician to check on his progress. Subsequently, the 1st month will come with the first jab, and the following jabs will be 3rd month and 6th month respectively. Click on the label - Pediatrician, for more details.

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.