Colic Baby

No diaper rashes, no hunger but my 2 month old kept on crying whole evening through to the night! None of us at home slept. We could not find any possible reason for his cries. My doctor strictly refrained me from giving something called "Vasa" (telugu, Vasambu in Tamil) even though its a long time practice to burn it with oil lamp and give a small amount of it mixed with a few drops of breast milk. Or beads of Vasa is also tied to the baby's wrists to keep him from any unwanted ailments.

Many of us are so totally into the modern medical and modern science that we pay no respect to our Grandma's Home remedies. I too did not do this until he was 3 months old.  May be this would have worked!

My doctor did prescribe Colimex DF drops (0.5 mL as SOS) but it would not help him. We searched from blogs to doctors to cure his problem, and my gynecologist finally told me this is only colic and we have to put up with this. Medicines would only help him ease the problem. Luckily my son did not suffer for long, the way it came so it went away. Suddenly after a month he was very fine. Touch wood!!!

We tried to give few ml of Fennel Tea (an extract made from fennel). I always gave tummy massage and cycling exercises that helped him relieve his pain. Gripe water also helped. Since he was too small, few drops did work enough.

One important thing is to not to get the baby used to pacifier, this creates lots of air while sucking which will not help a colicky baby.

If you are lucky enough, your kid might even skip feeding bottles like mine, Happy New year 2013.

Diapers and Diapers...

One of the most important baby care jobs, diaper time!!! When can one ever get away with it...!

But then in India, the use of diapers are very recent, for the reason we potty train our kids much early, as early as even at 5 months! I did not do this until when he was 18 months old, but then my mom always wanted me to potty train him much sooner. I got lazy as we used the diapers since he was 3 months old. We used the the diapers available in the market, like Huggies, Mamy Poko Pants but then you know the unwanted torture that comes with the use of these diapers, DIAPER (NAPPY) RASH!!!

Many times, I could not even figure out why my little one would never stop crying in the middle of the night (of course if your baby is a colic baby, we have an added situation). Then we started using home made cloth nappies with nappy pads stuck to them, which will keep him aerated and I would easily know if the diaper is full. This worked out cheap best until my son was 15 months old after which I did not use it on him as I slowly started to potty train him. Moreover, these nappies come with Velcro straps and he was able to easily peel them off.

These nappies are available at Naidu Hall, Chennai, and of course, they are expensive. My mom stitched them at home and it worked out much cheaper for us. Needless to say, this option of buying nappy pads is much cheaper than the expensive diapers unless you want to go out for a longer time. One of my Father's friends was selling them and it was very easily available to me. Nevertheless, the I found the best and cheap shopper's stop for such baby products is Naidu Hall, and I could find almost everything from maternity wear to new born accessories!

You know that even nappy pads will not stop diaper rash but the frequency definitely  did reduce. I had tried many diaper rash creams but the ones that worked out the best were Himalaya Diaper rash cream and Penaten cream (a friend of mine from Germany had brought it when she visited me). 

 I also did use few drops of water mixed with olive oil. It did work but not for long. I had to wait for a long time for the rashes to heal. But who can beat the best thing in the world - Mom's home remedy for diaper rash, The Nut Galls - Masikkai (in Tamil) and Machikaya (Telugu), you will have to make a paste of it by grinding it over the sandalwood grinding stone and apply on the rashes (with certain care taken) - and Lo! they are gone within no time - a wonder that no diaper rash cream can make! 

And of course - use less diapers/nappies of any sort!

Play-mat!

It's time consuming when it comes to buy toys for babies, especially newborns. Every baby is different and the toys that you buy are not appreciated by the babies! Yes, that's the reality, face it. I am talking about a newborn who's just a month or two old. Their eyes cannot focus on a object yet and they can't speak, neither would they smile a lot. Even if they do, it's mostly not appreciating your efforts. I know my sister can't say it like so, as she's a mother. To a mother, every movement of her baby is precious - or should I say it's like the baby is awarding her with a smiley? An unexpected sound in response to a mother's babble is like crowing her with diamond studded tiara!

Anyways, I intend to speak about the play-mat for babies. I strongly recommend that every newborn be given this and please, pretty please, give them time out of their cribs if you plan to buy cribs for your babies. We made a huge mistake of buying a play-mat for my nephew when he was three months old - the time when he started rolling on to his stomach and try swimming! I'll explain why this is too late, as I come to it.

We recommend that you choose a play-mat that has removable arches because, eventually your little one would feel that the curvy struts are being a hindrance to them.

These struts have provisions to hang toys in them - by the ways, they come with them all - few rattles and colorful soft toys. My nephew was playing with a flower and a rattle that has four color beads until he was almost a year and half old! See? Even if your baby outgrows the mat, the toys come useful! Sounds (or should I say noises?) attract the baby's attention first, as they were mainly used to sounds/noises even when they were inside their mommy. They love kicking at the rattle and soft toys that generate different sounds! Keeps them engaged for hours when the tired mom wants some non-baby time.

My nephew was so excited when he was placed on it and he did play with it for sometime, but soon, he found it not so interesting, because as I mentioned earlier, he was already rolling onto his stomach and wanted to swim around and the toys and struts were a hindrance to him.

So if you are an expecting mother or have just delivered your bundle of joy or want to gift your friend's newborn something, a Play-mat would a wise choice as they'd be engaged with it for three months! Believe me that's a long time! Wouldn't you agree, Gayathri ;)?

By the ways, this is a guest blogpost that I did for my sister - just couldn't resist writing one! It's so fun writing about babies and stuff!

The Homecoming

When I came back home from Germany to deliver my baby, I had a big list of toys for the first few months plus yeah, a big box of newborn essentials. I had bought lots of soft toys, name it and I have it... a cat, a dog, an elephant, a big bulldog, and a small teddy, a giraffe on car, a leopard, a turtle, a reindeer, a small rattle cow (of course a soft toy), rabbits, tweety, a tiger,  and more...I should try to put up a snap in one of the upcoming posts. Of course, my son had started to play with them only when he was 18 months old. They were still worth a buy.

My Son - 2 months old with his sleeping buddy - turtle

Then I had some rattles of course. What else did I have for essentials? - Some play suits, sleeping bag (we do not need them during the day in Chennai but then yes, if you have AC at home), feeding bottles (BPA free) - fortunately, my little one never needed them (consider me a lucky, mom)! Then I had a lots of teethers, pacifiers - I was never allowed to use a pacifier, for the reason that it will be difficult to make the kids forget the habit of using pacifiers, and this is true, I have seen a lots of kids still using them until 3 years old!!! 

And the most important - baby essential bag containing lots of pouches (gifted by my dearest friends).

Bobo Nasal Aspirator

Then I had nasal decongester / aspirator. This was a very useful buy. My son used to have attacks of cold at least once in a month.  This had helped me a lot to free his nose. I got the one called Bobo Nasal aspirator from Naidu Hall, Chennai. This was really awesome. I also had the other variants but they were not so effective as this one was. 

And one more thing, sling bag,to carry the baby around - to keep you hands free!

And I did purchase more... But that shall wait for my next post...

The new start...

Hi all. I think it's much difficult to start writing a blog than having ideas.

I wanted to start a toy blog with the mixed experiences I had to make my little one play with the toys I bought for him. But why not have a blog more than for just a toy? So here I am with lots of mixed stuff on the journey of my motherhood! My little boy is 2 years old now. We share the same birth date! awesome isn't it?

So as planned I would start off with something related to play but more than just that is on the way!!!

So to all the mothers and would-be mothers,
HAPPY MOTHERHOOD!