How to potty train your child?

“How do you potty train your kids?” asked my friends. Since this topic is quite popular among some of my friends thus I guess it will be nice to share my own experience. 

Some important tips:

• Every kid is different 

• More haste, less speed 

• Observe your child’s readiness 

• Make it fun

• Let’s go toilet together

Every kid is different. The rumour says that girls potty trained earlier than boys. Does it apply to all girls? I don’t think so. My girl was only able to ditch the diapers totally when she was 5 years old but my boy was diaper free when he was just barely 4. So, it really depends on your child’s personality and readiness.

More haste, less speed. I remembered the stress I had when my girl’s preschool teacher said that most of her classmates were toilet trained and my girl was the last two who were yet to. I discussed with the teachers that Claire was not ready yet because she was a year-end born baby. But the stress from school and family “how come your girl is not diaper-free yet?” were lingering and thus I decided to potty her earlier even though she was not really yet. Consequences? Lots of peeing incident, change of bedsheets, and sadly cries. :( After two weeks, I decided to stop and try after a month later thinking of how should I make this better.

Observe your child’s readiness. How do you know your child is ready to attempt this new milestone? 

• Their diapers are dry or very less pee during their awake time. It is a super good news If their diaper is also dry during nap time. 
• They want to go toilet with you to pee which means your little ones are interested to know how adults pee in the toilet. Oh yes, if this happen, please really welcome them to observe you peeing in the toilet. My boy became interested when he saw his father did his pee. It became like a mini-sharing session between them on how to aim their pee into the toilet bowl. :p

Make it Fun!

Week 1 and 2:

• Show them books, videos and songs about potty training or how is it like to become a big boy and girl without diapers. There’s quite a number of them online and my favourite videos is: Elmo Potty Time.
• Involve your child in the purchase of his potty. Show them pictures of some of the potty you have selected and let him choose which to buy :)
• Teach him how to pull down their pants and sit on the potty.

Day time Diaper Free Challenge. We had reward charts which rewarded her for totally dry diapers (though sometimes I feel “wah! Waste diaper!” But this is what she is comfortable with”) to train her confidence level. “Yeah! See no pee pee!” I exclaimed. We used the Huggies XL diaper so you can see the pee indicators clearly. Place potty at the living room so she is able to access it easily.

If your child is not diaper free during awake time, then it may take a few weeks to train that first.

Week 3 - 5:

Nap/Night time Diaper Free Challenge. When your child is totally diaper free during awake time excluding naps. It is time to observe his readiness during sleeping time. Is there pee on his diaper? Or no pee at all? If so, your child is ready. Yeah!

Try naps first because it is shorter sleep time and achievable milestones to build confidence before transition to night time challenge.

Do the same thing that you did for the day time challenge with potty inside the bedroom. Provide a sensor nightlight which will brighten when they go to their potty or have a portable kids nightlight so they can hold it to go to the potty (especially if their bedroom is dark).

Please be patient and expected pee accidents. Encourage your child and tell them is ok and continue to try. If persistent accidents happen, it means your child needs to a break from this training (maybe you too!) and try it maybe a week later.

Let’s go toilet together!

This may seem weird for first time parents but seeing is doing. Let your child see you pee and even poo. They will learn what are good habits and what to do in the toilet. Don’t be shy :p

Lastly, the stress and lack of child’s readiness prolong training. Just remember that your child ultimately will be potty ready or train. Breathe and relax. This is really true after I tried the above steps for my younger child. He was totally diaper free a few days before he is 4 years old. 

All the best :)

Deariebear Mommie

My boy is good with Maths!

My 5 years old boy started learning how to add 2 digits number using tens and ones a few days ago and is really getting the hang of it. He will always tell me “I am a smart boy!”. 

How did my boy become so confident in his Maths? His Maths journey when he was about 3.5 years old when we were in Mumbai. My girl was enrolled in seriously addictive maths in Mumbai and my boy kept pestering me to let him join his sister’s maths lesson. After a trial, we felt that the room was too small with the number of students and Pierre was pretty active and disturbed her sister in class. Yes, tuition centers in Mumbai are really small. Most centres have only 1 classroom and is small unlike Singapore. So I told him to wait till he is 4 years old. (A summary of tips will be at bottom of this page).

That time I was wondering whether I was taking away his interest to learn so I played counting with him using Legos and toys. When he was about 4 years old, I chanced upon Kumon Mumbai and I enrolled him mainly because the room is bigger :P. To my surprise, he was really focused and learnt fast. Kumon Maths encourages repetitive practice everyday and Pierre did it diligently from counting and writing numbers and learnt till addition of single numbers till 7 (e.g 3+7). He can easily answer you with simple additions. :)

After when we are back in March due to potential convid lockdown in India (yes, we caught the first flight before the news of the first lockdown was confirmed), we totally stopped Kumon lessons. Luckily, I had some Kumon Maths books which I bought long time ago (gathered in dust) for my girl. Great that I could use those books for my boy. Within these few months, he completed two Kumon addition Maths and now almost finished with basic subtraction book.

As we were all stuck at home, I helped him to enrol zearn.org and dreambox for Maths online learning. These are free during Summer due to convid-19. These organisations support virtual learning during school closures. My kids really love these two sites and improved their Maths’ skills during Singapore’s circuit breaker.

Currently, he is learning Maths concepts instead of just memorising basic addition. But trust me. Those basic maths additions which he became so good at did help him to learn the concepts faster. 

I’m happy and amazed how my boy is able to do primary 1 Maths when he is just K1. He might maybe completed Primary 1 maths at the end of the year? 

Most importantly, my boy became confident because of his Maths learning journey and you will often hear him say “I am good in Maths!”.

To sum up the tips:

• Start your toddler’s interest in Maths by using toys or even things at home to get him counting.
• Use Kumon worksheets or books from Amazon:
• Start with this basic addition book with counting, writing numbers and simple additions

Grade 1 Addition

 

• Practice more additions with this book.

My Book of Addition

 

• Start with basic subtraction with counting backwards, writing numbers and simple subtraction

My Book Of Simple Subtraction

 

• Practice more subtractions with this book.

Grade 1 Subtraction

 

• When your children or toddlers are more comfortable in additions and simple subtractions, you can introduce him Maths concepts of Tens and Ones.

Have Fun and Be Amazed with your Kiddos!

Cheers,

Deariebear Mommie

Baby Claire's personality at 1.5 years old. Holding hand is her fav!

Hello Baby Claire,

This is how Papa and Mama will describe you when you are 1.5 year old.

Every child is different and has his/her own unique personality. So does our little Claire.

At a young age, Claire has a pretty fun and jestful personality. Her personality often brings us lots of laughters but yet at the same time annoyance.

I'm wonder whether it's due to us "over-playing" with her when she was younger, forming her extroverted character? We have a lot of videos that captured her in action.


Recently, she loves holding hands with other young children. Ever since she started holding hands with her cousin, Chriselle and her neighbour, Xinyi, she went around touching hands of little strangers, eager to hold their hands. But she sometimes will run off at the verge of success because of shyness. :P I got a feeling that she is going to be a really sociable girl

So happy holding hand in hand with her cousin, Chriselle

She loves to kiss her toys, books and of course people she love. Every night, she will peck gently on the cheeks of her grandparents and us. I started her on the night kisses which I think it is a good habit to thank especially her grandparents for taking such good care of her during the day. Must be tiring as she is a really active girl, always on the move. And talking about her kissing books? she loves to kiss pictures of little children and babies especially boys found in her books! I think Justin Papa will frown at this sentence :P

Big eater! She is a very good eater. For her age, she can easily eat half a bowl of rice and dishes during lunch and dinner. Cereal, bread and fruits during breakfast, Drinking milk 3 times a day which amounts to around 570ml. And she will request for bread by saying "包! 包!" To be honest, I am not a fan of bread. So this must be influenced by the grandfather after she saw him eating it every day :)

美美! She wants to look pretty. Now that she has her own little cupboard, she will want to choose her dresses. According to grandpa, she specifically wanted to wear a red gown to the polyclinic.

Another way to describe baby Claire is a turning round machine. She loves to turn round and round whenever there is music played. She can turn round for 20 to 25 times without stopping. I believe we will become giddy after doing this. She will laugh it off because she find it funny. Weird and funny child is it? I dunno where did she learn this from???

So the above says the fun, sweet, a bit eccentric Baby Claire. Now came the not-so funny traits.

Top of my list is throwing things! She loves to throw, and I mean out-right throw things in front of you when you ask her to hand them over. Even if she is playing or eating, she will throw away her bowl, her spoon, her book, her heavy musical Mozart box. This definitely annoyed me especially when we are outside. The latest incident was at Choa Chu Kang market where we order dishes from a stall. I had to constantly hold her plate where her peas and corns was placed. In a spilt second when I accidentally released it, she threw the plate behind her, and then "Plank?!". The aunties of the stalls are staring at us, shocked. Sigh...can anyone tell us what to do with this?

Next would be stubbornness which I believe all of us have it too. She will insists on things she wanted, be it bread, be it book, my handphone, etc. Her latest trick in the bag is to lie down on the floor with her entire body relaxed when she doesn't want to follow out instruction. We will then have to bend down to pull her up. Believe that's how I got my backache.

Lastly, would be she is a very active little girl. Sometimes we will ask "Are you a boy or a girl" and often in Chinese "你是男孩， 还是女孩呢？" She will answer "boy!" Oh gosh!!

The above is a little glimpse of my baby characters and traits at her 18 months. What about ur baby?

Love,
Deariebear Mommie

Review of GOmamaGO Designs Wonder Bumpers

One fine night, baby Claire suddenly let out some sound in the middle of the night. We then turned on the light and oh gosh! She was standing on her cot. After a tired day at work, this was something that we didn't expect to be happening.

That was a few months back when Claire was around 9 months old. Back then her bed height was at the highest where you could easily grab her up. When this happened, Justin Papa immediately changed the height of the bed to the middle level the next morning. After which, he realized that the height was still too dangerous and moved it to the lowest level.

From the video, the traditional bumpers that we bought fit nicely when the bed was at its highest level.

However, when you move the bed lower, the bumper is not really useful. It got loosen easily and became very messy because we cannot use the top railing of the cot to secure the bumper. Claire also loved to step on these bumpers and try to climb out of the bed. This kinda worried me because she was learning how to sit down from standing on her cot. And being a pretty clumsy yet adventurous baby, she sometimes loves to do free fall on her bed...which scared the shit out of us.

Thus, I started to search online for better bumpers. I came across GomamGo Designs wonder bumpers.

You can find the list of benefits in their website. Below are some of the pros and cons from our experience with the bumpers.

Pros

• Protect against head bumps and bodily injury. Since all the slates are protected with form, your child should be safe or at least minimize injury
• Cannot be used as leverage to climb out
• More airflow for baby to breathe better
• Each slate comes with a zip instead of ribbons to tie or velcro tapes which can be easily pulled out by babies. Also no entanglement due to loose bumpers or ribbons.
• Many beautiful designs to create a cute sleeping environment for your baby.
• Dump into the washing machines in low tumbler dry mode. Do not use a hot dryer which we accidentally did which may damage some of the poly form of the bumper.

Cons

• The company mentioned that it will keep limbs safely inside. However, Baby Claire is still able to put her feet and hand outside. But, Claire was still able to remove them from the openings. I guess also it depends on the width of each slates of your cot.
• Tiring to zip up and zip out each time you wash these bumpers though it is really easy to do so. However, if you have fatter slates at the two shorter sides of the cot, you will really need to squeeze the bumpers to be able to zip them up.

One more thing before I forget. Do not try their teething guard (came together as freebie) because strands of fur came out when Claire tried to bite on it.

The wonder bumper set with its teething guard.

So end up, we use the extra bumpers, blanket (she is not using a blanket) and make it into a teething guard. We secure them with Velcro tapes which so far, Claire has not be able to take them out. Somehow, she stopped biting the rails when we put these bumpers as teething guard. Else, we will be seeing white paint on her faces again.

The wonder bumper with improved teething guard (using extra bumpers + blanket)

These GomamaGo Design Wonder Bumpers are now in Singapore. You can find them in Lazada. It was not available in Singapore a few years back so I googled online and they are a few options. You will realised that buying in Singapore is now much cheaper.

I decided on two types of design "The Wild Thing 38 Set" and the "Modern Nature 38 Set" which were currently on sale. Each cost $149 USD. Total cost including shipment by the company to local U.S. residents will be around $268.20 USD ($341SGD)  after 10% discounts if you signed up for their newsletter.

1. Using Comgateway.com. After reading some good reviews online, I decided to try my first overseas shipping service. The shipping cost around 206.54USD ($263SGD) with free upgrade to express delivery for newcomers. And the items arrived within a week. so fast! In total with goods and shipment, I spent around $475USD ($604).  
2. Place order from fishpond.com.sg. However, this company did not ship in the designs I wanted. So I compare something equivalent. It cost $403SGD with free shipping. If I ordered two of these items, it will cost $806SGD. I SAVED $202SGD!
3. Amazon? I believe it will also be cheaper if you place order from Amazon since some comes with free delivery. Unfortunately they do not have those cute designs.

In conclusion, we have the love and hate thingy towards these bumpers, they give us the ease of mind, really looks beautiful, etc however changing the slates one by one does take some patience. Thus, we only changed them once every two or three weeks. Opps!

Hope the above is helpful to shed some lights on the wonder bumpers and how you can order them if you are staying in Singapore or somewhere where the company don't deliver to your door step. :)

Cheers,

Deariebearmommie

Haircut experiences at Junior League Children's Style Salon

As new parents, we are kinda afraid a few things when it comes to our little baby's hair.

"She already have so so little hair, if shave, then really botak, look ugly leh" said Justin Papa.

I continued to add in the jar of fear, "She is so tiny, how to shave her hair? will the shaver cut her head or not?"

However, after some really deep considerations for several months, we decided to shave off her hair when she was 4 months old given that her hair didn't grow evenly and looked like some poor little puppy with hair which was not properly groomed.

We decided to try out Junior League Children Style Salon at Vivocity. Seriously, we do not have any complains except that her clothes were full of hair after the shaving. The auntie was patient and at the same time able to shaved her head really clean at fast speed. She is really a professional!

Claire was distracted, looking at the LCD screen which was showing the Barney show. She was pretty calm until the end when the auntie brushed off the hair from her face. I guess she didn't like the prickly brush.

I think we paid around $20-$22 for that haircut. That was in May 2013.

Claire also seem much happier after the haircut too except with Justin Papa calling her BOTAK for months :) And see how fast her hair had grown after 1 short month.

Last Sunday we decided to bring her to a haircut again because her fringe and her hair behind was getting longer and untidy. So we decided to try Junior League again but this time round at West Coast Plaza.

This time round, an auntie gave her stickers and balloon. She is really good too. Fast and know how to stop for a while when she moved. Or can I said that the auntie is agile? She really enjoyed these gifts and obediently sat through the haircut :)

Baby Claire's hair definitely looks neater. Gosh, I think she looks like 樱桃小丸子。 Hahahaha.

Cheers,

Deariebearmommie

Baby is walking!

In this new lunar year, we would like to share to the whole world the good news that our baby is walking!!

Still remember that Baby Claire's one year old birthday party not long ago? Back then, she could stand but not able to walk very steadily.

 

Now? Oh mine. You cannot believe how much she has progressed. She is walking very fast, even faster when I tried to walk backward taking this video. Very soon, she can run. And if you see a mother running after her kid and way behind...yes, it will be me.. I'm not physically active..so I will need Justin Papa to do the running then :P

 

And you know what, she is also able to climb up the stairs of the playground though we brought her there for the very first time.

Our Baby Claire is definitely a very active baby and growing up really fast. :)

Love,
Deariebearmommie

Baby Claire snacking begins!

Baby Claire started snacking only recently and we encouraged her to try to hold the snack herself. At first, she was reluctant. Her mouth would just open WIDE and wait for us to feed her, refusing to handle the snack. She is 11th month-old and I felt that we may have started her a bit late in handling food with her tiny hands and fingers.

Thus these few days we have started giving her snacks of a size that she can better handle herself. I am also really glad that my mother-in-law don't mind the mess. She is the one who encourages Claire to snack herself and said that we can clean up the mess afterwards :)

 So far, Baby Claire have fed herself white bread, banana, biscuits, and today a big cucumber.

Just look at the how good she is with the cucumber.

A week ago, I also created some baked chicken biscuits as snacks as well. However, we didn't let her grab it herself and just fed her directly. She loves it. I will write a quick recipe on it on my next blog post when I am able to capture a picture of the chicken biscuits tomorrow. :)

Cheers,
Deariebear Mommie

Sleep Training Baby Claire using CIO by Gina Ford

This blog post may help new parents who wish to try out Cry It Out (CIO) method for baby sleep training.

Disclaimer:  I am not an expert in sleep training and everything written here is based on my own experience. Every baby is different and thus some may take longer or shorter time to succeed in this training.

Before I go into the details (This is going to be a long post). Ask yourself why are you using this method? Is your baby waking up several times at night, wanting you to soothe her to sleep? Is your baby waking up several times at night wanting you to help her to put back on her pacifier? Do you need to hold and rock your baby for some time before she sleep? If above sound familiar, the CIO method may be a way to address them. However different parents have their own way of getting their baby to sleep. Some believe that it is natural for babies to be rocked to sleep. :)

Sadly, both of us lacked of the energy to do the above after a tired day at work. Neither would my in-law too. I was also afraid that they will be worn out after a long period of time. Thus, after deep considerations, we decided to try out this method.

Before you try this out, you have to ensure that your baby is not crying due to hunger, need diaper change, or is sick. Most importantly, you cannot be faint-hearted.

Being new parents, we were excited to see our very first baby. At the hospital, she was so so tiny and we held her for a pretty long time, sometimes more than an hr before she dozed off. She slept very soundly and peacefully.

When we returned home, Baby Claire had problem getting to sleep at night, and so I had breastfed and held her to sleep. This was really dangerous because there was an incident when I nearly dozed off and dropped her from my arm..oh gosh! When she was a month plus old, due to her insistent crying and refusal to sleep alone, we even let her slept side by side with us even though we had a cot. We placed her on our bed, and I sang and patted her till she slept. Her sleep time was around 11.30p.m or 12.30a.m...Justin Papa and I were really truly exhausted. Imagine what if we were to turn and flatten her.

To be honest, I didn't knew that sleep training and building routines were so important. I never had these ideas in my head that I could have read up on these and be more prepared before Baby Claire was born. I was much more into pre-natal stuff instead.

Thus, when Baby Claire was about 3 months plus, I began to google online about challenges of why babies cannot sleep earlier or on their own at night. There were tons of information but the most important finding was about building a good routine for the baby. Many experts and mummies online mentioned that babies love routines and they are good at following them. Please view my earlier blog post on setting routines for your baby.

Please note that your baby should be already in a comfortable routine before you start sleep training. This is to ensure that he or she is not crying because of hunger. Also, your baby should be well and healthy when you try out this method. I tried out sleep training when Baby Claire was 5 to 6 months old and coincided with my 2 weeks leave. The good thing was that she was already in a routine which I started when she was 3 to 4 months old. Thus, I knew that she was definitely not hungry if she was crying.

Step 1: Assist your baby to sleep if she is sleeping at the wrong timing (If you have yet to set her into a routine.

You must first determine a set timing for your baby to fall asleep and stick to it. Next you must use all means to assist the baby. 

How to assist her? For me, it will be the current way that you are helping her to sleep. If you have been rocking her, cuddling her, giving her a pacifier, just continue the same way to assist her to sleep.

Step 2: Using the "Crying It Out" (CIO) method
 
This sounds scary right? Initially when I read about this "Crying It Out" (CIO) or also known as the Crying Down method, I was like "Oh mine...you mean let her cry and cry and cry till she sleep or vomit?"

After reading Gina Ford, "The Complete Sleep Guide", I realized that is not totally the case.  

You can go reassure your baby after she cries for 5 mins, then extend to 10 mins, and so on. However, reassurance has to be kept to the minimum (less than 5 mins) by patting on her chest, and say "shhh..". And one thing to note, do not talk to your baby too much or even hold her up. Keep things as quiet and simple as possible.

Detail step to the CIO method:

Day 1

1. After you have completed your bedtime routine (bath, milk feed, settling e.g singing lullaby, bedtime stories, etc), settle your baby in her cot when she shows signs of sleepiness and before she fall asleep. Kiss her goodnight and leave the room.
2. If she is still crying after 5 to 10 minutes, you can go into her room and reassure her by stroking her or say "ssh ssh" but she MUST NOT BE PICKED UP. Keep this reassurance to around 2 minutes and exit the room. Repeat this step till it is half an hour later, and the time between visit should then be increased by another 5-10 minutes, i.e. around 15 to 20 minutes before the reassurance.
3. Continue till your baby falls asleep. Baby Claire took around 45 minutes before she fell asleep. I guess she took longer than usual because previously we picked her up after letting her cry for 10 minutes. 
4. For Baby Claire, she did woke up in the middle of the night and we follow step 2 and 3 again. She took around 30 to 40 minutes before she did soothe herself to sleep.

Day 2

1. It is necessary for you to continue this training for her day-time naps as well. Wait at least 20 minutes before you check on your baby. Continue to keep the reassurance to a maximum of 2 minutes.
2. When your baby does not sleep and it is near her time to get up from bed, you can perhaps extend another 15 to 30 minutes of sleep time to her routine. Baby Claire started to get into the pattern and took a shorter 30 minutes of crying before she soothed herself to sleep.
3. When it comes to evening time, continue what you have done at Day1 where you complete your bedtime routine and settling. However, this time round, you can reassurance her by saying "ssh ssh" but do not stroke or touch her. 
4. If she is still crying after the first hour, the time between visit should be increased to 35-40 minutes. 
5. If she wakes up in the night, you should wait 45 minutes before checking on her. Do not speak or stroke her. Reduce the reassurance time to one minute. Baby Claire showed great improvements and only cried for 5-10 minutes before she soothe herself to sleep. YEAH!!! By the way, we were also trying to get her off her pacifier.

Day 3

1. According to the expert, Gina Ford, she mentioned that most babies will be able to soothe themselves to sleep after 20 minutes. Pretty true for us. Baby Claire took around 10-20 minutes of crying before going to sleep. I didn't even once went into the room to reassurance her. Woo Hoo! 
2. If your baby did not manage to soothe herself to sleep, or her training timing worsen. Start by timing your visits to 15 to 20 minutes of crying, and increase the interval till it is every 45 minutes. 

 This is a video of her when she was at her 3rd day of sleep training. :)

Personally, I feel that she is happier now because she is able to soothe herself to sleep. Ever since the training, she weaned off her pacifier too. :) However, there are certain days or nights where Baby Claire took longer time to sleep due to a few reasons like teething, separation anxiety, or maybe we let her sleep too much during her last evening nap, etc. So far, things still fall back into place.

It is also important that your caregivers practice the same routines and adopt the same methods to settle and allow your baby to learn how to soothe herself to sleep.

Hope the above sharing is helpful. A disclaimer again, I am not an expert in sleep training but wrote this article due to many similar concerns expressed by my friends and colleagues. However, if you have any questions, you can feel free to put in your comments or post a question at http://www.facebook.com/deariebearmommie 

You can also buy the book from Amazon.  Click here: The Complete Sleep Guide For Contented Babies & Toddlers

Cheers,
Deariebear Mommie

Baby Claire's first swim

We've finally bought our little Claire to swim yesterday morning at Singapore Polytechnic. It is pretty near my house and the good thing is that the pool at SP is chorine free. :)

Some of my friends asked "Why did you take so so long to bring Claire for her first swim"? Well, we felt she is so tiny, afraid wait she will catch a cold and also partly because the fortune teller said that we need to be careful of her and water when she is below 3 years old.

However, I felt that she might be very fearful of water like she is stepping on the sand at the park. Thus, I woke my hubby up and say "Let's bring her for her swim TODAY".

We put on her new pink swimwear and put her on a pink top and ready to go!

Glad that I decided to ask Papa Justin to take out her toy to let her play in hope to calm her down, and she did!

After 5 minutes letting her to play her toy while I move her around the pool, I slowly removed her toy and she seemed fine with it and then the fun began!

We played in the baby pool for around 30 minutes and I guess it was pretty not bad for her first swim. :) Happy that the weather was good with some sun. And you know what?? We were really lucky because after our swim, it began to pour. :)

P.S: Papa Justin did not go into the pool today because his thumb is still covered with stitches. :( 

Cheers,

Deariebear Mommie