A Working Mom’s Wishlist

When I became a mom, I realized that there is much to be desired when it comes to working conditions for working moms. Here’s my wishlist for making the lives of working moms easier, and to allow us to continue working without feeling guilty for leaving our little ones at home. Some of these I want, some I already have:

1. Longer maternity leaves: here in the Philippines, it’s 60 days maternity leave for normal birth and 78 days for caesarian delivery. I think this is too short! I remember that when I was nearing my due date, I had wanted to extend my maternity leave even without pay for 6 months, but my then-boss did not allow me to do so. What I did was I used all my VL credits, so I was able to stay home until my baby was 3 months old. But I want at least 6 months ML, because the present ML now is just not enough. Paging Congress…

2. Bosses who are more understanding: working moms and moms-to-be need considerate and understanding bosses, who understand how hard it is to work while pregnant/taking care of a young child. Working in our condition is difficult enough as it is; hence, no”bawal magbuntis dito sa office” comments, please!!! Especially not in front of clients! Aaarghh. And that also applies to letting us pump milk in peace in  our office, especially if we’re doing our work naman in spite of the additional demands of pumping. And no comments on how we want to take care of our child; if we want to “baby” our baby, let us be. Different people have different parenting styles; I don’t comment on yours, so no comments on mine.

3. Opportunities to take care of ourselves and/or our babies without the boss making us feel guilty: we feel guilty as it is about leaving our kids with yayas the entire day just to work, so if we’re doing our jobs well, just let us be. Please also let the preggies take good care of themselves while working, because they don’t need additional stress, and they need to take care of themselves for their babies’ sakes. I recall the time when I was pregnant and the clients were not only being unreasonable but mean as well. It got to the point that I cried so hard that I felt my baby getting a bit agitated inside my tummy, and I felt so guilty for letting my baby experience that. After that I vowed not to let my baby go through the same experience again (hence I got another job :P). This also applies to not making your pregnant employee ride in the car with you the whole day to go to meetings if you are sick; even if she does not get sick, her baby will get the virus (which happened to me; I gave birth a few days after that germ-riddled joy ride and my baby ended up staying in the hospital for a week because he had pneumonia!).

4. Competent yayas: a competent yaya makes a world of difference in allowing us to go to work with virtually no worries about our child’s welfare while we’re away.

5.   Supportive husbands: because we can’t handle everything ourselves, especially those first few weeks post-partum 🙂

6. Time and place for pumping breastmilk: there’s a new law mandating this, but what I want is unrestricted hours (hehehe). After all, it’s hard to maintain milk supply if you can’t pump as much as you need to when you’re away from your baby.

7. No judgments: Let us pump milk to our heart’s content, with no comments or judgments, even if you think that we’ve already breastfed our baby “long enough.”

8. Higher pay for shorter working hours: wish lang naman eh. 😛

“Vitamins, vitamins, vitamins…”

“…yummy yum, yummy yum ang vitamins…”

I used to sing this last year whenever I’d give my baby his daily vitamins. Initially, I’d pump some milk (maybe an ounce), then add the vitamins to the milk which I will then feed him. A couple of months later, especially when I went back to work and no longer had the luxury of pumping just for the purpose of having it mixed with vitamins, and also upon the advice of my baby’s pedia, I stopped my earlier practice and gave the vitamins to him straight via the dropper included in the bottle. I sing my made-up “Vitamins” song, too, to get him distracted enough, and I suppose also so that my baby will find our vitamin-taking ritual an enjoyable one :P.

When we had our yaya N, she took over the giving of daily vitamins to my baby. But she retained the song :). We were actually lucky, because baby was very agreeable, and took his vitamins with nary a complaint, even when there were already 2 kinds of vitamins to take. In that sense I felt like I lucked out in the baby lottery.

The next yaya was also lista enough to give the vitamins to my baby. When she left, however, her replacement is a young and inexperienced teener, who, when I asked on her first day, was not able to give the vitamins to my baby. So I said no problem, I’d just give it myself. I thought she was too young anyway to be given such a responsibility.

And that’s when I noticed that the “medicine does not go down” as easily as before. Whereas before he was very cooperative, now there was much struggle and squirming and yelling and turning away of the head before I can give him his daily vitamins. Even when I was somehow able to manage to get him to open up for the medicine dropper, he’d sort of spit it out!

The next day, I thought of changing my tactic; instead of using a medicine dropper, I mixed the two in a tiny cup, and gave it to baby. Siguro nalito, because he took the cup and drank it in two gulps (the second one with intentional spillage, though). I thought I finally found the secret, but I was mistaken, because by the third day he refused to take the vitamins by cup or by dropper. What’s worse is he cried, with real tears and everything this time! And sadly, even my song did not work anymore.

So now, that’s my new challenge: how to get my baby to take his vitamins again. This one I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to conquer. Guess my luck already ran out. 😛

Daddy’s Day

Sige na, let’s celebrate Father’s Day. After all, moms don’t have a monopoly on the job of raising kids (though I get the impression that I have the monopoly on poopy diapers :P). Dads share in the pains and hardships of a mom’s pregnancy, too. My husband was very patient with me all throughout my pregnancy, even when I became hormonal, unreasonable, irritable, demanding and cried at the drop of a hat. He looked after my and our unborn baby’s welfare to the extent that he can, given his very demanding job. He helped in (almost) all aspects of taking care of our newborn especially during his paternity leave, and did not sleep like me, hehehe. He also supported my decision to quit my better-paying law office job for a lesser-paying but more mommy-suited one in government, when I couldn’t take the long hours anymore. And once in a while, even if he had to get up early the next day, he’d get our baby to go back to sleep when our little one wakes in the middle of the night.

My own dad used to say that Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day, too, for that matter) is just an “invention” of malls so they can get people to buy gifts and eat out. 🙂 That may be true to some extent, but for me, it wouldn’t hurt to show appreciation once in a while for our parents who have done so much for us and who expect nothing in return, save for us to grow up well.

Happy Father’s Day, Dads!!!

Interiors by Baby

When they say that a baby will change your life, be prepared, because the change also includes your house. 😛

In our case, it was not just the baby-proofing. Our living room used to look like this:

Now, the rug and coffee table are gone, the rug in order to avoid allergies and the table owing to an accident I wrote about previously. Our living room now looks like this:

It's been cleared! 🙂

Notice the coffee table now on the altar 🙂

As you can see, our living room has now been cleared in the middle so that our baby can run and jump to his heart’s delight without us fearing for his safety. Notice also that it has been turned into some sort of parking lot for baby’s wheeled things (stroller, walker, ride-on toy cars). In there also is a stack of extra rubber puzzle mats which we can assemble over the living room floor in a pinch. It’s actually a bit roomier now that we’ve packed up the playpen.

Of course, not spared from this redesign was our bedroom; our bed now has a bed rail so that our baby won’t fall to the floor; a couch which we set up on the foot of the bed as an additional harang, occupying what used to be the crib’s spot; a chest where we put baby’s clothes, on top of which are placed his diapers and other toiletries; the DVD shelf where we also put some of his board books; and of course, toys on the floor.

Not to be outdone, the library also received an overhaul; where it once housed our books and various abubot, half of it has been converted into a playroom for our little cutie:

Even though our house has been turned upside down and inside out, I absolutely have no regrets. Anyway, we have our manang around who manages to put some semblance of order into our house. The joy of having a baby is incomparable. I’ll just put my dream of a home worthy of Martha Stewart on hold in the meantime, no biggie. For now, I’m enjoying our home designed by baby. 🙂

Hello Yaya, Goodbye Yaya

Today we said goodbye to my little boy’s 3rd (technically 4th) yaya. The first one asked to go even before my baby was born, and never even had the chance to do her actual job. The second one, J, was quite young and acted her age. She texted all the time, always went to the neighborhood sari-sari store to buy cellphone load and cigarettes, had a barkada in our street within her first month, and threatened to leave immediately when we denied an unreasonable request. We knew then that she had to go; while she did not make good her threat, we still felt that such an attitude should not be tolerated especially since I was already back at work then and will certainly be negatively affected if she were to leave in a huff with no decent notice. We immediately looked for a replacement.

Our third yaya, N, was middle-aged with two grown-up kids. At first she looked aloof, but eventually we warmed up to each other and became friends. For the first time after I went back to work, I felt that I was leaving my baby in good hands. Unfortunately she had a few health problems, including hypertension. She finally had to say goodbye when she felt that she does not have the staying power to bend down and run after the little boy all the while trying to avoid him hitting the wall or falling down or some other impending accident.

Our fourth yaya, G, was also good. She was tireless, very industrious, patient, a quick learner, and seemingly impervious to the bullying our manang sometimes subjected her to. Most importantly she, like N, seemed to love my baby. This last quality is really an important one for me, and I put a lot of premium on it. Aside from competence, this is what I look for in a yaya. If she loves my baby, then I’ll know that she won’t easily lose patience with him and will always look after him with love and care. She asked to leave because she has two small children in the province, and she was able to get some sort of financial assistance from the government which requires her to be there every month.

So now we’re on to our fifth. I hope that she’ll be as good as her last two predecessors. I hope we can be lucky in that respect for the third time in a row. 🙂

“It’s A Accident!”

When I became a mom, my maternal instincts really kicked in, and I felt attuned to my baby’s needs and everything else related to him. For example, we co-slept (and still do, actually) ever since he was about two weeks old. I was at first afraid to do so, fearing that I might crush him if I sleep beside him, but realized that I am easily awakened even by the slightest stir from him. This made breastfeeding so much easier, especially when he was still at that stage when he has to feed every two hours. No more crying in the middle of the night ’cause he’s hungry, as I was able to anticipate his needs.

Also kicking in is the protectiveness which I immediately felt with my baby when he was born. However, a year and five months of motherhood has made me realize that we as mothers can’t completely protect our children from all the dangers we can think of, whether big or small. Short of making G wear a helmet and knee pads all the time, scratches, bruises and bumps were inevitable. The best we can do is be vigilant, attentive and possess a nice big helping of foresight.

Of course, not all booboos can be foreseen, as I have experienced first hand (and much to my husband and baby’s chagrin :P). One time, I was taking care of G; we were sitting on the floor next to the coffee table playing. He was sitting, but not on his cutesy baby bum (I hope you can imagine the picture I’m trying to paint here 🙂 ). All of a sudden he got out of balance and boink! hit his cheek on the leg of the coffee table. The result was a bruise on his face which lasted for a week :(.

What gives me comfort is that, contrary to what we may think and fear, it is true that babies are not as fragile as they look. 🙂 They’ll cry when they get hurt, the intensity and duration of which depends on the degree of hurt they feel. And we comfort them and try to make them feel better. Then they get over it, forget and move on. And so will we. 🙂

Preparing for Mommyhood – Newborn Baby Stuff Shopping

Last week we had a baby shower for A. Afterwards she went on baby stuff shopping and asked me a couple of questions about the things she’ll need to buy.

As a mom-to-be, there are a lot of things to get in order to prepare for the baby. Some you can borrow, some you need to buy.

Here’s a list of what a mom-to-be will need for her newborn, based on my experience:

1. Baby clothes: the first things that come to mind when we think of “baby shopping”. My sister initially gave me some, since she had 2 boys of her own. But I still bought ones for G, since it’s so much fun to check out and buy cute baby outfits. Before buying, I read up on what items should be included in the layette. The advice in a number of baby/pregnancy websites was to not buy the smallest size, since babies grow awfully fast and they’ll be using the clothes for only a few months. So when it was my turn to buy the clothes, I bought most, if not all the items, in “Medium” size. This plan backfired, because G was underweight when he was born, and the clothes I got for him were a little too loose. Also, I didn’t get too many items. The thing was, since G was small for his gestational age, even the newborn diapers were loose, so leakage was a major problem during the first few weeks. After about two weeks, we realized that we were going through his clothes sooner than they can be washed, dried and ironed, so A went to the mall to get him some more, this time in the smallest size available so that they would fit him better (Don’t worry; G was able to gain weight quickly and was within the desired weight range by 3 months :)).

Included in the clothes category are:

a. tops (side-tie, etc.);

b. bottoms (mostly, I got pajamas since G was born during the cool season);

c. onesies;

d. mittens;

e. socks (I prefer them to booties, which always manages to come off as soon as you get them on the baby; Enfant and Mothercare has nice, soft, durable ones);

f. washcloths and burping pads;

g. receiving blankets (not just for swaddling baby; I also use them as an additional layer on the crib/bassinet/bed);

h. bath towels (a couple will do; there are swaddling blankets with terry cloth-like material on the other side, but I did not really like them; I love the ones we got from Baby Martel);

i. cloth diapers, if you don’t intend to use disposable ones (gauze cloth diapers are also multi-purpose, they can be used as burping cloths, etc.).

2. Diapers and other diaper-changing paraphernalia:

a. diapers, either disposables (I use Pampers Active Baby ’cause it’s soft and breathable for day, and Huggies Comfort at night) or cloth diapers;

b. baby wipes (make sure they’re alcohol-free; the ones I use are Pigeon and Giggles), but I read that for the first month you’re not supposed to use baby wipes, and that baby’s diaper area should be cleaned using only cotton pads/balls soaked in sterile water (I didn’t know this then, and used baby wipes from the start);

c. changing pads;

d. I don’t use baby powder; they’re not necessary and could be potentially harmful to the baby (talc inhalation is dangerous to babies). Luckily G had no problems regarding diaper rash, though I highly recommend No Rash diaper creams – they can be used for diaper rash and other itchy skin irritations. I used it on G’s neck, which got reddish when he gained weight (di na nahanginan ang leeg :P). It doesn’t contain steroids so it’s very safe to use. I got mine from G’s pedia, who was the one who recommended it; it’s only available at New South Star Drug.

3. Feeding paraphernalia:

a. baby bottles, preferably BPA-free ones. BPA has been linked to certain endocrinal (?) diseases, and obesity. Thing is, BPA-free bottles are usually more costly. For example, Pigeon’s are around P700 per bottle, I think. Avent’s are also expensive. There are other more affordable BPA-free ones on the market, like The First Years, and Ainon; for nipples, I suggest peristaltic ones; you may also want to get those anti-colic ones offered in the market;

b. baby bottle and nipple brush, for cleaning the bottles, preferably with a rotating handle as it’s so much easier to use; and tongs for handling sterilized bottles, nipples, etc.

c. baby bottle wash (I previously used Pigeon, until Cradle came along; Cradle is local, made by the makers of Cycles, and cheaper than Pigeon :)));

d. sterilizer. I use Chicco steam sterilizer, which my sister got for me. I like it very much and you can put so much into it; sterilizing time is 15 minutes, I think. There are also other types of sterilizers, including the ones which are a throwback to what our moms used (big pots filled with water), and those which you put inside a microwave.

Now, thing is, when I was pregnant, I always said that I will exclusively breastfeed (I wasn’t able to do this right away, but that story is for a separate post). My mistake was that I did not read up enough on it before I gave birth. And due to my ignorance, I thought I wouldn’t be needing bottles and such. Hence, some of the bottles I have were given to me by my sister as gifts, and some were bought by A. What I learned was that regardless of your feeding choice, you should get bottles still, in reserve, in case exclusive breastfeeding or cup feeding does not work out as well as you thought :).

e. powder milk container, for formula feeding;

f. sterilized water – I use Dr. Edwards; they deliver sterilized water in individual bottles to your home by the case, so it’s really hassle-free; you just have to call or text them 🙂

4. Breast pump – it’s such a HUGE help, and was my constant companion for much of G’s first year, more so when I went back to work. Mine is a Pigeon battery-operated pump; I have an adaptor so I can plug it in instead, and used the batteries only when there are no plugs available, such as when I’m pumping in the car, or when there is a brownout (it’s more powerful when plugged in). A breast pump was essential especially for me, since G had to stay in the NICU for 7 days and I wasn’t able to breastfeed him directly for that duration (when I do get the chance to be with him, he sleeps!). It was tough, and as a result of our delayed breastfeeding his milk needs were much more than what I was producing by the time we took him home. I had to play catch up, which was a source of frustration and tears, but we made it eventually. My pump was single barrel, with an additional outlet for another barrel; however, the stores don’t sell spare barrels so I had to pump using just one, alternating each breast. It was more tedious and time-consuming, and they say that double-barrel pumps are more effective at increasing milk production aside from being time-savers. Also good pumps are Medela daw. And I heard from a law school classmate that The First Years has a double-barrel pump which aren’t as costly as Medelas or Avents.

There are also manual pumps, but that would be even slower than electric/battery operated pumps, and would make your arms ache, I think. 🙂 At least with my electric pump, I was able to multi-task (i.e. working while pumping).

For these pumping sessions outside, you’ll need nursing covers as well (though receiving blankets may work in a pinch, but nursing covers will stay put); they are also used for breastfeeding in public (though G doesn’t like being covered when feeding, haha).

5. You’ll have to get coolers too, to store the breast milk when you are outside the house. I got a Rubbermaid one (costs less than P1k), and put ice everyday before going to work.

6. baby clothes detergent: I bought Perla before I gave birth, but my sister soon introduced me to Cycles, which is really intended for baby’s clothes. Anyway I also heard that Perla, as delicate as we may think it is, is actually still quite harsh for a baby.

7. grooming essentials:

a. baby wash – choose hypoallergenic ones; I use Huggies baby wash (it’s not available locally though, my tita gets it for me at Duty Free), and when I run out and there’s no new supply of Huggies I use Lactacyd Toddler Tubs;

b. grooming kit – I love Safety 1st’s grooming kit; it has nail clippers, baby nail files, infant and toddler toothbrushes, infant hairbrush and combs, and even mittens;

c. baby tub – when my baby was born, my cousins gave me a baby tub from Safety 1st, where you can place your baby in a reclining position while giving him a bath. Eventually Safety 1st came out with a tub which your baby can use from infancy to toddlerhood.

8. breastfeeding pillow: so that your arms won’t get tired while breastfeeding your baby.

(Possible) Future post: baby equipment and appliances, and stuff for baby who’s already on solids 🙂