The Bub in the Belly

What I remember:

1. There were even more prohibitions imposed on me compared to when I was pregnant.
My confinement lady told me I shouldn't walk around barefoot, I shouldn't eat or drink while standing, I shouldn't wear sleeveless tops, I should keep warm, I must not drink plain water or cold drinks, etc. After a while, she eased up on the keeping warm bits, mainly because the weather was so hot and she couldn't really control me in that respect. But she could certainly restrict me from all the prohibited food as she was in charge of the kitchen. She did, however, let my dog feast on all the leftovers, the result of which was a very happy and overweight dog.

2. Ryan slept, latched on, poo-ed, slept, latched on, poo-ed, and I kept a record of all of it.
Ryan had no problem with feeding and pee-ing/pooping from day 1. He nursed well and often. He slept easily, didn't need any sleeping aids like rocking or carrying. I established a rough routine for him of sleep, eat, activity time, repeat. I breastfed him on demand, day and night, and I slept half naked most of the time because of the breastfeeding.

3. The Malay massage
I bought a package of massage sessions from a malay lady. She came to the house everyday for a few days to give me a rub-down with some oils, after which she would bind my tummy with layers of cloth and I would keep the binding on until the next morning when she came again. The binding actually caused me quite a lot of pain down where I had my stitches, I think it probably squished my insides and pushed quite a bit of stuff (fat?) downwards. Lesson learned - don't do Malay massage if your stitches are still in. I mentioned it to Dr Chan and he just said that Malay massage doesn't work, otherwise all Malay ladies would take the opportunity to be slim. Hmm.

4. I read lots of books and watched a lot of cooking programmes on TV
When it came to Ryan, I did almost everything. I changed his diapers, I fed him, I put him to bed, I did the day shift and I did the night shift. The only thing I did not do was bathe him. This was done by the confinement lady. Richard did a lot of running around, getting Ryan’s documents, taking the confinement lady to the market, ferrying all of us around. When I was not occupied with Ryan and when I was not having my Malay massages, I had very little to do, everything was done by the confinement lady. As a result, I watched a lot of daytime TV, which meant lots of cooking programmes, and I read a lot of books, mostly books on parenting and infantcare.

5. Which brings me to the best thing about my confinement - my confinement lady, Mei Kuen. She was absolutely fantastic. She cleaned my house, fed my pets, bathed my dog, cooked for Richard and me, did our laundry, swept the garden (back and front), tidied my wardrobe, ironed our clothes and of course prepared my bath water and my water for drinking and helped me with the baby. She was also very thrifty with the grocery shopping. I've recommended her to a number of people and I would employ her again myself. Here's a photo of her on her last day with us. Thank you, Mei Kuen!