The Bub in the Belly

For today, an update on Rachel. Rachel had a jab and checkup on Tuesday at Dr Ngiam's clinic, one week before her 1st birthday. All is well. She can say a few words and is starting to walk, and Dr Ngiam said that is fast. She is 8.39 kg and 74 cm tall. We didn't have any questions so the visit was very short.


For her meals, apart from latching, I am feeding her baby yoghurt every morning. Her nanny feeds her porridge with meat and veggies, as well as my expressed breastmilk from a bottle. In the evening, she takes dinner with us. I usually prepare some grains with either fruit or veggie (in the form of cereal) plus we give her lots of finger food, which ranges from fruit to veggies to meat to biscuits to bread to french fries and nuggets, or whatever we are eating ourselves.

There aren't any hard rules in terms of how much she has to eat or what she has to eat. She sleeps better if she has had enough to eat, so if she takes less than her usual portions, we know that she is going to want another meal or snack before she goes to bed for the night. This means, for example, if she's had a tiring day and falls asleep at 8 plus without having had her dinner, we won't wake her up. We will expect her to wake up around 10 or so to eat before really settling in for the night, so we will wait for that. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often. Still, in general, we do try to be flexible and just go with the flow.


We have been making some plans for Rachel's birthday. Richard's sisters, Margaret and Mary, have been doing all the real work - booking the venue and ordering the cake - we are really thankful to have their help. We are having a dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Malaysia, with family and a couple of close friends, just as we did for Ryan. That will be this Saturday, which means more travelling for us!