The Bub in the Belly

Please forgive me if your eyes are hurting from the clash of colours and patterns in the photo! I wanted to show you the sleeping pad that I made for Rachel and this is the only photo that I took of it before I passed it to her nanny. The Minnie Mouse onesie is from her nanny - cute huh?

The sleeping pad is a Montessori recommendation. It is called a topponcino. I have seen it on a few Japanese sites so perhaps it's popular in Japan as well? It's a soft, flexible mattress useful for carrying baby, holding baby and transferring a sleeping baby from place to place without waking her. I made it following this tutorial (there is another tutorial here). I used an IKEA bath mat (NÄCKTEN) as a pattern.

So, perhaps this is the perfect follow-up post to my previous post titled "It's ok for your baby to be anti-social" where I explained my view that pre-school is a step which should only be taken when your child has achieved certain milestones and is developmentally ready. As starting pre-school is a huge step, I believe that it is very important to apply a child-led philosophy here.

As readers of this blog know, despite almost all of his peers having started pre-school, we did not sign Ryan up because we believed that his early years should be spent in a home environment, where he could form loving and strong attachments. These strong attachments would give him a secure emotional base from where he could confidently venture and form healthy friendships with others. His paediatrician also advised that it would be best to keep him out of the pre-school environment in order to avoid frequent exposure to viruses and other illnesses until he was around 4 years old and that he did not need to socialise before then. All this led Richard and I to put the issue on the back burner.

I'm happy to report that we were on the right track. His paediatrician's advice was spot-on, as was the research that we read up on. Ryan will be four soon and we can see the signs that Ryan is ready for the world of pre-school.

Recently, Ryan had been getting a few more modelling assignments and, in July, we had the commercial shoot for Nestle. The way Ryan handled himself at these assignments signaled that he was ready (see this post). That, coupled with a few more observations, led Richard and I to start talking about pre-school again. This was our thought process:
1. As hoped, Ryan has achieved a secure parent-attachment and a strong sense of identity.
2. Ryan is becoming a lot more interactive and interested when with children his age. He is ready to (learn to) work and play cooperatively with others, especially his peers.
3. Ryan is also starting to communicate more and it would be good to give him more opportunities to do so.
4. Ryan is getting a lot more active physically and he will soon need more opportunity for physical and outdoor play, beyond what he currently has in his home environment.
5. Ryan is extremely healthy and up-to-date with all his vaccinations.

We checked with our selected pre-school, thinking that Ryan would start next year, but they said that Ryan could start in mid-August. We would be four months shy of our target of January 2013, but there was no denying that Ryan was ready now. We could still wait and enrol him next year but since I was still on maternity leave, we decided that mid-August 2012 was as good a time to start as January 2013.


Ryan is in one of the Nursery 2 classes. Next school year, he will go up to Kindergarten 1. He is therefore the youngest in his class (two of his classmates celebrated their 4th birthday last week). He is also, I think, the smallest in terms of size (even compared to the girls)! Yes, I know most 3 year olds are supposed to be a class below, in Nursery 1. We did bring Ryan for an interview with the class teachers, where we talked about where Ryan was at, in terms of his development and interests, and it was agreed that he would fit nicely in Nursery 2, so that's where he is. The pre-school assesses the children developmentally (not academically) so it's good to know that Ryan is still developmentally on track even though he is starting pre-school later than his peers.

Ryan is also the only new student in his class, the others having been at the pre-school since previous terms/years. Being new to pre-school (and the youngest in his class) translates to Ryan receiving lots of extra attention from the teachers. He is usually the one who is holding hands with the teacher, while the other children pair up and hold hands with each other. He is usually the one who gets to sit on the teacher's lap or beside her when they are having circle time. He is always seated next to a teacher when the class sits down to eat in the canteen.

The pre-school monitors his progress very closely. In the first four weeks of the term, Richard and I were already summoned twice to meet the principal and his core class teacher for an on-going dialogue on his development. Although he was assessed to be good for Nursery 2, Ryan is still a little "behind" his classmates in terms of social interaction and communication skills. As these areas impact upon his capacity to learn in a pre-school/group setting, the teachers want to monitor these areas carefully and they keep us very up-to-date with every little development. From all accounts, it appears that he is progressing well and Richard and I are confident that he will have no problems. Last week, he told his Mandarin teacher, "Ming tian jian" (which is Mandarin for "See you tomorrow"). If you know Ryan, you'll understand that this is pretty remarkable.


I would add that Ryan had absolutely no problems starting pre-school. There were zero tears and zero tantrums, which reinforced our conclusion that he was ready. He has never been in any sort of drop-off programme and we also did not have time to prepare him in any way - we made the decision in late July, went back to Malaysia in the first week of August and started him off in pre-school the following week. We didn't discuss it with him beforehand because we did not want him to feel stressed or form negative impressions even before he started. For the first week, we would accompany him for about 15 minutes in class until all the students had arrived which was when we would take our leave. Ryan was reluctant to see us go, but did not kick up a fuss and instead busied himself with the materials in class.

Therefore - all that research about bonding with your child first before you send him off to bond with his peers? Based on our experience - absolutely true.

The first week passed smoothly. However, Ryan was still on his old sleep routine - sleeping at midnight - and we had to drag him out of bed in the morning. Soon, the lack of sleep took its toll and the subsequent weeks were a little rough. We let things settle naturally and, somewhere around his fourth/fifth week, he was sleeping early enough and waking up with a smile, and it was all good. This week is his sixth and, if his routine stays the same throughout this week, then it will probably hold for good.

Can you see the difference?

Yes! Her hair is not standing up! Her hair gets a lot of comments from people because it stands up. However, as you can see, it's not!

My instinct was telling me that something was different with her hair but it was only in the afternoon that I realised it was not doing its usual Albert Einstein impersonation. Sob! I actually liked her hair standing up! Now she's not even three months and her soft hair is already too long to stand up! She's... she's... growing up! I'm not ready for this!

When Ryan came along, he brought out the best in people, whether they were close to us or absolute strangers. He still does. People around us are always smiling at us and striking up conversations with us. 

Once, at his nanny's, I got into a lift with a mother and her grown-up daughter. Her daughter saw Ryan and exclaimed to her mother, "This is the little boy I was telling you about! So good-looking!" When I relayed the episode to Richard later, he said that he and Ryan had encountered her a few days ago and she had been very taken with Ryan, making a lot of nice comments about him. He is an absolute superstar in the neighbourhood, with people I've never met coming up to me and saying, "Oh, are you Ryan's mother?"

Last Sunday, when we were at McDonald's after Shichida class, Ryan caught the attention of diners at a nearby table and they played peekaboo with him across the restaurant - them sitting at their table and Ryan at ours! Richard and I pretended not to notice and they played on for a good 20 minutes!

As it was with Ryan, so it is with Rachel. How effortlessly it happens when a newborn is around! Her grandparents are completely smitten, as are her aunts, uncles and cousins. Richard's mother wears a permanent grin on her face whenever Rachel is visiting. Strangers who would otherwise have passed us by without a second glance, now smile kindly at us. They stop and make sweet comments. They share their own stories about their children and dispense free parenting advice. There is a real sense of goodwill and we feel so much more connected to the world around us.

Here we were, last week, at the hairdresser's. Someone is playing with Rachel and making her chuckle (I have no idea who). She basically melted everyone's hearts.


It's moments like these that illustrate all those sayings about how children bring joy and how love makes the world go round. I like to think that, babies and little children give people that chance to forget about their stress and their personas, they can just relax and be their true selves. Most of the time, when this happens, people are real nice!

Hope you come across nice strangers this weekend! Happy weekend!

I found out a few months ago, that a mummy I knew had made a comment that, when Ryan was a infant/toddler, I deliberately prevented him from socialising with other children. It was a shock to me. Firstly, because it is not true, and second, because it is so ridiculous - Ryan wasn't at the stage where he was able to have a conversation yet or understand how to play cooperatively - what did she expect him to be doing? (This mummy went around telling people that the reason for that was because I was too proud. I've written about this before on this blog. Ahem.)

Anyway, I brought that up because I want to talk about socialising. Well, actually I want to talk about NOT socialising.

It is correct to say that, when he was less than three years old, Ryan did not socialise with his peers. It would also have been correct if that mummy had said that I was not concerned about him socialising or that I did not push him to socialise (unfortunately she didn't put it that way). However, it is ridiculous to suggest that I prevented him from socialising with his peers. Developmentally speaking, Ryan was not at that stage where he could or even wanted to socialise.

It was not a case of preventing him from doing something he should be doing. Rather, it was a case of not forcing him to do something he was not ready for. We did what we always do - we followed his lead.

I've heard many parents say that one reason for sending their children to pre-school is for them to develop their social skills. While I agree that pre-school is a good place for learning social skills, I do not agree that you should be putting very young children in childcare/pre-school expressly for that purpose. I see little ones as young as 18 months who are sent to childcare/pre-school because they are expected to "socialise" with each other. As early as 18 months, their parents are already prepping them for the adult world.

Let me be very clear: I'm not saying that you can't put your child into childcare at 18 months. What I am saying is that socialising with his/her peers is not a good reason to do so. They are just not developmentally capable or ready. And there is a reason for that: they are supposed to be spending that period building attachments with their parents.

I have always said that, while Ryan was still in his early years, it was more important that Ryan develop a strong bond with Richard and me. I have always believed, and still do, that it is only when he develops a strong self of security and identity (through a strong and loving attachment to us) that he will be ready and able to form healthy relationships with others. And I believed, and still do, that this is the natural progression of things.

And yes, that is exactly the way it happened. We found that, at that stage (less than 3 years old), when we were in the company of people with children his age, Ryan simply preferred to stay close to us. We did not take any steps to stop him socialising. He was just not able to; he was not ready. And if he wanted to stick to us, well, we weren't going to push him away and place impossible expectations on him. We would certainly be holding him as close as he needed us to, hugging him and giving him as much assurance and security as he needed and, as and when he was ready to leave the nest and fly on his own, we would not stand in his way.

It is only now that Ryan is at the stage where he is starting to be interested in socialising with his peers, making friends, and forming meaningful relationships with other children. I'm not saying that he knows what to do in every situation. What I'm saying is that he has been able to take on these new experiences and challenges comfortably and work through them. Being "anti-social" for the first three years of his life certainly did not disadvantage him at all.

There is a ton of research out there which supports what I'm saying here. I want to share just one article, which is this one titled, "Nurturing children: Why "early learning" doesn't help". It says what I would want to say so I hope you find it a good read.

Since 31 August this year, we have enforced a ban on all screens in our home when it comes to Ryan. Except for one minute last week when we showed him the commercial he did for Nestle, he has not used the iPad, the iPhone, the computer or the TV (ie. the DVD player).

I know this is a touchy topic for parents and people can get defensive. Or they feel guilty. Or helpless. Let me say that this post is not meant to be a judgment or a criticism of others. It is a journal of our own experience, and in any case, our own experience has not been faultless so we aren't bragging here.

Ok, let's start from the beginning. I should first explain that, although we have been concerned about Ryan's screen time, it actually is not that much.

Ryan had very little screen time up till he was nearly two years old. I think the first iPhone app was installed when he was around 16 to 18 months, and he still didn't use it frequently until he was about two years old. We let him watch a few videos - mostly Hi-5. Between two and three years of age (I'm being VERY general here), he started watching more videos - mostly Sesame Street and Leapfrog. We also introduced him to the iPad when he was coming to two. We didn't install many apps. I think I have about 10 iPhone apps for him and even fewer on the iPad. We used the iPad mainly for watching videos (Richard downloaded the Hi-5, Sesame Street and Leapfrog videos to the iPad for him).

When Ryan was around three years old, and as he started to be more interested in reading, we got him a few videos on phonics. We also introduced him to Youtube. We would key in "phonics" as a search term and he would surf for videos. He learned how to sign the alphabet from watching Youtube, and he learned words like "stupendous". We did not key in any further search terms so he watched the same stuff over and over again and, after some time, he milked it dry. We then introduced him to Tom & Jerry cartoons, which Richard downloaded into the iPad for him, which he enjoys quite a lot.

We would give him the iPad/iPhone when he was in the car, before mealtimes while waiting for his food, and when we were having adult company and there were no children he could play with.

More and more however, we found ourselves shoving him the iPad. Whenever we were feeling lazy, or in need of a break, or preoccupied with other things, we would reach for the iPad. And then we started having occasions when we couldn't wrestle it away from him, and we would relent to avoid any fuss. It became a vicious cycle. As Ryan got older, he got more determined, and our little tug-of-wars happened more frequently (which Ryan invariably won).

It was not Ryan's weakness - it was our weakness. Richard's and mine. If the gadgets were out of sight, Ryan never, not even once, asked for them. Notwithstanding the fact that he may not know the words "iPad" or "iPhone", he didn't seem flustered in any way. He simply found other things to do.

I did not like it. I felt that Ryan was wasting his childhood. Sure, he learned quite a lot of stuff from all this, but he could have learned all that in other ways too, so it was not as if we had no other choice. We did have choices, and I was determined to employ them.

In addition, Ryan is at the stage where he is starting to be interested in having conversations, which is wonderful. I feel that parking him in front of a screen is not the best way to encourage that.

And so, starting 31 August, Richard and I bit the bullet. iPad be gone. Completely. Together with all the other screens.

How has it been? Absolutely wonderful. Ryan doesn't seem to miss his screen time so it's not been difficult but it's not easy peasy either because he does need something to occupy or entertain him. Which is where we have to come in.

We have always been right next to him whenever he is on the iPad/iPhone/TV/computer and there is a level of interaction between us - he hides behind us when a scary scene comes on, or he will repeat a funny line to us, etc. We also have to pay attention when he is surfing Youtube (to make sure that he doesn't click on unsavoury stuff).

Now, with the ban on screens, the level of interaction is much higher. We read A LOT more, we play A LOT more, we talk A LOT more. It is A LOT more work on our part. But I like the way it is now. I like it a LOT more. And yes, I do see a difference in Ryan, one that is for the better.

It's early days yet, too early to announce a success, but the hardest part is over and I'm optimistic that the change will be permanent.

This is the third in the series of Montessori mobiles for infants. It's known as the Gobbi mobile. I was very very tempted to buy this but in the end, decided to take a stab at making it. I bought the styrofoam balls from Daiso and wrapped them with embroidery thread (you can choose any colour, so long as you present a gradation). Richard hung them up for me.