Since Caity associates me with the breast, Vin had to keep picking her up, soothing her and putting her back down. It's supposed to be a tried and true method which doesn't traumatize the child by leaving him or her to cry it out all alone. It's a tedious method as some parents have been known to do this method up to 100 times in one night. However that's with older kids who are used to having their own way. Most babies develop a set sleep pattern by the time they're six months old and are pretty resistant to change. I was prepared to stay up the whole night picking up the baby, patting her and then putting her down again. Thank God, bless little Caity's soul, she only needed 5 rounds. In the 3rd round, she was really wailing and my heart was breaking. I was ready to give up. However, Vin stuck with it. As a result, last night Caity stayed in her own crib except for a 1am feed and 6am feed. Just now, Vin did about 3 rounds of cry-pick up-soothe-put down again. We'll see how it goes.
Perhaps she didn't inherit the stubborn gene from both sides of the family after all. I hope that she turns out to be the adaptable, happily-adjusted sort. It turns out that as afraid as I was about weaning her, Caity might not be as difficult as I had initially anticipated. This afternoon, we were in the mall and she got hungry. I refused to unbutton my blouse. In the end, she lapped up 4 ounces of formula. The catch was that she wanted me to hold her and do the feeding. With the maid, she kicked and fussed a lot. When I held her, she was much more relaxed. At night, to take some pressure off I started bottle feeding just before bedtime. Last night was the first time I did it. She was upset at first but then she managed to take in about 2 ounces. Tonight when I tried it, she happily finished all of 3 ounces in less than 5 minutes. It would have taken much longer to bfeed her the same amount. Also, less problems with dozing off in the middle of a feed. Maybe I'm the one who's hanging on to bfeeding. So ironic considering I struggled with it so much in the beginning.
Well, at least we're getting somewhere. I mean, at least Caity now understands that it's okay to take milk from the bottle when I AM around. In the past she would have refused the bottle and cried for her "nan nan" instead. Maybe it's just that she wanted to be close to me. She's become a lot more "manja" towards me of late. It's not that she wants me to carry her all the time. In fact, I've begun leaving her to play on her own for 10 to 15 minute intervals. It's more like she just wants to be able to see me in the room or lay next to me and play. Of course she still wants me to hold her. I suppose it's a survival instinct thing. Nature's way of ensuring that babies always stick to the primary care-giver. Thankfully in my absence, she's good with the maid. Not totally happy though. She still prefers having me around but at least she doesn't melt down completely or becomes too moody.
Lately, Caity keeps smiling at me like she's in love with her Mommy. I just looked at her this morning and thought to myself that she's going to have a lot of suitors when she grows up. She just has this winning girly-flirty smile. It's not just me. I've seen how she wins over perfect strangers over and over again.
Okay now, a side story. I left work today and was rushing to buy lunch back for Kelvin and the maid. On the way, a bus driver honked me. I looked over at the side mirror and didn't see anything wrong with the car. It wasn't until several hours later that I remembered I had some picture frames which I had painted while I was in school and had wanted to bring home. I was like, "where are the frames?" Then I remembered that I had placed them in a box on the top of the car and I must have just driven off with the frames still on top of the car. Later I drove by the exact spot that the bus driver had honked me and actually saw my picture frames smashed at the side of the road. Sigh. All that effort for nothing. Oh well, I'm meant to have better picture frames I suppose. Luckily, the frames were given to me FOC.
