How Our First Family Holiday Made Me Rethink Travelling With Twins

Published on makchic.com May 2014

Just like us, I’m sure that parents of multiples experience panic attacks thinking about their first family trip, especially when it involves air travel. For our family’s first holiday, we went to Phuket because it was near enough and my parents live there, so we could have some sort of peace of mind that there would be an extra pair of hands to help with our twins.

Also, like all parents, we were hopeful, optimistic and confident that it was going to be an awesome first trip filled with wonderful memories. Little did I know that I’d be the one coming home completely traumatised.

You see it was one of those trips where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

The journey to Phuket went smoothly even though the flight crew didn’t offer to help folding and assembling our stroller.

On our second day, Jade had a fever, which we brushed aside as teething fever. Fortunately, I packed some medicine but when her fever didn’t subside the next day and she started throwing up, we had to buy a thermometer from the pharmacy to monitor her temperature. Worried was an understatement mainly because Jade has never been sick before; she also had trouble keeping anything down, even her medicine. Thankfully, she was much better on the third day but we kept her out of the sun and let her swim with us a little bit to keep her temperature down.

On the same night that Jade was feverish and throwing up, we had a small incident in our hotel room that required us to switch rooms in the middle of the night. From juggling a sick baby to the other baby who was so tired he went past sleepy to hyper, it felt like one of the worst nights of our lives. Thankfully, the hotel did everything for us and I could just worry about the babies, which was difficult enough!

After that bout of bad luck, things started looking brighter the following day. Jade got better and was enjoying her pool time. Leo showed no signs of catching whatever Jade had so we were yet again very hopeful and optimistic about the trip.

Then came the plane ride back home.

We were very courageous (more like naïve and stupid) to book the last flight out of Phuket because we didn’t want to be rushed and we wanted to get the most of our holiday. We were so optimistic (more like naïve and stupid) that we didn’t even factor in the probability of a delay, the time it takes to come back from the airport, and getting the babies ready for bed.

On our way to the airport, Leo was getting a little warm and by the time we checked-in, it was definitely a fever. Luckily, I packed the fever medicine and newly bought thermometer in their diaper bag. But because we were flying in the late afternoon, the babies didn’t have their afternoon nap and they were getting very cranky. When we boarded the plane, they were in full-fledged tantrum mode and I was ready to cry.

They calmed down once they had their bottles in their mouth and were mostly asleep during the flight. Unfortunately, the 80-minute flight became 150 minutes because we were queued to land and we got home very late.

I failed to mention that I also caught Jade’s bug in the middle of the holiday and all three of us took about a week and a half to recover. There’s seriously nothing worse than being sick yourself while taking care of sick babies.

A couple of months ago hubby and I toyed with the idea of bring the twins along on his business trip to the United States. I got so excited about the thought of posting selfies of the babies and I in Central Park, eating bagels and pizzas.

After our recent trip, that idea has been stored in a box and that box has been buried deep in our garden and will probably only resurface in a few years time.

8 Ways To Survive Water Rationing With Babies

Published on makchic.com April 2014

Let’s face it, water rationing sucks. I didn’t think I could handle the alternate “two day got water, two day no water” scheduling but at the end of March I patted my back and said, “Well done January, you did it.” Then I got sent an email saying that they were extending it for another month. All the curse words in every language I knew ran through my head and I had a knot in my tummy. How in the world am I going to go through this again?

We’re halfway through April and I hope and pray to all the Gods that this will end this month. It hasn’t been easy but in a way I use water a lot more intelligently now. Here are a few things I’ve done to survive the dreaded rationing with two 7-month old babies at home.

1. I’m lucky that I live in a house that has a tank but even then without proper usage the tank can run out pretty quickly so now bathing rights go solely to my husband because he goes to work. Babies come second, so they bathe every alternate day if not they are just wiped down and I bathe on days that there is water.
2. Fill up every single container you have. All the pots and pans in your kitchen, water pitchers, pails and if need be buy bigger containers to fill up on days you have water. Buy extra thermos flasks to fill up boiling water with and keep cooled boiled water for all formula feeds.
3. If you have enough milk bottles for all their feeds, great, I sterilize six the night before and four in the afternoon after their third feed. Wash all bottles at the end of the day, not after each use.
4. The first thing I do when water comes in is the babies’ laundry and only then mine. I try not to do any laundry on the second day there is water so I can keep the tank as full as possible for the next two days.
5. I cook (my food and babies’ food) on the first day that there is water and keep the rest in the fridge or freezer so that for meals all I need to do is reheat on no water days.
6. I use one mug for my coffee and one glass for water throughout the day. For meals, I use paper plates and disposable chopsticks or eat with my hands to reduce cutlery as much as possible.
7. If water levels get too low I wash my hair at a hair salon, which is great because I get to pamper myself too.
8. Keep pails outside to collect rainwater, you can use this water to wash bathrooms or the porch.

Starting Solid Food With My Twins

Published on makchic.com March 2014

To be perfectly honest with you, I’ve not really stressed out about parenting till the day came to start feeding my babies solid food. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing; I used Google so much that I ended up being more confused and I almost had an anxiety attack. The problem was that I found information in bits and pieces. Nothing really tells you exactly what to do, plus I had two mouths to feed for the first time!

So here are some notes from my experience of starting my babies on solid food, which I hope other mums of multiples would find helpful:

What You’ll Need

• Utensils: I feed my babies using one bowl, one colour changing spoon (lets you know when food is too hot), and a couple of bibs. A sippy cup was introduced later when their had better grip.
• Highchair: My babies aren’t able to sit on their own so we haven’t bought them high chairs yet. At the moment they are fed in netted bouncers, which are easy to clean.
• Baby food maker: Like most women, I love pretty things and I was very tempted to purchase the Beaba Babycook but I didn’t because already had a steamer and a food puree apparatus at home. Sure, I have to wash up a few more things but it does the job, which is all that matters.
• Baby recipe book: It helps to invest in a good baby recipe book for healthy recipes and to get an idea what babies can eat at what stage. A friend of mine gave me Renee Elliott’s The Top 100 Healthy Recipes For Babies & Toddlers and so far my babies have lapped up everything I’ve made for them.

Preparing

• To retain nutrients, I steam the vegetables, add in a bit of the steam water and blitz everything in a food puree apparatus. Fruits like apples, mangoes and pears are blitzed raw.
• My paediatrician’s advice was to prepare food roughly the size of my babies’ fist and gradually increasing their portions as they get used to eating solids. My babies’ first food was sweet potato and then only brown rice cereal two weeks later. Now, they have 3oz of fruit in the morning and 2oz of veggies mixed with a tablespoon of cereal (brown rice, millet, quinoa, etc) for dinner.

 Storing

• I’ve been preparing the baby food in advance and freezing it because it works for me. I’ve been storing them in baby cubes and reheating it when necessary.

Feeding

• My son initially didn’t like the idea of solid food. I used to smear food on his mouth so that he could taste and hang of it. After observing his sister having so much fun eating, he finally loves it too.
• To make sure they are eating the same amount of food, I’d feed them a spoonful each.
• I started off with one meal first at 11am because it was when they weren’t too fussy and they had time to digest before night time in case they didn’t agree with certain foods. At six months, they now have breakfast at 9.30am and dinner at 6pm alongside their usual formula feeds. This may decrease slightly since solids fill them up a little more.
• Solids tend to constipate your little one so make sure you give them a couple of spoons of plain water after a few spoons of solids. I stress on plain water and not a sweetened drink because you don’t want to start them on the bad habit of only drinking sweetened beverages.

 Meals on Wheels

• Feeding the babies when we’re out and about is usually a stress-free affair. We prop them up in their stroller and fed them as per usual.
• If I’m organised, I’ll pack their food from home. Otherwise, I bring along bottles of jarred organic baby food from my pantry.
• I also pack my own water because you never know how clean the water is wherever you are going.
• Just remember to bring zip lock bags for dirty bibs and cutlery.

As with everything, just have fun with it because this is your babies first experience with food and you want them to enjoy it and not shun away every time they see a spoon. Also, just because you don’t like a certain vegetable doesn’t mean that they will hate it too. Try to expose your babies to as many flavours and colours now to develop their palate for later on.

Surviving My Twins First Flu

Published on makchic.com on Nov 2013

During the twins’ first month celebration, my greatest fear was of them falling sick from being held in unsanitised hands. I’m not one of ‘those’ mothers but my babies were born small and even at one month old, they were still pretty tiny so I really didn’t want them to fall ill because I wasn’t sure how well they would handle it. Thankfully, they were fine.

My darling husband, however, caught a bug at work and brought it home a few weeks later. We made sure he slept in the room downstairs, wore a mask and didn’t carry the babies. But the universe wanted the babies to catch his flu and so they did. You’d think that I would’ve gone ballistic at my husband but I promise you that I didn’t.

I expected the worst: fussy babies that didn’t sleep and cried all night. But that didn’t happen. They were definitely fussier than normal but they only cried when I used theNoseFrida on them. It’s a wonderful device that you stick into their nose and use a tube to suck out their mucus and phlegm. I’m 100% certain that they slept a lot better because of it. I haven’t used another type of nasal aspirator before but I can guarantee you that the NoseFrida is the best one.

Another thing that helped me was the Euky Bearub Eucalyptus Chest Rub and a humidifier with a few drops of Euky Bear Inhalant. The rub is exactly like Vicks but it’s meant for babies and the inhalant is basically eucalyptus essential oil. The entire room smelt fantastic and the babies definitely breathed better while they slept.

I was cracking my head as to how to give my babies Vitamin C and whether I could start them on extra virgin coconut oil. Then I remembered that whatever I ate goes into my breast milk, so I started popping 1000mg Vitamin C tablets every two to three hours. That was the best thing because the babies could get the Vitamin C and my immune system was boosted because of the crazy amount of Vitamin C in my body.

I’m not too sure how much of this is true but my makcik urut told me that sponge bathing the babies in tamarind (assam jawa) water would also help the babies, especially if they had a fever. Luckily for me, the babies’ flu never developed into a fever but we did the assam water sponge bath for a day and the next day the babies felt heaps better.

Breastfed babies do get sick too but with breastfeeding, mummy’s bodies actually produce antibodies to fight whatever nasties the babies have. It’s also very important to see a doctor if your baby’s fever persists. It really irritates me when I read posts on forums asking for advise on whether they should bring their baby to the doctor. How many doctors are present in the forum? If you’re already considering going to a doctor, go to one because it is always better to be safe than sorry.

I’m the last person when it comes to taking antibiotics or going to a doctor when I’m sick, but with babies, you may want to be extra cautious in the beginning especially when they are still brand new. If they still seem like themselves, energy levels still high and their appetite’s good, chances are there’s probably nothing to worry about.

In a way I really enjoyed the few days of their flu because I got to spoil them a little more. I got to cuddle them more, carry them all day and even snuggle up next to them in bed. Bliss!