Can't find it, make it!

Layina's running low on pajama bottoms! Since the snow started, she is wee-ing more often so she's wetting her trousers. Since I couldn't find any bottoms for her, I thought I better make one. So I did and it took me about half an hour! who knew this day could ever happen. Alhamdulillah!!

Here's her first palazzo. ;) Please excuse me because Khalid is expecting me to sew something for him in a jiffy too! 

Potty training + Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO)

It's that time again! Potty training!! I started potty training Khairaldin when he was 18months++ but managed to fully trained him after he turned 2. I was heavily pregnant and just couldn't bear going to and fro the toilet, so I stalled his potty training. With Layina, I just feel she can do it. I've got more time now and she understands me. So might as well right?

We've started training her for about 2 weeks now. When it comes to potty training, I start with training them to poo in the toilet first. Khairaldin's poop time was always spot on! He poops every morning regardless of our whereabouts. Layina on the other hand is a fussy pooper. She wouldn't or couldn't poop other than at home. We had problems with her not wanting to poop for more than 3 days when we were in Malaysia. She didn't even want any fruits and veges whilst we were in Malaysia. As soon as we arrived UK home, she pooped 3 times in a span of 4 hours. Superbly amazing this little girl. So anyway, since she didn't have a proper poop time, I insisted on making a routine for her. Haha Well here's how I did it.

Virgin Coconut Oil.

I heard about VCO from a friend in Malaysia. I tried taking VCO because after giving birth to Layina I had fear doing number 2 (poop isn't a pretty word for adult haha). I didn't dare to go because I had a really bad tear. Then it just became a habit going to the toilet every other day. Not healthy. So I tried VCO and I'm glad I did. It's amazing how it loosen my stool and regulate my bowel movement at least twice a day or after heavy meals. Then I thought, this will be good for Layina!! Since her case is similar to mine, I thought why not try VCO on her too. I did and it's very helpful. No, I didn't give her the capsules. Instead, every time I cook for the family I will add VCO. I mix it in our rice, veges, you name it, it's in almost all our dishes. This method helped me monitor her poop time because I know when she's had it she'll need the toilet. So she now goes to the toilet every morning and after lunch.

After about a week, she understood the concept that poop = toilet. She will tap her diapers and say erghh (this is her favourite word, if I could count it as word ;) we will ask her if she wants the toilet and she slowly gets off the bed heading for toilet. Iskandar and I will then rush her straight onto the potty because at times she's already wanting to poop. Alhamdulillah. It has been easier this time around. Howwwwwever, she wakes up at 7am and wants the toilet straight away. Sometimes we just want that extra lie in so we slack for a moment. I'm sure if we had been consistent, she would have been diaper free by now. Haha I also realised that ever since she poops in the toilet her night diapers aren't as wet as it used to be.

Even though I want her to be diaper free, I still have my lazy mornings. I really need to train myself first before her. Hehe InshaAllah a few more months she will be diaper free!!!! Iskandar and I are so lucky because even though we have kids we don't need to get up as early as 5/6 am. We rarely wake up at night because Layina don't have her night feeds as frequent. We are so spoilt that when we tell people the kids 'disturb' us at 7:30am, we'll definitely get 'the look'. Like how dare you complain! Hehehe yes Shukur Alhamdulillah for such amazing kids.

Anyway, to diaper free bottom soon! Amin!!

Khairaldin's journey to diaperless bottom!

Khairaldin at 5 months old in Cloth Diaper :)

Alhamdulillah! Khairaldin's been diaper free for 1 month + now!!!! Never imagined this day coming true but Alhamdulillah, here I am writing about his diaper free journey. He's now 2 years 3 months. We started potty training him on 5th Ramadhan at around 4pm. I remember this clearly because I had a break from fasting so since I couldn't fast, I thought I might as well start as soon as possible and not procrastinate anymore. The reason I wanted to start him then was because it was Ramadhan and I had more free time also, things somehow flow perfectly during Ramadhan. And I was right! Alhamdulillah it's been a month since then!

Some CD Stash

Just so you know, we started him with going for number 2 as early as 1 year 10 months. Since he was wearing cloth diaper, both Iskandar and I became disgusted with him poo-ing in his diaper that we decided to firstly train him with number 2. Khairaldin is a creature of habit. He does everything in routine hence it was easy to train him. We knew when exactly he goes for number 2 since he does it around the same time everyday. It's easier on us because we are with him almost all the time. Training him for number 2 wasn't hard at all. Personally I think he found it disgusting to poop in his cloth diaper that's why he cooperated with us. Number 1 however, was difficult! We've tried one too many ways, for examples rewarding him with stickers, putting him in nice training pants so that he'd not wee in it and putting him straight in underpants. We failed miserably with those styles! I gave myself a deadline of 2 months because I wanted him potty trained before Layina's debut. We didn't succeed and were running out of time as I was already very heavily pregnant and just couldn't be bothered to train or even argue with him anymore. We then left the potty training at just doing number 2 in the toilet and number 1 was still in his diaper. That was good enough for us newbies. After Layina was born, we still felt disgusted with the smell of his wee every morning!!! We constantly told him to tell us when he wants to wee. Everyday when he wakes up we just kept going on and on about wee-ing in toilet. It didn't work. We felt that he's just wee-ing in his diapers to irritate us because I was irritated with our whining!! Then, on that particular day when I decided to train him, I just felt enough is enough! I can't deal with washing 2 batches of diapers everyday. People would say, "who ask you to put him in cloth diaper in the first place?" But may I just say, if it's not because of the cloth diaper, my son will probably be in disposable nappies till he's 5 years old or more! Really, thanks to cloth diaper as we are where we are today, Alhamdulillah!

So how did we start and succeed this time round? Well, at 4 pm, I decided to change him in just his underpants and t-shirt. I lifted his t-shirt just above his pants to supposedly see when he felt like wee-ing. But that didn't happen. I couldn't see it and the next thing I know, he's wee-d on the carpet in his toy room at 5pm. Oh by the way, I didn't dare to let him go anywhere around the house so we just stayed in his toy room for few good hours. When I first trained him, I always brought him straight to the toilet every one hour. I've somehow come to realise that he only does his business in his toy room so I brought his portable potty downstairs in his toy room. I even asked him if he wanted the potty downstairs and he said yes! Anyway, when he wee-d at 5pm, I instantly timed how frequent he wees. The 2nd time, he wee-d at 6pm at the same spot whilst we were learning some Arabic alphabets, really there wasn't any sign that he needed to wee. He was just standing up, talking to me and suddenly wees. He let's go when he feel like it without thinking of the consequences. Now that I know he needs a wee every hour, I asked him "do you want to sit in the potty and wee?" at about 7pm. He said yes. I brought him to his potty and he comfortably wee-d in there. I did that again at 8pm and again he wee-d in his potty. Then I stopped for the day because it was nearing his bedtime. He was back in diapers by night. Oh yeah, after every wee I rewarded him with sweets/marshmallows. So he had just 2 on that day because he managed to do it twice.

• On day 2, I brought him straight to the toilet when he woke up. Again, I asked him every hour if he wanted to wee in his potty and I got a yes every time. This time I varied his reward with sweets and watching his favourite Youtube videos. I didn't want him to do it because of sweets so I varied his reward. By night time, he was back in diapers. I was also monitoring his diapers at night and it's still wet.

• On day 3, I tried asking him every 1 and 1/2 hours. He has now learnt that wee time is only when I ask him if he wants to go or not. I managed to make him control for 1 and 1/2 hours. His reward was just Youtube videos on this day. He looks forward to watching his videos hence wee-ing in the potty was ok for him.

• Come day 4, we (the parents) were slacking a bit. We became overly confident that he can hold his wee that we sometimes forget to ask him if he needed the potty. So there were a few accidents in his toy room. Thankfully he don't dare to have "accidents" in the living room because the carpet in the living room belongs to my brother. He knows that he can't mess around with people's things if we tell him not to. After we came to realise our fault, we started asking him again and this time it's every 2 hours +.

• By day 5, we brought him out to Tesco. Told him he has to tell us if he needs a wee as people will get upset if he wee's in Tesco. He decided to hold for as long as he could and only told us he wanted a wee at home. I've noticed until today that he doesn't like to wee at public places unless we tell him that he's got to go because of long journey. If it's just in town or groceries, he'll hold until we get home. By now we were confident that he can hold his wee for more than 2 hours. So we decided to train him in the toilet. I kept the potty away and everytime he says he wants to go potty, I'd say the potty's upstairs and that we'd have to go to the toilet. After a while, he just asked for the toilet instead of potty.

So that's our potty training journey. After 2 weeks, he can hold his wee for a maximum of 4 hours and we hardly get any wet diapers at night. Until today he's still in diaper during night time just because we've got spare disposable diapers and didn't want to waste it. We call it "special pants" and he knows he can't wee in it or else he will get drenched.

Ok, just so you know we didn't only have 2 or 3 accidents. We probably had about 5-6 accidents at the most. I've come to learn that he have accidents when I am sleeping because he doesn't dare to ask Iskandar to bring him to toilet. One time he also forced himself to wee because he wanted my attention when I was cooking. Other than that, he's doing great! It is difficult at first but don't give up too quickly. Give it a few days and you and your toddler will get the hang of it eventually. ALSO, it's better if the Mothers are control of it until you see the successful point. To be honest, Mothers level of patience is absolutely different to Fathers. Iskandar for example expects Khairaldin to be a professional wee-r by second day. He didn't have the patience. It became slightly difficult because Iskandar was pushy and gets upset when he had accidents. So, Khairaldin became scared of him since he gets told off everytime. As for me, I do get upset when he have accidents but I can tell myself that he's only 2 years old and that I can't expect much from him. After Khairaldin was comfortable with his potty training, he didn't mind going to the toilet with either one of us. So my advice is, make sure only one parent is active in the training and that only one style is being used. Having both parents active during potty training could only confuse the child. Like with Khairaldin, he goes to potty every hour at first so I didn't want Iskandar to accidentally ask him if he needs potty after 30mins because then he will change his routine to every 30mins or so. This doesn't mean Iskandar wasn't part of the training. When I needed to do something myself, I told Iskandar to only ask him at so and so time. This way it kept the ball (or in this case child) rolling at the same pace.

Diaperless big boy on 1st Shawwal :))

I hope this entry has been helpful to you Mommies and Daddies who are planning to potty train. This style might or might not work with all. I tried so many ways with Khairaldin too but one day I came to realise that patience was all that was needed to make the potty training successful. Also, need to know what's their interest if you're planning on giving reward. If you're scared they will just do it for sweets then vary the reward slightly. When we first started, with stickers, it was a downfall from then because he wasn't interested with stickers yet we were trying to impose to him that it stickers are fun. Know your child. Some say wait till they are 'ready', but really, how are you to know when your child is ready to go to the toilet? There's not harm in trying or introducing them with the potty/toilet. If you are determined to diaperless their bottom, Insha'Allah, there will be a way for you too.

All the best to you Mommies and Daddies!!! This will be one of the easiest task we'll have to do for them. Once they are an adult, our task becomes more difficult. Insha'Allah we'll all be able to get through this challenge! :)

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Journey to diaper-free toddler

Here's a video of Khairaldin on the 'throne'. Since many of you have asked how I'm dealing with it seeing that he's only 19 months old, Insha'Allah I will share our jouney to a diaper free toddler as soon as we hit the success point. For now, lets just say, we are still getting there at a very.............. slow pace...... after all I'm giving myself a limit of THREE months. LOL! Insha'Allah, slowly but surely!!!! Thanks all for ur support, even if it's virtually. :) JazakAllah Khair. *hugs*

 

Choices in life...

Credits: Google.com

Everyday in our life we ought to make a choice. From the moment we wake up we've already made a choice by choosing to wake up. Then it comes to whether we should shower, what clothes to wear etc etc. It's impossible to not choose at all in a day. Making a choice in our everyday life give us the feeling of ownership. After all, the word in itself means 'power, right and liberty'. Before making a decision one should have a plan in order to make it work. Prophet (peace be upon him) once said "there is no intelligence like planning." Of course when you have made a decision and feel the ownership, you would feel that you've accomplished something without having to listen to anyone else.

Ever since I gave birth to Khairaldin I have been the decision maker on how to bring him up. I was the one who chose to cloth diped him, babywear him and last but obviously not least, breastfeed him till he's 2 years old, Insha'Allah. Obviously, I consult Iskandar first to make sure he's okay with the decisions I make. Before I consult him, I prefer to list the pros and cons to him so that he can see my point of view. This has worked well for us. We make the choices and feel great when it's all accomplished. If we make a decision and feel rather unhappy about it, that's maybe because we don't own the choice. So we abandoned it.

Anyway, I chose to blog fairly recently only because I wanted to share my experience as a newly Mom and Wife. As you can see my entries are mostly about parenting and relationship. So when I write, it's all from my personal experiences and thoughts. Viewers could either like it or hate it, for all I care. However, when I write my entries, never have I had the intention to sound cocky, high up and everything negative. I always write with a POSITIVE energy and mindset. Like all my entries, I would like it to relate to Islam in such a way because it is difficult to get info on Islamic parenting and relationship on the web. Since internet is THE form of communication nowadays, I thought I might as well write something so that people can read up on it. There is also a Hadith from Al-Bukhari: Prophet (peace be upon him) stated "Convey from me, even if it be one ayah." and also another from At-Tirmidhi: "Whoever points in the direction of goodness shall be (in reward) like those who act upon it." Speaking of which, I was really grateful to know that some people looked up a few keywords on google about Islamic parenting and they ended up on my blog. Alhamdulillah. I'm really glad to know that and it only makes me wanna read more and blog about it. Insha'Allah, I will continue to do just that :)

Back to my point, my entries are all meant to be positive, unless it's a personal rant which I go through once in a blue moon. And obviously I won't relate anything Islamic to my rants! Haha It's ok, you'll know when I'm ranting because I'll let you know before hand to not waste your time reading it. Of course being a writer or blogger you can't expect everyone to like your entry. You'd be incredibly great writer if you can win everyone's heart. I have always been ready for criticism, because I'm not a qualified writer. However, when people have the rare idea about me trying to show off about my life, that's just ridiculous! I think when you read a blog, you have to set a mindset to it since you can't hear how it's being delivered. Even if the writer writes it in a positive way and you seem to have a negative mindset, that's just you not the writer. Some people might think that I am bragging about getting the chance to breastfeed my child till he's 11 months and counting. Personally, it's a choice! If you feel a negative energy from my writing all I can say is that, you had a choice and you definitely did not own up to your choice. That is why you feel everything everyone else do is wrong!

I for one do not follow the norm. So, that might even get some people's panties twisted because I chose to be different. My point is, you have a choice in this life you live in, if you choose to do something, make sure you own up to it! You can know that you are not owning up to your choices when you have a defensive attitude about people who do things differently to you. Don't ever judge someone for the choices they make but in fact, try to know why they make the choices in the first place. If you really can't grasp their idea, don't comment on it!

So, keep reading if you want to but do it with a positive mind and heart. :)

Travelling with cloth diped baby

This is a long overdue entry request :) Sorry for not sharing earlier Mommies! So, as you already know, I started cloth diapering Khairaldin when he was about 1 month old. Ever since then, I've only put him in dispos about once or twice; when I'm travelling long distance + overnight. The only reason I wear him dispos is because I'm not sure how or where to wash the diapers. There's this one time when Khairaldin was 3 months old, we were going for a weekend trip to Middlesborough. Happily I bought dispos for Khairaldin because it was only for the weekend and if I wanted to wash it'll take forever, plus I was staying at my cousins place. I still did pack his cloth diapers, just in case. And of course thank god for my instinct to pack his CDs! I was so used to buying newborn sized dispos and when I wanted to change him, it just wouldn't fit! Hehehe I totally forgot that dispos doesn't come in one size fits all!!!

Until recently, I thought what's the point of wearing him cloth if I'm still going to put him on dispos once in a while. Last December, I had a few people to visit in London. So we decided to stay for 3 days 2 nights (it was sort of 3 nights because by the time we got home it was 10pm) since everyone was coming around the same time. At first I've decided to buy a few dispos because we were staying at a B&B. Then I thought, "hey come on, it's London! There ought to be a few laundrettes on one street. I can always wash it there!". Khairaldin wasn't on solids at this time. So he still had runny poop. But I always spray it off first before putting it in the washing machine. I then packed all of his diapers stash, not that he's got a lot anyway. Hehehe Ever since he could fit into his Coolababy diaper, that's the only diaper he's in. He only have about 14 pieces of Coolababy pocket diapers. It was such a gamble to travel with that much of cloth diapers!!

What I did throughout our stay in London was to put 2 inserts in his Pocket diapers. That way it will absorb more and it won't end up leaking on me/him (since I was wearing him all the time). So with Coolababy pockets + 2 inserts, it could last him a maximum of 6 hours if he only wees. I brought some prefolds along to use it as inserts. Best thing about prefolds as an insert is that it's not bulky but still very absorbent. I still managed to bring some fresh diaperS home with me even with the amount of inserts + pockets I brought.

Travelling with cloth diped baby is manageable. All you have to do is to know the place that you're visiting, how often you'll be changing & also to bring a laundry bag to stash all the dirty diapers. It's best if you try and find out how absorbent baby's diaper is a few days before travelling. That way you don't need to worry about any leaks. So during our 3 days 2 nights vacation, we only used approximately 10 diapers. The best thing is, he did not suffer from any rash even though I changed him every 6 hours. By the time we got home we still had extras so we did the diaper washing the next day :) Blame on the tiredness, not laziness. *LOL*

I used to be so 'scared' of travelling because I'm not sure how many diapers I need. But now, I am a pro! Hehehe So far Alhamdulillah, Khairaldin's never been short on diapers to actually opt to wearing dispos. I guess it's easier for me since we've got radiator and it takes merely 1 hour to dry the pockets + inserts. But saying that, Malaysia has natural Sunlight and could easily dry diapers in less than an hour, right? I still get amused when the diapers are ready to be used within the next hour. Hehehe

So, here's to more dispos free bumbum! ;D

Ps: Sorry if I don't reply to any comments on any of my posts. It's just that I update via BB (Hubby's busy studying for examS, so he hogs the PC) and to reply comments it'll take forever for the page to load. I definitely appreciate all your comments though! :))

The cloth-diped baby....

I first read about cloth diaper from Adriana's livejournal blog. I'm an avid follower of Adriana's blog even until today and I'm proud to say I got so many beneficial infos from her blog (THANKS ADRIANA!)! To think she's YOUNGER than me! Hahaha Guess people do learn from experience and it doesn't matter of the age. When I read her entry about cloth diapering Aqil, I thought, "Is he wearing those lampin or napkin type of diapers?". It was WOW so cool! My Mommy used to wear those type of napkins on my baby brother. To be honest, it takes a pro to fold the napkin up and until now I don't know how people managed those type of napkin. I didn't ask her any questions then since at that time I wasn't even pregnant. You know when you start asking questions about "how to.. baby" people would instantly think that you are preggers. heheheh So then I googled on my own about "cloth diaper". Amazingly there was soooo many websites on it. I never knew it was such a big thing. But most of it was in the States.

I kept doing my research about cloth diapering until I have confirmed that I am carrying Khairaldin. By then, I started messaging Adriana to ask for her personal opinions. I've never thought of wearing disposable diapers on my baby. I had my reasons for wanting to wear it. People think that we're just cheapskate and want to save cost. I mean come on, when I started researching on it I was earning quite good salary and can afford disposable diapers if I wanted to. Also, I get Child Benefits which could definitely pay off his disposable diapers. But we thought, WHY WASTE MONEY???

We did depend on disposable diaper during Khairaldin's first month. It was the easiest option since he was our first and we had noone else at home with us, except for my parents in law who was visiting from Malaysia for 2 weeks. Also at that time we recieved way too many free disposable diapers from the hospital. So again, why waste? We did use disposable diapers for a bit. As soon as he got into his 2nd month, Hubby & I thought it was about time we cloth-diped him. After all, he's growing up too fast and his prefold diapers can only last till he's 5kg (which he turned 5kg at 3.5months!).

Our cloth diaper experience was somewhat funny! There were times when we fussed about too much on how to fold his diapers and got peed on. There were also times when we thought he's done pooping but in the end he wasn't and imagine newborn poops! hehehehe Yes, you need to be a pro to fold prefolds. And we're definitely not one of them pros. We then decided to swap to AIOs/Pocket diapers. Firstly, just look at those prints! It's just toooooooo cute. I fell in love with cloth diapers because of their prints more than anything else. :-) Thank god I didn't get a girl because I can see myself buying cloth diaper for her EVERY week, at least! hehehe After going gaa-gaa about the prints, it then comes down to the benefits of cloth diapering.

• It's healthier for the baby's private parts. I've heard one too many Mom's out there complaining about diaper rash and I didn't want to go through that stage. So I took the chance and cloth diped him. People can't say that "you haven't tried disposable so how do you know?". I've tried disposable and Khairaldin was almost at the stage of getting nappy rash. My MIL who was staying with me for the first 2 weeks of Khairaldin's birth kept telling me that I should put some cream as his bits are red & almost inflamed. So I did put Sudocrem on him. Thank god for freebies!

• It's cheaper. DEFINITELY YES! Unless you're like me who like to custom make some of it every now and then. It could be A BIT costly. Not as bad as disposable diapers though.

• For the environment. Well, I'm no green person but if they say so. Then why not?

I used Sudocrem on Khairaldin only when he was using disposable diapers. We recieved free 25g Sudocrem tub from the hospital and until today, it's only about 1/4 of the tub being touched. Everytime I see the Sudocrem tub, I'd think 1/4 tub for one month, imagine how many tubs we have to use if we used it everyday until he's 2 years old!

Some may think that washing cloth diaper is an ALL DAY job. To be honest, it's not. If (god forbids hehehe), I become a working Mom, I would still stick to cloth diapering. Because for now I only wash the diapers at night. I wash the diapers every other day and there's only about 12-15 diapers in the bucket at one go. It's not that you have to handwash it. It still goes in the washing machine. What I normally do is, prewash (30mins) the diaper then wash it at 40 deg c (approx 2hours max). Once it's all done, I'll just hang it at the radiator and ready to be used the next day. And the radiator is only on for 4 hours. That's how easy it is to wash the diapers! It's also convinient for both Hubby & I because we hate to go to Tesco/ASDA just to get the nappies! It;s such a nuisance. So by washing the diaper we can do it whenever we're running low on diapers. Easy peasy! Pssst, even my Hubby knows how to wash cloth diapers, so IT IS that easy. Hahaha Sorry Sayang ;-)

For our second baby, we plan to use cloth diaper as soon as he or she is born. Unless again we get free diapers from the GP/hospital. :-)