Lessons taught by a baby

Assalam Alaikum,

This is one of those days, my baby girl crying for no apparent reason and glued to her momma. Usually, she is easy going and happy, especially in the mornings. 

After a few hours of on and off crying I put her down for a nap. Guess what she was holding on to and hugging when she slept? Nope, not one of those soft cuddly toys ….an empty plastic bottle:)

Anyway, who needs toys when the real stuff is all over the place ;)

D Sharon Pruitt 

As I have mentioned in a previous post, we had to try for a long time to conceive. I used to daydream about how my child was going to eat everything without a fuss, behave perfectly; I thought my child won’t climb onto furniture or play with things that she is not allowed to and so on, ….(hahaha, now I laugh at myself thinking how ignorant I was). Now I know what a parenting snob I was (does the phrase even exist?).

Some of my (day) dreams did come true, as I did stick to some of my decisions; such as breast feeding, cloth diapering, reading to her and teaching, playing and having fun with her.

But actually having a child had taught me a few lessons;

• I could say no and try to stop her but she will climb things, all I could do is show her what is safe to climb and how to climb safely.

• She won’t eat everything I offer and there will be times that she would finish her food, eat a little or refuse to eat at all, the only thing I could do is try.(I will, Insha Allah, write a separate post about the tricks I use to make her eat) 
•  I could try to teach her how to talk, walk and hold a crayon, but she’ll do them if and when she’s ready,

• She doesn’t behave the same way in front of strangers or when we are outside.

Most important  lesson I learnt is, that each child is different and their behavior changes throughout the day, according to their needs, (hunger, sleep and play)

A Precious baby.

'Baby hand' by Chirastar available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chira/3422718555/under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Assalam Alaikum.

We were married for ten years when I got pregnant with my baby girl. I was just 19 when we got married and 30 when we had our first baby. We spent all our vacations seeing doctors and running tests for five years. It was found that I had a Para-ovarian cyst. I had a laparoscopy to remove the cyst. I got pregnant after three months, but had a miscarriage at six weeks. After that I got pregnant again after two years and Allah blessed me with a baby girl. I had to take bed rest for the first three months even though there weren’t any complications. I had terrible morning sickness; actually I had morning, afternoon and evening sickness for the first five months of my pregnancy, (wonder why it’s called morning sickness?)  After that I had worry about placenta preevia  and at seven months I started having contractions. This meant being admitted to have some injections and bed rest for next one month. 

I gave birth to my baby girl on the due date. My water broke at two in the morning and meconium (poop) was found in the amniotic fluid. I was rushed to the labour room and was given an injection through an IV as my contractions weren’t strong enough. My baby girl was delivered at five in the morning. She wasn’t crying or breathing when she was born. She was admitted in NICU for three days and was found positive for Group B Streptococcus (GBS). We had to stay in the hospital for 18 more days as my girl had to take antibiotic shots twice a day. It was the most painful experience of my life, to watch my baby getting those shots and having her cannula changed almost every other day. I can’t describe how happy I was when it was all over and I was able to bring her home. 

Alhamdulillah, she is a happy and healthy one year old now.