Week 35:

• May 20: She’s on the move. She can move backwards and around a mat. Crawling is around the corner. Not ready for it lol. 
• She can push up high on her arms and scoot backwards. 
• May 22: It had been such a long time since I was able to feed her until a milk drunk state and have her pass out in my arms. Rare moments to savour. She’s not so little anymore!
• We adjusted her high chair straps to the next level up. 🥺
• She drops or throws all her food to the floor. After dinner time, the area under the high chair is always littered with food bits.. lol.
• May 26: She can definitely move backwards now. She scoots from one edge of the mat to the other.
• She’s a master roller now, but only on the bed. She rolled 4 times in a row on our bed and DH had to catch her before she rolled off. When she is on the floor mat though, she doesn’t roll…
• She is so good at passing one object from one hand to the other and putting it up in the air as if to “analyze” it.
• When putting her into the exersaucer these days, it’s a battle to get her legs into the seat holes. This little girl straightens and points her legs straight out to prevent me from putting her in. 🤨😑 It takes some creative maneuvering to get her in. Once she’s in, she plays quietly by herself for 15 mins or so.
• She’s had more foods now: shrimp, mango sago, potatoes, skate fish, celery, blueberries…
• She has oatmeal, oranges, and bananas pretty much daily.
• Despite tasting all these foods, she’s still learning how to hold it and eat it herself. We spoon feed her small bites or purees. 
• One week officially of using the BellaBaby and here are my thoughts:
• Love the versatility of it. I can actually get up with it and grab a bottle or tissue if I forgot something. I’m no longer tied to the wall 🙂
• I’m used to the settings now. The recommended settings I found online showed 5 mins on the first setting, 10 minutes on the fourth setting, 10 minutes on the third setting, and 5 mins on the second setting (going from left to right). I found this does make sense and I followed it for the first two days. Now I do about 6 mins on the first setting, 10 to 12 minutes on the fourth setting, and the rest of the time on the third setting. I’m not a big fan of the second setting since it tends to suck really hard. I think this one is the one moms refer to as the “nipple ripper”.
• I have to remember to recharge it after every session. The reviews about the battery are true. I can last about two sessions on it before charging, but I tend to charge after every use. I haven’t tried using it while charging yet.
• It is a bit louder than the Medela PISA..
• There are more parts than the Medela PISA. There’s a soft transparent cover part that goes with the main flange part and then another white top part where the tubing goes in. I understand why they have an extra cover; it’s to prevent any liquids from going in and into the machine which would damage it. It means I need to collect all the parts beforehand and really make sure the transparent part is dried thoroughly. I’ll fling it and shake it to double check there’s no liquid on it before I attach it.
• I didn’t use the massage cushion part in the flange. It wasn’t necessary.
• I noticed the first time I used it, I felt really really emptied. I was super impressed. But since then, I noticed the amount of output is slowly decreasing. My average per day now is less than 700ml… I actually might try switching back to the Medela PISA to see if my supply goes up again..
• The Bellababy bottles are curved and don’t have the best measurement indicators on the bottles.
• I like that the LED screen shows the time that I’ve spent pumping so I don’t always have to look on my phone to see the time elapsed. I always keep track of the time spent pumping on an app anyway but seeing the time right on the pump is so convenient. 
• Speaking of time, the pump automatically turns itself off at the 30-minute mark. Not a big fan of that as I have to pay attention to when it turns off to turn it back on again to pump more than 30 minutes. I find that pumping until 32 or 35 minutes or slightly past the 30-minute mark triggers another letdown. 
• Surprisingly, bb takes to the nipples for the BellaBaby bottles without a problem.
• I like the BellaBaby pump as a small portable pump for day trips or outings. I haven’t tried the USB charging function yet.
• I like that the first setting is efficient in removing breastmilk within the first two minutes. The Medela PISA takes time to get milk out, but once it does by the 9 minute mark, the milk is continuous. I also like how the Medela PISA automatically switches between suction and the letdown mode. Research has gone into the product to know when to trigger the letdown button whereas for the BellaBaby, you have to manually switch between the settings. This is a hit or miss if you don’t know when your letdowns are. I could mistakenly switched settings right when I was going to have a letdown and inadvertently miss out on a letdown — another reason why I plan to switch back to the Medela PISA for a few sessions to see what it’s like again.
• Whenever bb doesn’t like something these days or she falls back, she starts crying for attention. There’s no tears, but she’ll ugly cry to get attention.
• She can get back up by herself! (With some assistance from a large boppy pillow) When lying on her back, she can push on her forearms to sit back up again. :O
• When bathing her, she was vigorously kicking such that the bath water splashed out and into the floor. A lot of it. I casually scolded her by explaining to her that when she does that, mommy and daddy have to spend time after her bath to clean up the water on the floor, and for her to stop kicking and splashing like that. She burst into tears and started to ugly cry…lol. DH consoled her immediately. Then I continued my little lecture again. She burst into tears again. 😅😅😅 I guess she understands she’s being scolded lol…
• These days, she sleeps so well at night. Hallelujah!! She is in bed by 9pm. She’ll typically wake up at 10 or 11pm for some “siu yei” milkies, then sleep until 3am for another feeding, and then become wide awake at 6am (basically when the sun is up) and become unable to sleep again. DH charters her around trying to get her to sleep again because her eyes are still not fully awake and we know she’s not done sleeping yet. She doesn’t actually sleep until about 9am and when she does, she naps for about 1 to 2 hours. The 2-hour naps are gold but not guaranteed since she is different every day.
• Surprisingly my frozen stash is not depleted yet. We have been thawing and using up about 2 bags each week. I still have 14 bags in the freezer. I plan to use it up completely so we can free up freezer space. Plus, it’s about time. Frozen breastmilk can stay for about 6 months and my last stash was frozen in January.
• I have been using coconut oil to lubricate my nips for the flanges ever since my bout of mastitis. For the first time since using it, I witnessed the contents of the jar completely dissolve into liquid. That’s how hot it got this past week. Previously it was always in a semi-solid state. 
• Hands. Another thing I’ve noticed after using the BellaBaby pump for a week is that my trigger finger symptoms in my right hand are back. Great. -_-
• Oh, and on a personal note, we had a potential COVID-19 exposure recently… we all went to get tested and received the results. We’re all COVID-19 negative. Yayy!