Nowadays, there are so many reasons that mommy didn’t want to breastfeed her baby, start from:
* I’m so busy working here…
* It’s difficult to find a place to breastfeed my baby,..
* Breasfeeding my baby will change the shape of my breast
* It’s tiring to hold my baby, he’s heavy…
* I’m gaining weight if I have to eat a lot..
* The formula one is the best according to the ads
* Giving the most expensive one is raising my social status
* I’m so proud that my little one is chubby because of drinking formula milk
etc…

Well, those reasons are false…. Totally wrong! Breastfeeding your baby is still the best. God has created your body and give you the privilege to give the best nutrition for the first 6 month of your baby and you still can continue until she/he is 2 years old..

Right now, I’m collecting stories for my book about breastfeeding from various countries…. Do you have your story? Share it here!

For me, I breastfed my baby Claire exclusively for 6 months and continued until she was 2 years old… It was really difficult for the first time. Neighbors, including my dad thought that I couldn’t afford to buy formula for my baby. I just laugh…. I said to them proudly, ” I gave them my breastmilk because I know that breastmilk is the best for my baby….” Then I started to give them explanation about the importance of breastmilk for our baby’s brain and body growth…. I wrote a book too,… so that those who wants to breastmilk their baby will have courage to stay faithful to the end….

If you have a story,.. please share it here… I will write it down in my book….. Want to be the agent of change???

One way to introduce your child to a new experiment is by becoming an active parents.

My little baby loves to dance and she couldn’t stop dancing when she hears music. She always asks us to watch her performance at home and we have to keep on watching until she finished her performance. After that, my mom said, “Why don’t you ask some Event Organizers to give time for Claire do a performance when they have an event at the mall?”

I thought to my self, well that’s a great idea! I can introduce her to the real world of entertainment and she can gain a self confindence inside of her.

After a long hour of searching, at last I found an event. Actually that is a children event, there are many competitions from morning till afternoon. I asked the EO weather they can give at least 5 minutes for Claire to perform her dance. I said that they will have so much space from one competition to another competition. If Claire can dance within that period, it would be a great mutualism. They don’t have to hire a performer and Claire can show her talent.

The EO asked me to send her a video of Claire dancing. So, I took my handphone and asked Claire to dance. I sent the video right away and got her response immediately.

“Wow, Claire is so cute when dancing. Ok, I’ll give you time to perform her dance. See you on Saturday,” said the EO through the phone.

I leap for joy after the phone…. So you can see her performance at the video…

Start to be more active…

Do you ever think about travelling with your honey without leaving your baby? Well I got the same idea as well but don’t have the courage to do that until one day, I went to airport and met many foreigners travelling with their baby! They carrying a big backpack, luggage and their baby on the stroller.

Oh my God.. I miss my journey with my baby…

Then, I thought to myself, how come they dare to travel with their baby while I’m not? I worried about how to breastfeed my baby, how to feed her, how about the food, will it be ok, will she eat the food, will she be healthy to enjoy the holiday, and many other questions popped up in my mind. I started to discuss this thing with my husband and he want to try, otherwise we don’t know the result, right?… Well, this is a good start, so I tried to make a new step in my life, going for a holiday to Bali to celebrate our 6th anniversary…My baby was 15 month years old at that time.

(more…)

Claire Likes to Read

Oh…. how I love to read books….

When I was still an undergraduate student, I used to stay in the library, simply to read books, textbooks, or just to fell asleep… but one thing I know, I love to be surrounded by books.

Going back home to Indonesia, I really miss my library in Japan,.. I really miss spending time searching books and get ideas from it. So now, all I can do is just go to the book store around the apartment and read some books there, it’s kinda fun, you know.

Since I gave birth to my baby girl, I didn’t really have time to read for myself and started to read for her. Most of my friend who knew about this will give a short comment, “She doesn’t even understand anyway, why should you spend your time reading books for her?”

At first, I think, well, yeah,…. probably that’s true. She doesn’t understand. But the most important thing is not about whether she understand or not, it is about building a reading habit for my baby. Time passing by, and now, before going to sleep, she always said, “Mom,…. book, book,..” When she woke up, usually I found her reading a book (reading,… or probably just looking… I don’t know).

So, can we say that reading for baby is useless??? Certainly no…. IT IS AN INVESTMENT FOR YOUR BABY’S FUTURE.

Now I also know that what I’ve done for my little baby create something that is called “the Reading Mother”

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be –
I had a Mother who read for me…

Strickland Gillilan