Picking Baby Names

Last month, I had a pregnancy false alarm, and my hubby and I already started mulling over baby names. In fact, our son was already telling everybody about "baby brother Matt." 

Although it was a false alarm, I intend to use the name when a real pregnancy comes. 

Do you know that the name you give your baby can play a huge role in his destiny? 

In many cultures, the name is used as a tag to tell a child what his destiny is. This is very prevalent for Chinese and Jewish cultures. For example, the name John, given to the Baptizer, means "The Lord is Gracious," and he was so named because at that time, the Jewish people were waiting for the consolation of Israel. 

If you need to pick a name for your baby, I've compiled a list of names from the Bible with their meanings. This might help you pick a name with a great destiny for your baby.

Baby On Board!

A typical mindset about having a baby is that it turns one’s life upside-down—and I agree with that, though not necessarily in the negative sense. An interesting thing we noticed with our firstborn, though, is that he enjoys being part of everything we do. I assume this is typical of all kids, and I like the thought that kids naturally want to be part of something they perceive as wonderful.

(Just as the Babywise book pointed out, when the couple is so in love and enjoying each other, the baby will naturally want to be involved in the love-relationship. Sounds like a person who wants to know Jesus because of what another person is perceived to have and enjoy?)
 
In any case, one of the best baby furniture we invested in with regards to this line of thought is the high chair. Uh, correction: one of the best baby furniture we have, because it was a gift from JD’s Aunt Beth, sent all the way from Singapore. She bought the Antilop model from Ikea, and I like several things about it:
 
1. The high chair is very lightweight, which means we usually took it anywhere we went—at least for the first month. It’s not foldable though, so unless you drive a family van like we do, I guess taking it around isn’t such a hot idea!
 
2. The chair height is exactly level with our dining table. Sure, it came with a tray, and durind JD’s first few months of eating solid food, he ate with the tray on, but the removable feature made it possible to pull him to join us and eat right from the dining table!
 
3. JD spent considerable time in it not only when eating, but even when watching occasional videos on the laptop while I did other errands like washing the dishes or doing the laundry. The security belt lent some sense of peace, although of course I still kept an eye out for him if ever he suddenly decided to climb out of it.
 
Anyway, what I seriously appreciate about the whole deal is that with JD’s getting incorporated into our lives, he learned to eat all by himself—well, he insisted on doing it—from a very young age, sometime before one year old (and now, at 2 years old, is only hard to handle when the chair he’s sitting on is too low, as he tends to stand up at the table). People usually marvel at the skill he has reached, and even we wonder how that happened. In any case, I’m just glad the high chair has made meal times much easier!

The Playpen

Being a full-time mom with no helper in a country where nearly every family has at least one or two helpers was a real stretch! But Mark and I were determined to see what it would take to run everything all by ourselves, from household chores to taking care of the baby to everything else. (Of course, that was partly the reason, plus the fact that we were renting a studio apartment that was cramped enough just for the three of us!)

So how did I get exercise or any other errand done? Ta-daahh, we had great help from the trusty old… drum roll, please… Yep, our trusty old playpen! It sure was a great thing that someone gave us a playpen after we’d bought JD’s crib. (Thanks, Tita Annabelle for the Graco Pack ‘n Play!) Its foldable feature made it a much easier thing to lug around to different spots. Not only did we get to bring it on overnight trips for JD to sleep in, it served another purpose: as our very own helper!

Yes, we read recommendations in “On Becoming Babywise” about training the baby to spend certain lengths of time in the playpen, and while we didn’t follow everything to the dot, it sure came in handy, especially at the time when baby already started to sit up and try to stand. Why do I say it was a great helper? ‘Coz all we had to do was plunk baby down in it, at a place we could see him and then take turns running around the block! Whoever was stuck watching the playpen would then work up a sweat on the exercise bike or pumping dumbbells! A great way to get multiple tasks done, wouldn’t you say? :) 

I found the playpen plays a great role for letting moms have their daily devotions, too: see it featured in this Daily Devotions site. 

On Becoming Babywise: Part 1

I still remember that day when I was about 8 months pregnant and my hubby Mark and I were shopping for baby JD’s needs. We were checking out the different brands of baby bottles, and the price of the famed Avent feeding bottles, supposedly friendly for breastfed babies, caused us to wonder how many bottles we would need altogether.

Interestingly, instead of giving us a rough estimate, the saleslady called out to another customer pushing a 5-month-old baby in a stroller. She motioned to the sleeping bundle and asked out loud, “How many times does your baby nurse at night?”

I waited to hear, one, two times a night, and was ready to calculate the number of bottles my baby would use in one day. To my surprise, the lady answered, “My baby doesn’t nurse in the middle of the night. He’s slept through the night since he was two months old.”

I’ve never heard of such a thing, knowing babies usually woke up several times during the night.

“That’s what I learned from Babywise,” she went on.

I nodded, thinking the term to be some sort of baby lingo from popular parenting books like Dr. Spock. But as she went on to explain, it turned out “On Becoming Babywise” was a different book altogether, written by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam. As soon as we left the baby department, we decided to hit the bookstore and check out the book. Sure enough, it boasted of being a “classic sleep reference guide” to help a baby sleep through the night. Needless to say, we bought a copy and devoured it over the next few weeks before baby JD arrived!

What did we learn from Babywise? I enjoyed the informative way it presented baby care, especially the practical tips about breastfeeding. This was even more so ‘coz I didn’t have other material that taught me how to do it, and being in a third world country meant there were few organizations that focus on this “skill.” But one of the most memorable things we learned regarding infant feeding proved to be extremely helpful:

I call this the principle of full feedings.

The book explained that babies tend to “snack” instead of getting full meals during nursing time, usually since infants fall asleep quite easily while feeding. This results in an exhausting breastfeeding experience for the mom, because a baby who is not full will tend to cry in hunger in as short an interval as 15 minutes! We saw this in action when we brought baby JD home from the hospital. For the first week, I allowed him to feed whenever he wanted, and it was super tiring! (Moms, anyone can relate with this?) When we tried to give him full feedings as suggested by the book, that is, by keeping him awake (be it by shifting his position every few minutes, tickling his feet! Hehe) surprisingly, the intervals between nursing times extended to the expected 1 ½ hour to 2 hours mentioned in the book!

I find this to be a very important principle, since, a few months after reading and implementing tips mentioned in the book, I chanced across several irate comments on the Internet. And I realized the book was not meant to be used as an all-or-nothing guide, but parental decisions play a big role, after all. The natural effects of giving baby a full meal resulted in the normal adjustment of his feeding routine, and we didn’t have to do a thing to interfere with the wisdom of the way babies are created!
 
Anyway, other learning points to follow in future posts! Stay tuned!

Hubby First!

One of the most important things I learned upon becoming a mom is this: my marriage relationship takes priority over the baby. I read this in the introduction portion of the book “On Becoming Babywise," and I had to chew it over slowly. How could my husband be more important than a baby who depended on me for his every need? After all, my hubby is a grown man who can take perfectly good care of himself, why should I prioritize him over this new, cute bundle who thinks the world of me?

The book put it this way: a baby can sense any conflict in mommy and daddy, and it creates a sense of anxiety in him. In other words, when mom and dad are so in love with each other, the baby automatically rests in assurance, with no fear whatsoever that his world may fall apart any minute! This really blew my mind, but gave me the permission, sort of, to take a break from waiting for baby JD’s next cry and just relax and unwind with my hubby, refreshing and nurturing our love story. (Interestingly, and I just had to slip this in: it reminds me a lot of my own love relationship with Jesus, and how my growing intimacy with Him also results in better relationship with spiritual kids! Prioritizing Christian Marriage is explained more clearly in the website Christian-Parenting.Net.)

And we all win! Why? Because a relaxed love-filled relationship between me and my hubby spells better days for JD, as I’m less cranky, less preoccupied, and more rested, knowing somebody loves me even in my worst days, and that we’re in this together.