Located at:
Level 1 next to toilets/lifts

Amenities:
One large cubicle
Main door lockable but lock is faulty
Breastfeeding area (2 armchairs together) separated by curtain from main area
Hot/Cold water dispenser
Electrical point
Armchairs for feeding

Remarks:
Nice soothing music, aircon does not reach the breastfeeding area so it can be quite warm. There is a small step into the nursing rooms, and thus not very stroller friendly.

Located at:
Level 1 (Near Lifts)

Amenities:
One cubicle big, consists of sink, changing table, nursing corner separated by dirty curtain

Remarks:
Weird/bad smell. Maybe from the opposite toilets.

Located at:
L2
Entrance is at outdoor play area, in between World of Sports and QB House Kids

Amenities:
4 small nursing rooms with curtains.
Hot water dispenser
2 arm-chairs at waiting area
No electrical point

Remarks:
Nursing rooms are too small for strollers. There is a curtain leading to 4 nursing rooms. At first glance you would think that there is only one nursing room or that all are occupied. Do open the first curtain and see if there are any available rooms/cubicles inside.

Changing Area

Nursing Room (Can see that the curtain touches your leg when you sit on the armchair)

Hot water dispenser at sink area

Waiting Area

Nursing Rooms

When my boy held the bottle and guzzled down the milk all by himself at 10 months old, I was the happiest parent around. Many will not understand why I was so elated at such a simple motion that maybe their 4 month old could do. But they do not know what I had gone through to finally get him to drink from the bottle.

Here are some tips that we learnt the hard way and hope it will benefit you when you are weaning from the breast to the bottle.

Tip Number 1 – Introduce the bottle as early as possible
Being new parents, we want the baby to latch directly as this would stimulate more milk production. Latching directly proves also to be an excellent way of bonding between mother and baby. We are afraid of something we have heard called “nipple confusion” and we do not want our babies to go through that. What if he chose the bottle instead of our nipple? Really, there is no worry here. If you have 3 hourly feeds which is 8 feeds a day, one bottle feed a day will not cause confusion. Babies are smart. They will ALWAYS prefer the real thing. So, start bottle feeding as early as when the baby is a couple of weeks old.

Tip Number 2 – Maintain at least 1 bottle feed a day
At 3 weeks old, while the confinement nanny was still at our place, we decided to introduce the bottle so we could learn how to feed. We tried once a day for a few days and he slowly got the hang of sucking from the bottle. After that, we gave him the bottle once in a few days and he seemed ok with it. And then we made the mistake of stopping the bottle, thinking it was easier to latch so we didn’t have to wash and sterilise bottles. That was the biggest mistake ever.

Tip Number 3 – Choose a bottle and stick to it
We started having problems introducing the bottle again at 4 months old. I had to go back to work soon and decided that we should try the bottle again and that was when it was rejected totally. After all, he had enjoyed “the real thing” for 4 months now. Why should he change to an artificial one? We panicked and thought it was the bottle’s fault. We bought all sorts of different brands, silicon and latex teats, different hole sizes, wide/narrow neck etc. All did not work of course. He wasn’t rejecting the brand/type of bottle. He just did not want a bottle! In the end, a lactation consultant recommended that we stick to one bottle. We decided to choose NUK latex wide neck bottle as we felt latex teats were softer as compared to silicon ones. So at least there was some consistency now. It’s either mummy or this particular bottle.

Tip Number 4 – Feed before baby is hungry
Many aunties told me to starve baby until he is super hungry, and he will take the bottle easily. That doesn’t work. For my boy, he will scream and cry and demand to latch. And I found the trick. Try to introduce the bottle to him when he is not so hungry yet. Maybe if the feeds are every 3-hourly, try to introduce the bottle at the 2.5-hour mark. Then, he is more open to try new things and not panic when he is already hungry and he is not getting what he wants.

Tip Number 5 – Do not latch immediately after baby rejects the bottle
This is when the parent panics. When they cry so badly and even choke on the milk from the bottle, we want to solve the problem and we know by latching, the problem will be solved instantly. We cannot do this as the baby will associate it with rejection of the bottle. If reject, he cries, mummy will latch. After we stop trying to feed with the bottle, carry and distract the baby for about 5-10 minutes first before latching.

Tip Number 6 – Try using warmed freshly expressed breast milk(ebm)
Many times when we try to feed using the bottle, we introduce frozen ebm or formula milk (fm) too. We should only change one thing at a time. You might ask what’s the different between frozen ebm and freshly expressed ebm. Well, try tasting it yourself. Freshly expressed ebm is sweet and frozen one is not. Why warm it up after expressing? We want to make it as similar as possible to when they are latching directly. The only thing we are changing is the bottle.

Tip Number 7 – Use a warm teat
When we try to feed using an artificial bottle teat, it is a lot cooler than our nipple due to our body temperature. You can just dip it in warm water before feeding to warm it up a bit. This would make it more easily acceptable by the baby.

Tip Number 8 – Stay far away
Get your hubby to feed, and stay far away. Do not be tempted to peek or ask if he needs help. Go for a massage or go shopping or have a nice long shower. Baby can smell you even if you are in the next room.

Tip Number 9 – Distractions help
When the baby realises that while drinking, he can also be looking at other things and this cannot be done while latching, he will drink more readily. Distract the baby by showing him things that he likes. Eg bringing baby near the window to show him the birds in the sky, to your wall where you have pasted some family photos, etc. They are distracted easily and might then take to the bottle.

Tip Number 10 – Try and try and try and try again
Do not give up trying. It might take you one month, or two. But you will get there one day if you persist. We took 1 month before he took 20ml of milk. When he was sent to infant care, the teachers managed to feed him more. It was only 5 months later when he was really good at guzzling the bottle and that was the best sight I have ever seen with my eyes. If you do not have to send your child to infant care and are able to get other child-caring options like parents or parents in law or the helper, remember that bottle-feeding is not the only thing you can do. You can always use a syringe (buy the 10/25ml syringe and not the 3ml ones), cup, or even straw when the baby is older. All I can say is bottle feeding is definitely more convenient and fast and they will tend to drink more. So hang in there! For more tips, or any questions, do drop me an email or comment below. If you have more tips to share from your experience, do comment below too! :)

Location:
Somewhere towards the left of the entrance called The Courtyard. Pictures below will show you were the nursing room is. I had a hard time locating it myself. Head towards the female toilet and turn to the left.

Amenities:
One cubicle large
One changing station
One nursing armchair
Nothing else

It is very hot inside. You wouldn’t want to nurse there. However, it was a good place to change up my kid who had just played at the water playground and took a shower at the outdoor shower just outside the nursing room. It was warm and there’s no breeze and so it was a good place to change him as he was cold.

door of the nursing room

outdoor shower area. ladies is to the right, nursing room is to the left.

Location:
Various locations. Can check out the maps. They have different symbols for nursing rooms and diaper changing rooms. Nursing rooms are slightly larger. Diaper changing rooms are cramped but have a seat for nursing as well. The pics are from nursing room at the main visitor centre and the diaper room at the children’s playground.

Amenities:
Simple, one-cubicled. Bench for nursing, foldable changing table. Hot water available at diaper changing room but not nursing room.

Changing table and sink of nursing room

bench in nursing room

diaper changing room

Location:
Various. Pic is taken from the one near the boat ride.

Amenities:
Simple with a changing table and a tap. Clean.

At one corner of the Singapore Botanic Gardens lie the Children’s garden, also known as Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden. It is quite far from the main area. By car, we have to enter via the Bukit Timah Road side, somewhere near to MOE’s PESEB or what some call CCAB.

There are many children’s play features and learning areas as shown in the map below. For toddlers, the most suitable and favourite for all toddlers is the water play area. The water play area is really near to the entrance as shown in the map.

Map of Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden

Whenever Riley goes there, he will go to the smaller fountains as a warm-up. If you notice, the floor is quite rough, and the first time we brought him there, we were afraid he would slip and fall and it would hurt really bad. However, I have not seen any kids slip there before, probably due to the roughness of the floor. Kids are known to run around, playing with the water features. Not recommended for those who are just learning how to walk though.

Waterplay area

This picture is the largest fountain in the toddler’s area. Due to the small size of the waterplay area, it is more suitable for toddler but definitely not for older kids as they would get bored very easily.

Largest fountain in the water play area

There are no shower facilities so do bring your own towels for a wipe down after play. Other recommended items to bring are sun-block, small bath/water toys, mosquito patch as well if you intend to walk around the garden too.

Located at:
Levels 1,2,3 next to the toilets

Amenities:
Each has 2 Breastfeeding rooms separated by curtains, hot water dispenser, 1 changing station. Electrical point are available but they are located just outside of the Breastfeeding rooms.

Remarks:
For a small mall, there are more than sufficient nursing rooms. Level 2 one near Thai express is generally cleaner. Photos are taken there. Curtains do not touch the ground. Are at shin height. A bit insecure when feeding. Would have been perfect if they made doors instead.

Stride Rite is having their warehouse sales at Tan Boon Liat Building this week, ending this Saturday. I dropped by at the sale after hearing that my friends mostly went home with good and cheap loot.

My loot: 3 pairs of shoes for $40 and 6 pairs of socks for $10. Total spent:$50.

What’s good:
They have a good range of shoes. Even those cartoon ones like Sesame Street, Star Wars and Disney are on sale. Prices are 2 for $99, 2 for $69, 2 for $19.90 (my favourite). Some are also on 50% or 70% sale with prices averaging $30+ after discount for 50% off and about $20 after discount for 70% off. 70% off is my second best friend after 2 for $19.90. (Auntie me!)
What’s good also is that the queue is not tremendously long. Maybe just 2-3 people in the queue, and also it is not crowded when I went in the afternoon at about 2plus. It was actually relatively empty.

What’s not so good:
Maybe due to the weather, it was quite humid and hot inside with the heavy rain after the hot sun.
Also, boy sizes are quite limited. I totally couldn’t find sizes 7-8. The rest of the sizes are ok. Girls designs have more sizes available. They said they will bring in more tomorrow though.

Worth a go? Yes!! I enjoyed myself there. :)

Located at:
Ground Floor near Toys R Us (1 Cubicle large)
Ground Floor opposite Baby Dior, near Petit Bateau (Very large)

Amenities:
The one at Toys R Us is large with a bottle warmer.
The one at Baby Dior is very large, with 2 breastfeeding rooms, 4 changing stations, 2 feeding areas with avent bottle warmers. Inside each breastfeeding room, there is a changing table and an avent bottle warmer.

Located at:
Ground Floor, sharing same room as First Aid Room.

Amenities:
Curtains can be drawn for nursing. 2 changing tables available. Hot/Cold water dispenser and high chair available too.

Located at:
Level 3 next to toilets

Amenities:
1 breastfeeding room with bottle warmer
2 changing stations

Located at:
Departure Level

Amenities:
1 Breastfeeding room with changing table.
1 Changing station outside of the breast feeding room.

We always bring our boy to libraries due to his love of handling books. We have been to a few regional libraries in shopping centres from the time he learnt to crawl and pull to stand. He will pull the books out of the shelves and flip them. Sometimes he will just pull the books off the shelves and we always have a hard time putting them back. Later on when he started to walk, he will walk all over the place and make quite a bit of noise disturbing the other library users. We regret not finding out about the Jurong Library earlier. It was the answer to our dreams.

The kids have a floor all to themselves! The toddlers have their very own area, and it is a very very large area. It is not library silent and there are chatters here and there. There are even play areas for the toddlers and this includes a dress up area with costumes provided and mirrors to check themselves out. At the toddlers and younger kids areas, parents are seen reading to their kids or the kids are trying to read aloud with their parents’ help. At the older kids areas, parents are seen giving tuition to their children while they complete their assessment books. It is overall lively but yet conducive for the older ones to do their work.The bad side is probably that the books are all over the place and the librarians are sure to have a hard time sorting them out. The books though are surprisingly in very good condition and when we borrowed 8 books home, my auntie thought we bought new books!

This is the section to the kids area. As you can see from the picture, it is brightly lit, decorated with bright colours and is very welcoming to the children.

The Kids’ Haven in the library

Very comfy areas for the kids to lounge and read in. It is also ok if a little mess is created though I think parents should teach the kids to put the books back after reading.

one of the toddlers areas

Some toddler fun that you usually find in indoor playgrounds can be found here!

Activity corner for the young ones

This is the dress up area that I mentioned earlier. There is a box for costumes and also a rack with some hanging there. Large full length mirrors are available for the kids to check themselves out. There are a few children wearing them and cat-walking around so it may seem like there are few costumes available.

Dress up corner

Interactive media for the kids to meddle with. It is touch screen and have games for them to play with.

Interactive Media for the kids to play with

These chairs are too comfortable that adults/teenagers use it too.

Area is so comfortable that adults use it as well to do their own reading

In the older kids areas, many are seen engaged in what they are doing with minimal noise. These are afterall set up as discussion areas. It is nice to see parents teaching and guiding their children whether in reading or writing or completing their homework.

Older kids areas where theya re seen doing their work

There is a small drawing corner but no kids are seen using it. Some adults were using it as a rest area.

Drawing corner

A nursing room (1 cubicled) is also available in case there is a need for a diaper change.

Nursing/diaper room next to the toilets

The name Marina Barrage seemed like a boring place. Recall students going there for excursions, just like the NEWater plant, where they can learn all about conservation of water in Singapore. However, many people choose to go there for family time. What can they do there, you might ask.

At level 1, you will find many people jogging or cycling. There is also a water playground for children to play in. At level 2, which is the garden rooftop, you will see families picnic-ing, flying kite, playing ball, lazing around. There is really much to do there. I had no idea until my hubby decided to bring us there. I was skeptical as I had been there before and don’t remember much about it. But boy, was I wrong!

When Riley was there, initially he was overwhelmed by the large garden and many other children playing there. He chose to just sit at the side and watch. One boy of similar age even came to pass him a ball but he refused.

Perfect weather to be at a garden!

Later on, daddy carried him around to talk a walk and to look at the different scenery and people around and he started to warm up.

And he started running around!

Nice place to run at

Later on we went down to the ground floor for the water play. The fountains were so large it kinda scared the poor 19 month old, so daddy decided to carry him to bring him into the fountains.

Large water fountains

And after a tour, he decided he wanted to play with the water. And that was what he did. He basically just squat down and started splashing. The fountain was too large for him but it sure did provide the atmosphere for water play.

As the weather turned bad all of a sudden, we left to shower and change up at the nursing room.

We would like to visit again, and be more prepared next time! Maybe we will bring a picnic basket, and a kite, and a ball, and some toys for playing in the water.

Following our trip to the Marina Barrage, I suggested that we should go to Gardens by the Bay. The Daddy had thought why would we want to go there? He hadn’t wanted to pay the entrance to enter the 2 domes. But I said there’s lots to do there that you do not have to pay for, and that includes a LARGE water playground for our little toddler. And so we went.

I think he was still skeptical when we reached there. We parked at the main entrance and it was a 10 minute walk to the children’s area. When Daddy first caught sight of the water playground, he went “WAH!!!!!”

There were many other places to explore in the Children’s garden, so we put on hold the water play first. Here’s a map to see what they have to offer there.

We didn’t bother playing at the toddler’s area as it was quite similar to the playgrounds you have at HDB blocks.

There were sandpits around but we didn’t bring any spades/pails to play in. However, Riley did get his first feel of the sand under his bare feet at 20 months old, and he liked it!

We had fun at the slide that was meant for older kids. There are also many other areas for older kids as seen in the pictures below.

So after some time spent at the slides, we headed over to the water playground, the original intention of us being there. There is an area meant only for toddlers with smaller fountains. Flooring is made of the spongy material and will not hurt if a child falls.

Riley enjoyed himself playing at the toddler side. Daddy brought him over to where the larger fountains were but he indicated that he wanted to go back to the toddlers’ area to play with his toys and the little fountains there. And we spent close to an hour just playing with the little fountains!

After a long while of playing, it was time to shower and change up. They have a open shower area for the kids. And I forgot to bring the shower foam again!! Got to remember this the next time round!

That’s it for our outing to Gardens by the Bay! If you happen to go there from now until 15 November 2014, you can take part in their monthly Instagram Contest. Prizes worth more than $500 to be won! All you have to do is to tag your child’s picture of him/her having fun at the Children’s Garden with #GBFUNTIME on Instagram! More details can be found here.

On level 4 of Northpoint shopping mall at Yishun MRT station is a large Children’s Playground, separated into wet and dry areas.

The dry area is always full of children aged about 4-7 running around which can be dangerous to little toddlers. This area is sheltered from the sun and the rain and is well ventilated.

At the wet areas, there are large water structures for the kids to play at This area is not sheltered.

There is a Toddler’s section at the wet area too where the toddlers would enjoy themselves, more compared to the main wet area.

After playing, you can shower at the open shower area, but it is really quite dirty as shown in the picture. You can go and change up at their many nursing rooms in the building at levels 1-3 neaxt to the toilets, or simply just dry up and go for a shower at home.

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Riley has a little book with a lot of animals and their names in it. The giraffe is one of them. He is still learning words with two different syllabus so at the moment, giraffes are just “raffes”. He can recognise a number of animals quite easily, without having seen them in real life before. I am not sure if it is because we were animated when describing the animals to him, but to encourage him and his love for animals, we went to the library recently to borrow many animal books with actual pictures and read them to him. He loves to point out the different animals and names them as he points them out.

He also has a teether for him to chew on when he is teething in the form of a giraffe which he fondly calls “Raffe” and a stuffed monkey he loves to hug at night which he fondly calls “Key”.

“Life is made up of the experiences we have. Wisdom is the depth of understanding those experiences.”

While Riley may be too young to understanding all his experiences, we can certainly add provide him with more experiences.

Today we brought Riley to the Singapore Zoo. We brought along his animal book, so that he can make references to them.

We saw the hippo. (“Po” in Riley’s words) He was prancing up and down before he fell asleep in the corner of his enclosure. Two young rhinos we playing and nudging each other with their horns. The white tiger (“Tiger!” exclaimed Riley) was taking a morning swim. He has a pool within his enclosure. The meerkats were rolling around while one of them stood watch as a sentry. The zebras (Riley’s “Bra-bra”s)were…..well, they were not doing anything, just eating.

When we arrived at the giraffes, Riley was amazed. His eyes trailed the giraffes from head to toe and he was going “Woooaah”. He understood at that moment what “tall” meant.

But he had no idea what we had in store for him. We intended for him to have the opportunity to feed the giraffes face to face!

Suddenly, the giraffes were no longer tall. In fact, the giraffe were huge and scary. She was sticking her head right at Riley, zooming in on the snack. Riley looked a little fearful but I guided him to feed the first vegetable. I wanted to see if he was brave enough to feed the second. Riley held on to the second piece and extended his hand a little. The giraffe’s tongue snaked towards Riley’s little hand and her mouth engulfed Riley’s little hand. But the giraffe was an expert at snacking and Riley’s hand was not harmed.

Well accustomed, the giraffe greedily snatched the 5 titbits away, knowing that the next child will have another 5.  But for that brief one minute in Riley’s life, giraffes were big, wide mouthed, snaky tongued creatures that snatched all his food away.

Learning is one of the oldest puzzles of mankind. In each era, we try to decode it, we try to simplify it into patterns, and we try to understand it with all kinds of concepts and theories. But it continues to elude us.

As parents, the best learning we can provide our child, is to spend quality time with them, be examples of lifelong learners by picking up new skills together with our children or exploring new places for new experiences with our children. In this case, by bringing him to the zoo, it made the pictures in his books come to life. It was experiential learning.

Yes, to come up with new experiences and our own parental curriculum and spending quality time with our kids, it is tiring. A Saturday could be easier spent relaxing and lazing around at home.

But that will be wasting the future of our children and not investing in it.

One of the many things that you ponder about while you are pregnant is who is going to care for your baby when your Maternity Leave ends and you have to go back to work. Some considerations are if your parents or in-laws can help to care for the baby, should you hire a helper, should you send your baby to a nanny or to an Infant Care Centre? For my hubby and me, our first choice was to have either of our parents care for the child. However, either due to health or other commitment reasons, all of them were unable to commit to taking care of our child. We did not want to settle for a helper or a nanny as we preferred to have more adults watching over the child. Therefore we decided on sending our baby to an Infant Care. But then comes the challenging part. Which one do we choose? How do you choose? Here are some tips (in no particular order) we got along the way and hope they will guide you in choosing your ideal IFC. :)

1. Location of the IFC
Infant Care Centres typically open 7am-7pm each day. Some of us have to start work as early as 7am or end work as late as 7pm. If you fall into any of these categories, you should look for one that is nearer to your work place rather than one that is near to your home. If you have the luxury to start work later at 8-9am and end work before 6pm each day, then you should get one near your place as it would be easier to fetch the baby and walk home.

2. How the teachers handle the babies during peak/busy periods
Most Infant Care Centres require you to book a tour beforehand if you want to go in to take a look at their facilities. However, most tours will not be conducted when they are the busiest at about 10am in the morning. That is when most babies are in and some are ready for their first nap of the day. That being said, most IFCs allow people to peep in. You can stand at the windows and observe if the teacher/baby ratio is sufficient, are the teachers ignoring any crying baby, are the teachers shouting at each other, etc. We like to peep in and observe as that tells us a lot more about the daily activities as compared to the tours.

While you are at it, look out for how they put the crying babies to sleep. A friend told me once she went to one that was rocking a baby so hard trying to put the baby to sleep. Once I also saw one that was patting very hard a crying baby to put her to sleep, not on the backside but the chest. You can tell by the way they are handling them and rocking them to sleep if they are impatient and want them to sleep as fast as possible so they can give their attention to other babies. But if I do see any of these, that centre is immediately eliminated from my list of potential centres.

3. Customer Service of the Office
While booking a tour, or chatting about the prices/center with the office staff which may or may not include the Principal, you can easily notice if they are willing to chat with you. If they are not, I would suggest to change to another IFC. Because it will mean that when you have problems with your baby in the future and want to discuss things with them, they will be just as unwilling to chat with you.

4. Separation of the mobile babies from the immobile ones
This is a bonus point I feel when choosing an IFC. The fact that they are separated means your new baby who cannot move yet will not be crushed by another who is practicing crawling or learning how to walk. It also means that they have different toys for different age grouped babies. I personally like it that they are separated.

5. Connecting Child Care Centre
If your child is in an Infant Care Centre, most likely you would need a Child Care Centre when your baby reaches 18 months. All IFCs are connected to a Child Care Centre. It would be good to observe and look out for their curriculum and see if you want to let your child go there when he/she turns 18 months. Within the same centre, the transition is easier for the baby at 18 months. The teachers will bring them over to the Child Care side for longer and longer periods of time , introduce them to their new teachers and help in big ways for them to transit. This is definitely much better than changing them to an entirely new environment where they do not know anyone once they reach 18 months old.

6. Separation of bath/changing area, food preparation area and main area of play
Some centres have all of these in one room. Which means that if the place is air conditioned, the baby would be cold when out of the bath and before putting on clothes. It also means that when a baby poops, the entire room will be exposed to the smell of the poop. Which also means that food preparation and milk preparation will be exposed to the smell. You get the gist of this. It is good if all these are in different rooms, or at the very least, different sections.

7. Price and Fees
Fees for IFC vary a lot. From $500 a month to more than $2000 a month. Do also consider if you have subsidies. A Singaporean full time working mum will have $600 subsidy. On top of that if your gross household income is below a certain sum, there are more subsidies to help you with that. The centres will apply for these subsidies for you. Choose one that you can afford.

8. Aircon vs non-aircon
Some centres are fitted with air-con, some are not. Of course those without are cheaper. Some people purposely choose those non-airconditioned ones as they feel that germs will spread less readily there. Possibly it is true. But that does not eliminate the presence of germs at all. We nearly chose a non-airconditioned IFC. But just then, the PSI 400 haze struck. We decided immediately to get one with air-con.

9. Recommendations
It would be the easiest if you have recommendations from friends or relatives. That will reduce the hassle of you going to spy on the places you are interested in or to go for tours. You can also google for reviews on the centres you might be interested in.

10. Vacancy
Some places fill up very fast, especially IFCs in Seng Kang and Punggol area due to the high population of young families there. So it would be good if you are able to start searching and selecting one when you are more comfortable in your second trimester and book a place for your baby in your ideal Infant Care Centre. The later you book a place, the less choices you have. That could be easier as well though. :) We were lucky and got our ideal IFC even when we only started searching after baby was born. It was just nice there was vacancy. Some IFCs allow you to reserve a spot only after baby is born as well. Good to start searching earlier though.

Hope you are successful in finding an Infant Care Centre that you can rely on to care for your little one so you can have a peace of mind when you go back to work! :)