Pilaf
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We used a crib until she was two – then we moved and put her mattress from her crib next to our futons – but she’s almost five now and she sleeps on my futon or on me. I don’t sleep well because she rolls around in her sleep a lot, but it helps because she often needs to get up at night to pee and I can sense it before she’s fully awake so I’m prepared lol
I probably would have done more research about breastfeeding, since some of the advice I was given was a bit odd but I was too tired to question them in the hospital at the time.
Yeah, a lot of people also just try to find out why I’m in Japan, because they don’t think that my daughter looks like she might be “hafu” – but people back home are like “omg she’s so cute, Asian babies really are the cutest” which is another issue in itself.
Everyone always says hello to me and my kid but I think it helps that she’s super outgoing and will start a conversation with anyone – unlike me. A few months have reached out, because our kids play together – but our kids are older. We also live very close to the daycare so we often run into kids outside of the daycare and they end up playing together, so we sort of chitchat, but I’ll admit my Japanese level is pretty abysmal. There are a couple teachers that seem to go out of their way not to talk to me but I don’t really blame them with the communication issues.
At that age we had a lot of rice soup with little steamed carrot shapes in it, and sometimes oatmeal. I used to make little omelettes and cut them into little strips like noodles which she could easily take and chew on without making it too daunting for her.
Yeah, my daughter does have big eyes, although her hair has darkened, she looks a lot like (white) me. But now that her Japanese skills are better I do worry a bit about what she will overhear and take in. She still doesn’t really understand. I’ve gotten a lot of “wow hafu really are the cutest” but luckily not when she’s with me, just people I work with… for now. I’m always wondering what I should or shouldn’t be saying or how I should be handling it but I don’t have much confidence to be honest.
My daughter looks just like me and people constantly try to ask me indirectly if her father is Japanese or not (“Is your husband here on business?”) – (“Why did you come to Japan?”). It doesn’t bother me but I dislike when people call her a gaijin because she’s not, but she stands out and maybe always will. When people walk by her with her daycare they spot her right away. People will often say how big her eyes are or how I will have to worry when she’s older (I assume most parents of daughters get that). But I don’t say anything. I don’t know what I would be able to say gracefully without just coming across as defensive.
I like drawing too 🙂
We have a lot of origami stuff but I once made some paper Octonaut dolls and now she wants something that complicated every time – oops. She used to love the Daiso sticker books but I think she’s outgrown them now, they were great for back when we used to ride the trains pre-pandemic though. I guess I could go get some construction paper and she could make a Valentine’s Day card for her dad if I help her cut out the hearts though…
We mostly speak English at home – even with her father-in-law, we mostly speak English. I have made a few English-speaking mom friends and we switch back and forth with them, and she uses only Japanese at daycare. When she started she had spent three years home alone with me and was starting basically from zero. It took about a year but she speaks pretty well now, although not as fluently as her classmates (yet). She will switch to Japanese when playing with her dad sometimes, but sort of theatrically. Like it’s part of the roleplay still and not really natural to her yet.
I make art (but as a hobby) and I’m glad I have more and more time to do it a my kid gets older. I spent a lot of time drawing her as a baby the first year.
Mine went pretty well. I went into labor and hung out in agony in the delivery room trying really hard not to throw up and to keep breathing. I ended up saying yes to having a midwife’s student join us, so the room was crowded. The only thing that really annoyed me was they kept bugging me to eat something near the end but I was so nauseated and they tried to give me cold pizza toast and blueberry yogurt and it was just ugh. I didn’t have any pain medication and ended up with a vacuum birth and episiotomy but luckily I recovered from everything extremely well.
We seem to have outgrown obsessions and technically we are not in the toddler-hood anymore but my daughter loved Puffin Rock, Paw Patrol and Octonauts from 1 – 2 – 3 years old respectively. Now everything is just sort of good without her really dwelling on anything.
We don’t have a lot of external support either. Only recently have I made any friends that I would even consider asking to watch my child if there was some sort of major (MAJOR) emergency, and I met them both through my work and they have similarly aged kids. It’s pretty scary sometimes because you never know when something will come up!
I’m also in Saitama 🙂
