Cerita Fidyah Tahun Kedua

Mula-mula aku ingat nak tweets je pasal ni. Tapi panjang sangat pulak. 

Papa baru saja pulang dari menyelesaikan zakat fitrah dan membayar fidyah untuk isterinya ni ha. Fitrah untuk 4 orang, fidyah untuk 26 hari puasa yang aku belum belum dapat ganti. Ada beberapa faktor yang membuatkan aku tak sempat ganti, harapnya lepas raya tahun ni dapat lah ganti.

So, talking about fidyah. Rasanya pasal zakat, the basic information that I have, if not equal, is less than what you already know. Plus, it's good if you could refer to the correct source. Afterall, zakat fitrah is not new to you and it's a yearly vow anyway. 

So, fidyah. Aku dah dikenakan bayar fidyah ni bermula tahun lepas. When I had Eivie in my tummy for around 2 months, I was as equally sick as when I had Eirsa in my tummy around that period too. But I still could endure Ramadhan and scored 30/30 in my fasting chart. Dah memang tak lalu makan, muntah lah 5 kali sehari sampai keluar asid perut pun, memang tak boleh nak menelan apa pun lepas tu, lalu berpuasa sajalah. 

Masa mengandungkan Eivie, sama jugak. Jenis muntah-muntah hatta terhidu nafas suami sekali pun (terbau kari pun boleh bikin marah), keluar air perut pahit warna kuning, sama je. Tapi, kali ni saya tak boleh berpuasa. Akan rasa sangat letih, boleh pengsan. And I scored 0/30 in my fasting chart for year 2011. Tak pe, tak de rezeki. Tak payah sedih sangat sebab tu Tuhan bagi kelonggaran untuk tidak berpuasa.

In 2012, alhamdulillah, feeding Eivie lengthened my first BFF monthly visit after delivery and I could score full marks during Ramadhan. I mean puasa penuh lah walaupun dalam tempoh menyusukan. Namun begitu, dari masa lepas bersalin saaaampailah bulan puasa tahun 2012 yang sepatutnya aku mula mengganti puasa yang tertinggal pada 2011, aku tak sempat ganti. Tiap kali mula puasa, kepala akan sakit dan ada sekali tu hampir pitam. Mungkin sebab faktor keadaan yang menyusukan. All in all, tak dapat ganti langsung lalu papa kena bayar fidyah sebanyak RM51 untuk 30 hari. Memang betul, puasa dalam bulan Ramadhan dan puasa dalam selain dari bulan Ramadhan, letihnya lain.

The battle of mengganti puasa after that continued until end of Syaaban this year but I only managed to ganti 4 days only. Dah cuba tapi tu je mampu. So tahun kena bayar fidyah sebanyak RM93.60. Ini adalah mengikut kalkulator yang disediakan di laman web Lembaga Zakat Selangor.

Namun begitu. 

Petugas kat Zakat KL pagi tadi bagi info lebih terang pada papa. Begini ceritanya :

1) Klasifikasi aku tak boleh puasa adalah sebab diri sendiri, bukan sebab bayi. Aku yang tak larat nak puasa, padahal kalau aku puasa, bayi tetap berupaya membesar dalam rahim (macam kes Eirsa, aku larat puasa, dah 4 tahun pon anak dara tu). Lalu, aku perlu ganti dan bayar fidyah.

2) TAPI. Jumlah fidyah untuk kes aku ini tak perlu digandakan pada tahun kedua jika tak dapat habis ganti pada tahun pertama, KECUALI kalau tahun pertama fidyah tidak dibayar. Oleh itu, kira-kira di atas tidak valid. Petugas mengira semula berapa perlu dibayar berdasarkan tahun tinggal puasa, tahun ganti, tahun dah bayar fidyah dan keputusannya papa perlu bayar RM46.70 sahaja.

3) Jika tidak berpuasa disebabkan anak, seperti mengandung dan kesihatan anak dalam kandungan akan tergugat kalau ibu berpuasa walaupun ibu mampu berpuasa, tidak perlu ganti hanya bayar fidyah. TAPI untuk kes ini papa tidak diterangkan dengan lebih lanjut kalau fidyah tahun kedua, ketiga dan seterusnya, adakah jumlah akan digandakan atau tidak. Jika konsep fidyah yang sama dengan kes aku, lalu ada kemungkinan bayaran setiap tahun juga adalah sama jika fidyah dibayar setiap tahun (please refer to the correct source for this, we don't have first hand information).

Begitulah adanya maklumat yang baru kami terima pagi tadi. Namun begitu panduan zakat dan fidyah ni mungkin berbeza, terserah kepada kita nak gunapakai yang mana. Sedangkan kadar zakat setiap negeri pun lain-lain, ye dak.

Till then, selamat berpuasa hari ke delapan belas.

It's Just Temporary

There's nothing sinful about having to supplement your toddler's daily milk consumption with formula, when you really have to. That doesn't make you a bad mother at all. You are doing the necessity while still struggling in the battle of breastfeeding.

With the current milk supply I know sooner or later I would have to add small a session of formula milk feeding while Eivie's at the daycare. As I told you guys previously, my production nowadays had jatuh longkang; day in day out and I also had to deal with only half amount of hasil pumping during PMS, daily for a week.

I think supplementing Eivie this way relieves us both; no pressure for mommy and still enough total milk consumption for Eivie. 

I still hope for miracle to happen, thus direct night feeding and daily routine pumpings at office will still continue. InshaAllah I will ensure Eivie will enjoy the goodness of breastmilk until she's two (with or without formula).

Mengepam Dan Memalas

Sesungguhnya stock EBM untuk Eivie hanyalah tak sampai 50 oz. Tapi kadang-kadang dalam berjuang untuk sekurang-kurangnya tak sentuh stock tu, datang jugak penyakit malas. Malas nak menapak ke surau dan mengepam. Padahal surau tu satu level je dengan ofis aku.

Oleh itu aku buat perjanjian dengan diri aku. Setiap kali lepas mengepam aku boleh makan keropok bantal dan keropok roda! Yosh mengepam!

If Everything Else Fails, Try This : Pray.

So trust me, your own breastfeeding journey is going to be different from a child to a child.

I started with low stock with Eirsa, high and low production periods throughout the way but I managed to catch up. Eirsa was only unavoidably introduced with formula milk when she was 17 or 19 months old (couldn't accurately recall) and she stopped enjoying mommy's milk when she was 24 months. Weaning processes was quite smooth since she has no problem accepting formula milk.

Lesson learnt, I stocked up EBM for Eivie started from week 2 of confinement. I managed to save some 200 oz prior to returning to work and an additional of 100 oz for the next 2 months. Lucky me, Eivie wasn't not a heavy EBM consumer, but she's doing perfectly fine. Unlike Eirsa whom I need to supply at her daycare with with 20 oz daily starting from even 7-8 months old onwards, until now Eivie is still happy with her 3.5 oz, 3 bottles per day at her daycare (of course with 2 sets of homemade meal for breakfast and lunch, and 3 oz of fruit juice). BUT. I could not keep up with the requirements. May be the production was not as generous as before, may be I did not take the necessary steps, may be it's the hormones (I had my period at 12 months after having Eirsa, while 6 months after having Eivie), or simply may be because I did not try enough. Forget about whether or not I've eaten enough, my never-ending (slowly gradually) increasing body weight explains all.

aving said that, from the hundreds ounces, we are not only left with only 42 oz of frozen EBM, which I refuse to touch (the incident only took away a few bags, so it's not the main contributor). So now I'm trying my best to supply her milk on daily basis. And of course, I'm trying everything possible and pray a lot. InshaAllah, if ada rezeki for Eivie, Allah will help us. Ameen.

Oh, by the way. I know, pumping as many time as possible, emptying the breasts as frequent as possible will send the signal that the breasts need to produce more and more. But my argument is, I am now yelling at my brain telling her that that more milk is needed for my baby why doesn't she listen??! But that doesn't work of course. And yeah, it's not funny, sorry.

That Incident.

So yeah, it happened to me : the freezer door was accidentally left a little ajar over the night and thawed all my 105 oz frozen expressed breast milk. And lucky me and Eivie, we made 2 separate storage of frozen EBM; one at my own house, another at my PIL's. But still, the thought of losing 105 oz EBM is heartbreaking.


We only realized this situation around 9 am. At this point, all the 105 oz has fully thawed, i.e. needed to be used within 24 hours. As impossible as it sounded to finish all 105 oz within 24 hours, I didn't dare to break the 24-hours rule entirely. I chose to extend for another 3 hours and make it 27 hours and prayed to Allah to preserve the good condition of those EBM.


I wasn't in good emotional state for the whole day. I wasn't angry but rather frustrated. I forgot to think of better things to do but mourned. And it was actually a mistake on its own. At this point all I can think of was to put Eivie on sole EBM for the next 27 hours but that could only utilize around 25 oz of EBM. And at the same time I had the fear of Eivie rejecting direct feed after a long bottle feeding period as it happened 3 times during weekends (separate events). Too many issues to think of but not the solutions, silly me.


12 of 24 hours passed by. Then only I could think straight and come across the idea of giving the EBM while it was still OK, to other babies. 12 hours wasted, silly silly me.


Tweeted about it and a blogger-Twitter-Facebook friend Cik Daun, instantly replied. Alhamdulillah, we agreed to meet around 10 pm and I gave her 28 oz of the thawed EBM. The idea was to save (by giving to other baby) as much as possible. Cik Daun suggested to give the thawed EBM to NICU, which was a great idea but it was a little too late. We didn't have direct contact with a doctor or person in charge in any hospital and it was not a straightaway method of giving EBM to babies that need special care.


On the 28 oz breast milk give to Nazim (Cik Daun's baby), of course the ibu-anak susuan rule was always applied. My husband and I talked about it and with our limited knowledge on the subject (some say it will only jatuh hukum if the baby is fed with direct feeding, but some say regardless on whichever method, as long as the milk is supplied by mother A to baby B until the baby is full, five times of this session, they both are considered as ibu-anak susuan related, so we sticked to this rule), we proposed to Cik Daun to feed Nazim with my EBM for 4 times only. Husband said we wouldn't know what would happen in the future and this decision was very impromptu so we better stayed at the safe side.


All in all, I or rather we managed to use around half of the total 105 oz. Praise to God.


This incident force us to remember these things, if the same thing ever happen again to me or any breastfeeding mothers : 


1) Use 'to be used within 24 hours after the frozen EBM is fully thawed' to minimize the impact. You could perhaps put some buffer while the EBM is still OK (not advisable, but follow your gut feeling), but don't jeopardize the EBM quality by breaking the whole rule. Better yet, ask the expert on the impact of going further than 24 hours and if there's at any point you could tolerate.
2) Act fast; ask around whoever needs EBM, but they have to use it before the 24 hour ends. Giving it to NICU is a great idea but get the procedures in-hand first before you could proceed.
3) Be aware about the ibu-anak susuan guidelines as you don't want to have mahram issue in the future. Like my husband said, 20 years down the road is long, many things might just happen.
4) Yes you are panic and emotionally disturbed. Take a deep breath. Talk to your husband or friend. Try not to be too sad as there is nothing happen without His permission and He just knows everything and you don't want to doubt that. You need to stay focus to minimize the impact.
5) Equip yourself with knowledge of thawed EBM and the ibu-anak susuan guidelines beforehand.


You could read and ask the experts on the 24 hour rule, as well as the ibu-anak susuan guidelines. I'm still learning too but as of now I would still stick to the most stringent rules.

Till then.


Note : 
1) This might just strengthen my decision on hukum ibu-anak susuan, even with no direct feeding.
2) Husband cousin's suggested to bathe Eivie with the EBM, a good idea than let it wasted.
3) A fellow blogger friend had generously sought for the way to donate EBM to any hospital in Malaysia, please find the very informative article, here.

How Do I Handle Expressed Breast Milk

I think I received quite a number of requests on how to handle breast milk. Perhaps it's good if I could share with more mothers by blogging about it. But please keep in mind that this is not a guideline, rather an information sharing on how do I do it, with 2-babies-amount of experience. Some of the practises might not suit you or even might not be agreed by you but I practised these for my 2 babies and alhamdulillah, nothing bad occured and both now membesar bagai johan. There are a lot of storage guidelines, resulted from "EBM storage guideline" google. I did a lot of reading during breastfeeding my first baby and matched the best with my working-mom-with-no-maid-lifestyle i.e. the most convenient for me.

Storage :

Everytime I express, I'll store the EBM in cooler bag with 3 ice packs. At home, it would be inside chiller section of a refrigerator. This is because later that day or day after (still within the storage rules hours), I would want to combine those bottles in storage bags.

For example : I might be able to express 5 oz during the 1st session and 9 oz during the 2nd session and 6 oz during the 3rd session. All bottles will be stored at the same storage place until all reach the same temperature. Later I'll combine all 20 oz of EBM and store them in 7 oz storage bags.

There are a lot of storage guides when it comes to EBM. I would suggest that the best reference is using temperature guides. By saying that, you have to know roughly what is your EBM storage place's temperature. If this is hard to achieve, to be safe, go with the lowest number of hours/days advised for each storage place. The idea is the longer EBM is stored, the more nutritiens lost and the higher exposure of contamination.


For the next day use :

First of all I'll identify how much does my daughter consume. It would be 2-3 dry run of bottle feeding session, starting with 2-3 oz. Now Eivie consumes 3 oz per feeding, around 5 times while I'm at work. That means I need to provide the daycare with at least 5 x 3 oz of EBM.

Remember I keep freeze my EBM at 7 oz each? That way I could provide the daycare with around 2 x 7 oz thawed frozen EBM? No, I don't do that. This is because if Eivie does not finish all 14 oz, the milk could be used for the next day (note : After being thawed (defrost), EBM have to be used within 24 hours, else to be discarded).

So, I only defrost 7 oz of milk and top up with the previous day fresh EBM. I put the defrosted EBM in 2 bottles, measured by 3.5 oz (easier for carer to handle), labeled with "19 June -  Bottle 1" and the second bottle as "19 June - Bottle 2". Fresh EBM will be labeled as "19 June - Bottle 3", "19 June - Bottle 4" and "19 June - Bottle 5". Carer will be informed to always use bottle number 1 first. That way, if Eivie doesn't able to finish all 15 oz, at least EBM in bottle 3, 4 or 5 (whichever left) could still be used for the day after. Besides, this is also to avoid the early frozen EBM reached it's expiry. (Please take note that for fresh EBM, I keep the 2-day rule of storage, before being frozen and I'm using 2-door fridge).

How did I defrost? By transferring the frozen EBM from freezer to chiller the night before.

And for the day after, carer will be informed to use bottles dated 19 June first, before could use bottles dated 20 June (and yes, the first two bottles dated 20 June contain defrost EBM, while the rest 3 bottles contain 19th June's expressed EBM). Repeat until the last day of breastfeeding. :)

Till then, happy breastfeeding mommas! Do drop any queries or suggestions in comment section, so we could share more information.



Note : http://www.kellymom.com among those websites offer good reference for breastfeeding.

Talking About Expressed Breast Milk

I managed to breastfeed Eirsa for 24 months; 21 months solely with breastmilk (plus solid food when she reached 7 months old) and we had to top up with formula since the supply was no longer sufficient. And the good side was, these 3 months of combination of breastmilk and formula somehow did ease the weaning off process.

Eirsa was a heavy consumer of breastmilk, being a baby girl. As early as 5 months old, I have to send 4 to 5 bottles of 5 oz expressed breast milk (EBM) to her daycare and usually she would finish them all. Even when she started her solid food, the amount didn't reduce. When she was about 8 months old, I had to send 5-6 bottles of 5 oz EBM.

When I started working back then (still talking about Eirsa's era), I only had around 40 oz of EBM stock, with the knowledge that it would be sufficient. Yes, it was, in fact I manage to top up another 20 oz of stock, but only until she reached 5 months old. For the record, I started making stock after confinement days, while still undergoing maternity leaves.

It was a sudden drop in my milk supply, with no warning, no significant cause as far as I could recall. Instead of being able to express 5 oz in the morning at home and 16 oz while at work, I only managed to express 18 oz in total. It wasn't alarming until noticed at one point I only had 10 oz of frozen EBM. Then I started to google for some quick milk supply boosters.

I tried many things as far as my appetite and tummy could take. Booster tea, fenugreek, dried longan, red date, soy, milk, ASI, Shaklee and some other that I already forgot. 3 years ago the options were still not as many as now, or may be I didn't know about them. Among those that I've tried, some did show temporary miracle, some did consistent yet gradual improvement. But still, to catch up with 20 - 30 oz per day of supply, sometimes I could just send whatever I had in stock and pray that they would enough for Eirsa for the day. 

Alhamdulillah, during those hard and stressful days, Eirsa still managed to enjoy my breastmilk with no significant incidents of starving and no formula milk involved. There were days when she slept a lot and I managed to keep 2-3 oz per day, to be used for the next day. Meanwhile I didn't give up trying to boost the supply, even though I cried once a while thinking that 'that was it' moment was about to come.

While some of the remedies worked, I could keep small amount of stocks. At the same time I added more pump sessions, usually at home. I would pump right after I arrived home and before going to bed. Every day. It was tiring and a little bit mentally torturing but my husband kept all the positive vibes around the house. He helped with taking care of Eirsa, washing and sterilizing bottles, giving me motivations while rubbing my back when I pumped. During the weekend, I did do tender pumping even though it was a struggle since Eirsa didn't like "competition" but finally she got used to it. During these hard times in breastfeeding, I would keep even 0.5 oz EBM. Too precious. I would prefer to tender pump or to pump right after each feeding, as compared to pump in between feeding session, so my body could produce sufficient amount of milk for my baby for her next feeding session.

After about 1-2 weeks of the routines, I could see significant amount of supply increase. In fact, in the next few months, I managed to make 60 oz of frozen stocks while maintain the day in day out supply for Eirsa. I still topped up the stocks during weekends and at one time I had around 100 oz of frozen stock. All praises to God!

So for Eivie, I started keeping stock as early the third week of confinement period. 4-5 oz each morning and sometimes another 3-4 oz when my breasts engorged (when Eivie slept at unusual longer hours), I managed to make some 200 oz of frozen EBM, before I got back to work. Alhamdulillah.. Alhamdulillah.. Alhamdulillah. And so far, Eivie consumed around 13-15 oz per day and I still managed to top up the EBM stock and I now have around 300 oz of frozen EBM. I hope this suffices during my low supply days, especially during the fasting month.

In short, for those struggling (with the target to fully breastfeed their baby but low milk supply) moms :

1) you could try one milk supply booster at time, give it 1-2 weeks to see the improvement before changing to other milk supply booster. I could not suggest any specific milk supply booster as it might work for me but not for you, but you could find them from many forums and mommy-baby online shop. Read the instructions carefully, especially the impact to moms and babies.

2) do increase your pumping session. No, you could not see the results in 1-2 day. It might take 1-2 weeks to really work, but it helps a lot. The more consistent it is (in terms of timing), the better, especially tender pumping or to pump right after each feeding session.

3) keep any amount of milk that you managed to express each time. 0.5 oz times 100 is a good 50 oz.

4) do drink a lot and eat adequately.

5) do keep positive thoughts about your supply. Not only during expressing but, all the time (if possible). Stress might affect the supply. And trust that God will take care of the rest as long as we try our best. There was a time when I only has 18 oz of EBM as compared to 25 oz of Eirsa's daily consumption, but it was still enough for her for that day as she had longer than usual afternoon and she ate more than usual thus didn't demand for milk a lot.

Good luck (and do share your experience, if it is not too much to ask. :) )

While breastfeeding Eivie at a restaurant

Till then. Muah.

Breast milk info (from Wikipedia) : Whole cow's milk does not contain sufficient vitamin E or essential fatty acids. Whole cow's milk also contains excessive amounts of protein, sodium, and potassium, which may put a strain on an infant's immature kidneys. In addition, the proteins and fats in whole cow's milk are more difficult for an infant to digest and absorb than the ones in breast milk. Evaporated milk may be easier to digest due to the processing of the protein but is still nutritionally inadequate.