My pantang experience

I am struggling to stick to a strict pantang routine because I don't really have a lot of free time for myself nowadays. Seriously, this motherhood business is no easy task. Believe me, after a routine of feeding, changing nappies and putting Haidan to sleep, there's usually less than a 2-hour window left to do anything else, before he wakes up again.

This is when being in the UK made me realise how lucky new mommies in Malaysia are. My cousin, Nurul, gave birth a few weeks before I did and she was treated like a princess. Every morning and evening she goes through the traditional malay akar kayu/ daun herba bath, then di-urut, di-tungku and then di-barut/ bengkung and finished off with di-pilis and di-param. Then she rests until evening before she washes herself off. She doesn't do a lot of moving around coz she's got assistance to help her with the housework, cooking and babysitting.

Me on the otherhand have to struggle with the pantang routine as I have to do it all on my own. My mom's got her hands full in the kitchen with the cooking, cleaning and laundering. It gets a bit messy and complicated you know trying to put everything on yourself and then not being able to move for the next 4hours with all the pilis and param on me. Imagine standing alone in the bathroom trying to tie a very long bengkung with all these messy smelly pastes all over your body and forehead and just as you are about to tie halfway, your baby dah start melalak lapar! Therefore, it proved to be too stressful that I have given up on the total traditional routine. I've now resorted to mandi with sabun Dove and then putting this supposedly miraculous heaty Slimming & Toning Gel and then wear a M&S girdle.

On food pantang, there's bad news and good news. The good news is that Mama did make sure that I have a healthy menu with no frying dishes whatsoever. My daily menu will usually consists of a half portion of nasi putih panas, with either ikan bakar or tofu jepun or sup ayam and a serving of steamed vege (usually brocollis or asparagus). The bad news is that Mama now is going through this phase in her life where she’s all so excited on experimenting on making deserts and kueh. Yup, I may have a 10 calorie meal but then I screwed it all up by finishing it with a 1000zillion calorie desert. Plus, having a Hubby who loves to share his jar of Nutella after dinner with me proves to be a bit too difficult to live with.

Therefore, I have concluded that I have failed miserably in my pantang routine. I realized that this critical 40 days confinement period (mat sallehs call it the 6weeks-postpartum period) is originally to make sure that the new mommy gets the rest she deserves after all she’s been through. Since sticking to this pantang business proves to be more stressful than not, I shall not beat myself up for not following it exactly. However, I will promise myself that once I’m stronger, I will go all-out on my aerobics exercise regime again. In the meantime, I will forgive and forget my sexy size 8 jeans and devote all my free time (if any) to get myself a deserving rest. Heck, I’m going to follow exactly what the midwife told me before I left the hospital: “Don’t stand when you can sit, don’t sit when you can lie down and don’t stay awake when you can sleep!”