…you have difficulties buying milk powder.
How come this is easily available? Because it's for Stage 4 (older babies/toddlers)...
Since Ms Rockstar takes predominantly breast milk, this isn’t as big a problem as we otherwise would’ve had, but using formula does have its upsides – for e.g. it’s much easier with those single-feed powder dispensers to swing a sleepy late night feed than to warm a bottle of icy breast milk from the fridge. Especially in winter.
Kings finally hit gold...
So we do eventually run out – you are only allowed to buy a maximum of 4 tins at a time here, and fairly often they don’t even have 4 tins left for you to buy… In Ms Rockstar’s 7 months, we’ve run out twice. The second time was last night, when Kings eyes the half-tin we’ve got left and decides to try picking some up from a “Ma and Pa shop” in Pok Fu Lam. When maybe 3 shops turn up nothing, we start wondering if it’s that season again in HK. You know, that season where another contaminated milk powder scare in the Mainland has brought hoards of milk-powder buying Mainland mummies over here. (Recall also that our former batu api driver, when Kings let him go, asked if he would like to put money in a milk powder-supplying business…)
It’s not like we use some fancy-wancy powder btw, we just carried on using what the hospital was using, bringing home a couple tins when we brought the baby home. And I’d originally requested the hospital use formula for the midnight feed, hoping the baby would stay asleep longer in the night… With Rockstar however I was still working, and vaguely remember an RM of mine recommending a Japanese (I think) powder called Hohoemi – available off the shelf at Great for under HKD 400 per tin thereabouts, but if you bought direct from a supplier in minimum orders of 10 tins, you could get it for about HKD 250 per tin… Back then I didn’t produce enough milk, so Rockstar was about 50% formula fed despite my determined regimen of rising 90 minutes earlier and sleeping 90 minutes later around regular dealing room hours for almost a year…)
Hohoemi
Wow this packaging brings back memories – a former pediatrician once told us you’re not allowed to put real pictures of healthy, happy babies on the tin (hence the cartoons) because it might encourage more mums to not breastfeed, because they want similarly healthy, happy baby….. Which reminds me my former RM recommended Meiji Hohoemi because it was the closest to breast milk I think she said…
Anyway back to Sunday night. Kings eventually finds himself across the island in the North Point area before finding the 4 tins. He’s queueing, and I ask him to take a few pics if he isn’t too grouchy because of the running around already.
Kings obliges - that's our 4-tin ration making its way out of the store
(By now he can’t remember which store that is, but it’s somewhere across HK Island, about an hour’s drive from where we live…. because all the shops he tried in our vicinity that night were out…)
Random store he tried at night
Watsons' and property agents' still open at 9-something...
Ps: Ms Rockstar’s day-time schedule abruptly dramatically changed yesterday; trying to type with her wriggling on my lap… more in bit – when Ms Boss allows it 😛
The boss wears butterfly clips
Miss Rockstar looks so pretty with the butterfly clip on her head. Did she try to remove the clips?
Did not realise that it is that difficult to buy milk for babies in HK.
Miss Rockstar looks so pretty with the butterfly clip on her head. Did she try to remove the clips?
Did not realise that it is that difficult to buy milk for babies in HK.
Now that you mention, no she has not had any problem with clips (I was very tempted to use some of my old evita peroni ones but stuck to some Japanese-label-which-I-can’t-read ones which have fabric-covered parts). But she doesn’t allow “Alice bands,” those plastic hairbands, and I get some minor complaints about fabric headbands…
She doesn’t put everything in her mouth, only select items that interest her, usually things like the bro’s school books when he’s reading them (which really bothers him) or rattles…
I find plastic hairbands very uncomfortable. They pressed against my head until I get a headache. Perhaps Ms Rockstar finds them uncomfortable too.
Yeah guess so… hope she doesn’t decide to hate hats as well 😛
We are having the same problem with a particular brand in Australia too! Rationed to 2 per customers and almost everywhere running out due to the above mentioned problem. T is on another brand, so hopefully it won’t affect us much. I usually stock up a few at one go!!!
Wow really! Wonder what is it about this one brand, how come only it’s rationed to 2 per customer and others aren’t…… (And who’s buying it…!) I did once hear that property prices do get affected a bit by Mainland buyers in some parts of Australia so I’m guessing they go there to buy stuff too…
Apparently they like the brand cause it’s made in NZ and thus good stuffs. People buy it back to Mainland to sell at inflated price 🙁 or relatives buying it back for people there I guess. It was even on the news and all shops / pharmacies have been running out, surprisingly it is also only for Stage 1 formula…
Probably Stage 1 is the hot one because that’s when the baby “depends” on it the most, i.e. for older babies/ toddlers who can have say, Stage 4, they also can eat other stuff already… Interestingly our pediatrician advised us to keep to Stage 1 even when both babies could graduate to Stage 2 and beyond, so maybe that’s another reason… Thanks for sharing
Wow really! Wonder what is it about this one brand, how come only it’s rationed to 2 per customer and others aren’t…… (And who’s buying it…!) I did once hear that property prices do get affected a bit by Mainland buyers in some parts of Australia so I’m guessing they go there to buy stuff too…