Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Mr. Independence

Okay, I think maybe I've FINALLY figured out the eating dilemma with Bear: he is DONE with baby food! I thought he just wanted to feed himself, but that's not true. For example, I made some pasta with broccoli and chicken in it and mashed it up and he let me feed it to him. Also, we went out to eat the other night, and we ordered Bear a side of mashed potatoes and he let me feed him those as well. Apparently, he does like to feed himself, but will still allow me to feed him some things, as long as it's not baby food. I imagine baby food doesn't have much taste compared to the dinners we cook, so it's understandable. I talked about it with some of my mom friends and some of their children did the same thing--just decided they were done one day! One thing I noticed about table food, though: it must fill him up more than baby food did, because he certainly doesn't eat as large of a portion. That's fine, because it's actually quite a bit cheaper this way! If I don't have to buy him separate food and instead just feed him what we eat, we'll be saving some money. Now, what to do with the left over baby food in the cabinet?

Something I don't understand, though, is if he is eating grown up food due to the taste, how can he still down loads of formula?? Man, he loves that stuff! If I even say the word "bottle", he gets all worked up and is ready to drink one RIGHT NOW. The last time we were at the doctor, he told us to switch to whole milk at a year and to start weaning him off of bottles at that point as well. I'm not looking forward to that change at all! Maybe, though, like other changes we've made, it won't be as difficult as I'm anticipating. I certainly hope not. That boy loves his bottle, though!

Speaking of change, Bear has recently stopped needing to be rocked to sleep. We used to sit on the couch at bedtime and either just let him fall asleep in my arms, or if he was having trouble getting to that point, I'd take him in his bedroom and rock him. Now, though, he has a serious wiggling problem. When he's tired, he starts climbing all over me and thrashes around, seemingly not able to get comfortable. Max told me that at nap time last weekend while I was out at a movie with my mom friends that he just laid him in his crib due to the non-stop crying and moving about, so I decided to give it a shot myself. AND IT WORKED!! I tried it at both nap times yesterday and then again at bed time. He cries, because he's not used to being left alone, but in all cases, he has fallen asleep in less than ten minutes. I also, due to my mother in law's suggestion, put a couple toys in his crib that he can play with to calm himself down or at least entertain himself for a few minutes. At least once yesterday, I heard him playing with one of them before a nap and I have found them in various spots in the crib, so I know he's at least playing with them for a few minutes. Hopefully, he'll get to the point where he doesn't cry anymore when I lie him down. That would be heavenly, especially if we are to have another child! That way I can focus on just one baby that needs help getting to sleep.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yay for Barrett!! He's getting so grown-up.

baby baby