Parenting Check in April 27

[karlamo]

Good Morning!

How is everyone doing?  Anything you care to share? Updates?

Parenting
kh826
karlamo
jgy
sherminator
mahler5
wittyandwaiting
kona
strings
mrsnorris
2mrsks (mrs&mrsk)
jennicole
amberreva

QOTW:  A spin off to the discussion to a few weeks ago.  Do you and your SO have different parenting styles? If so, how do you work through them?

[amberreva]

Emerson will be 8weeks on Wednesday. Where did the time go? When people say it goes by quickly they aren't kidding. She is starting to give the biggest gummy smiles which I have yet to be able to capture a picture of. Also depending on when we put her down for the night she only gets up for one MOTN feeding. If we put her down earlier she gets up for two. She is grown out of almost all of her newborn clothing. We also survived our first plane trip! Emerson was so good and was either nursing or sleeping for both flights. Next plane trip with her will be at 3months so hopefully she is equally as good. She is still EBF and has been having green poops lately which makes me worry she isn't getting enough of the good milk. Other then late evenings during her cranky times she is a pretty happy baby.

QOTW: I am worried that mine and R's parenting styles will be completely opposite. R will let her cry where as the second she starts to cry I pick her up. I am also really pushing a consistent bedtime routine which I don't think R thinks is as important as I think it is. I research every little thing where as R makes fun of me for researching anything. I am nervous for the day when I go back to work and R is with her 8 hours straight because she currently still hands her off to me when she cries. It is still early and I am sure both of our parenting styles are still adapting.

[jazibel]

Kaden is about 2 months shy of being 3 years old, Owen is almost 1 year old.

I am currently enjoying a breakfast of felt vegetables that Kaden made me, "nom nom nom". This weekend Kaden learned to pee standing up from his Unlce A. Now it's the coolest new thing, even better than the yogurt covered raisins he gets as a reward for successful potty going.

Owen is all over the place, wandering through the house, playing with everything. Just a few minutes ago he was playing with the car tower, sending the cars down the slide. He loves mimicking everything we do and of course walking.

Kaden stuck his hand into the wheel of the stroller yesterday evening at the end of our walk. He hurt his fingers badly but nothing was broken. It was terrible watching him suffer, cry, scream and growl in pain. We picked up drive thru dinner with a shake and put a movie on to distract him until the advil could kick in. He went to sleep okay and only woke once.

I bragged yesterday about how well Owen was sleeping, and alas I jinxed myself because we woke twice last night.

QOTD: We definitely have different ways of approaching parenting. EV's way more laid back. She calls her style "Aya Parenting" (the boys call her "Aya"). That means leaving the house with maybe one diaper and a water bottle and winging it. Traveling lightly means that it doesn't take her 15 minutes to load the stroller though and I think the boys like that. Where it counts we see eye to eye though and communicate well, like dealing with Kaden's injury yesterday. I'm grateful during moments like that, that we're a great team.

[karlamo]

R is 14 months. I think last week I said he was 15 months. Opps!

R is rocking it. Still adding words to his growing vocab and no longer walks like he just got off a horse.

To moms of older kids this may sound silly, but my wife and I are amazed at watching R figure things out. This morning he took out a hair rubber band and tried putting it in his hair. He must have seen me do it and was copying me. There are counntless other things he does that we never showed him how to do but he must have picked them up by watching us.

QOTD: We have grown to have similair parenting styles but where we differ are what our "hills to die on" are. For example I'm more flexible with leting R play with things that aren't toys, like spices that he shakes. My wife is more strict with anything that isn't a real toy, he shouldn't be playing with. Other than your kleenex box of course. For me it's his eating. I'm psycho about how much food he puts in his mouth and will take food out if it's past my confort zone.
Despite the fact were not entirely on the same page, I figure we balance each other out. She won't let R get hurt by a potatoe peeler and I won't let him choke. And of course we butt heads with who is in the right.

[kh826]

William will be 11 months next week.

We had a lot of William-Momma time this weekend, which was awesome. We took solo trips to Target and the grocery store, and we spent a lot of time playing just the two of us while J worked on some house projects and paint touch-ups. It was really nice to have that quality time!

He has become quite the chatter box! He has added a few new words to his little vocab, so now he says on his own: Mama, OK, Hi, Yummy... and he mimics/repeats a lot of other sounds and words. He also has the first sound of a lot of words down, but not the whole word. If we say "Ball" he repeats "Baw," if we say "Dog" he repeats "Daw" ... he also just chats to himself and us constantly in his own little language. It is pretty much non-stop. Everywhere we go someone comments "Wow, he has a lot to say!" HAHA... I feel like as soon as he expands his vocab more and can start stringing words together he is just going to be talking to us non-stop.

He has become more steady with walking, but still has yet to talk any real steps totally on his own. He races back and forth across the family room with his walking toy, and now he will walk across the room just holding onto one hand, but if we act like we are going to let go he panics. I think he doesn't believe that he won't fall, and right now that is what is keeping him from taking off on his own. He also is surfing the furniture and will walk along the entire length of a room just holding onto the side of a wall. It is pretty funny to watch.

He signs "more" like a pro, and we are now working on "all done." He still loves eating, and will sign more when he still has a mouth full of food. I can't even tell you how many times a day we say "Swallow what is in your mouth, William, and then we will give you more." He is eating 3 meals a day, and has almost lost all interest in bottles. He is down to 3 bottles a day and on Saturday he would have been content to have only 2 bottles (one right after he woke up and one before bed), but I snuck in a 1/2 of a bottle about an hour before dinner because I was nervous he wasn't getting enough. I know he still needs the nutrients in his formula until 1 year, but he seems to just be filling himself up on real food during the day and just doesn't care about his bottles anymore. We are trying to find a balance. We asked the pediatrician about this and they didn't seem worried. He will eat yogurt and a banana and peanut butter for breakfast (or something equivalent), at lunch he usually gets a veggie, some protein and some fruit (he ate half of a tuna fish sandwich, a bunch of green beans and a whole peach on Saturday!), and then at dinner he eats what we eat (and usually a really decent sized portion). Anyway, I'm not worried. I should stop acting like I'm worried. HAHA

He is getting his first haircut next Sunday! He has started looking like quite a shaggy dog, so it is time! It took some arm twisting with J, who really didn't want to cut it at first, but now she is on board.

This coming Saturday is also going to be a big milestone for us. It will be the very first time that we have left him with someone to watch him for more than 10 mins. We left him once with my mom and my sisters for literally 10 mins when we ran out to the store down the street for something - but that is it. He has never been to daycare, never had a babysitter, we have never left him with family so we could go out... well, this Saturday we have been invited to a bridal shower for a close family friend. It is not kid friendly. All of the women in J's family have been invited, so that limited the pool of possible people we could leave William with if we both wanted to go to the shower. Well, we are leaving him with J's Dad "Pops" while we both go to the shower for a couple hours. I am excited for William and for Pops, but I am so nervous. He is almost a year old and we have literally never left him with anyone. I know that a lot of people reading this must think we are totally crazy, but we have never wanted to leave him. Ahhhhh - my baby! I am going to cry for sure!

Anyway, his little personality explodes more and more every day, and he is just so much fun. He is also exhausting, but in the best possible way!

QOTW: I think J and I compliment each other pretty well in terms of our parenting styles (which started off being pretty different). For the most part we are on the same page without having to discuss, but occasionally we still need to check-in to make sure we agree before we do something a certain way. J is better at the intensive imaginary play, and better/more comfortable at being a human jungle gym on the floor with him. I am better with boundary setting and reinforcing good behaviors, etc. (EX: William likes to throw food on the floor from his high chair sometimes, and it is something I definitely want to teach him is not OK from a very early age -- he will laugh or stick his tongue out or make a silly face while I am telling him not to do that and J will have to leave the room b/c she cannot keep a straight face!). I do more bath times and bed times (I am good with the routines, and I am fast when need be and Will and I just have a little rhythm with certain things that J seems to not have quite as much). J is MUCH better with the creative stuff, and she has patience for messes, which I don't do as well with. I am a nervous nelly, and she reminds both of us that we don't have to be so cautious. I remind her that sometimes we need to be more cautious. It's a balancing act, but so far we seem to be complimenting each other and not taking away from the other person's strengths.

[mahler5]

C is 14 months

She is calling me Momma all the time now. She has done it occasionally for awhile but not all the time. Even though she has been saying "dog" all the time to the dogs! She is also more clingy lately. She will call the dogs by their names too. Well, at least pretty close. Maddie is "Mahdie" and Harvey is "hAhbey". We have to put Maddie outside or in her kennel now around C though because of last week's dog fight. We are still set on rehoming but the process is taking awhile. Separatingthem is doable but a pain. And I feel bad for Maddie. She hates being left out. I think she would do really well in a family with no kids or other dogs.

C is all over the place still. Climbing more, crying more when she doesn't get her way. She has started dramatically lying stomach first on the ground and kicks her feet as part of her tantrum.I think I'm becoming a little insensitive as it made me laugh today.

QOTW-- we are different for sure. We are the same on a lot of bigger philosophies: we both wanted her in a cosleeper in our room for awhile, we both want to feed her organic as much as possible ( L is a little overboard at times IMO though), etc. L is more strict. This is partly because of her personality but I also think because she isn't the SAH parent. She is better at setting boundaries consistently, which I'm working on. We also were pretty adamant about no screen time initially. But in last few months in the late afternoon when she is fussy and I am running out of stuff to do for the day, I will sometimes put on Daniel Tiger for 10-20 minutes. L gets annoyed but the other day when she was watching her and I was studying she caved and turned the TV on! She couldn't take anymore. It had only been a few hours. She definitely has a harder time doing solo parenting for more than a few hours. But when she does she is a little more understanding of why I do things certain ways (and why I can't keep the house clean while she is gone, etc) although I'm trying to get better about this but when I'm constantly picking up after C I also don't feel like I'm interacting with her enough. It's hard to find a balance sometimes. Oh, and she will let C cry longer than I will. I get mad about this sometimes. But as she is getting older and actually having tantrums I need to let her cry. But if she is crying in her crib I think it's different.

Anyway, I digress. Hope everyone has a great week!

[karlamo]

kh826, does William use sippy cups in lieu of bottles? Are the sippy's filled with milk/formula?

R is still taking 3 bottles a day as well as sippy cups of water at meals and during the day. We plan on bf till he's 2, which he still nurses on demand when mamosey is around.

We would like to cut bottles out this summer but I too worry about him getting enough fluid in. I talked to EI about this and they said when you switch from bottles to sippy's they will lose a large amount of their fluid intake but over time that should be made up by eating more foods. Her point was a kid isn't going to take 5 oz's from a sippy in one sitting like they will with a bottle. I would love for R to be off bottles by the time Moka is here.

[kh826]

Apr 27, 2015 12:50:56 GMT -5 karlamo said:

kh826, does William use sippy cups in lieu of bottles? Are the sippy's filled with milk/formula?

R is still taking 3 bottles a day as well as sippy cups of water at meals and during the day. We plan on bf till he's 2, which he still nurses on demand when mamosey is around.

We would like to cut bottles out this summer but I too worry about him getting enough fluid in. I talked to EI about this and they said when you switch from bottles to sippy's they will lose a large amount of their fluid intake but over time that should be made up by eating more foods. Her point was a kid isn't going to take 5 oz's from a sippy in one sitting like they will with a bottle. I would love for R to be off bottles by the time Moka is here.

We have introduced a sippy cup, but we have had varied success with it. Some days he is into it, and other days he is not. We have tried many different kinds of cups. It seems to be less about the kind of cup and more about his interest in it. We have only offered water in the sippy so far. We plan to introduce whole cow's milk after he turns a year and use that to wean from formula. I was definitely worried about hydration, but we have recently discovered he will drink water out of an adult water bottle if he sees one of us drinking it and we offer it to him -- so that helps! We also have been giving him lots of fruit that has a high water content to try and make sure he stays hydrated (watermelon, grapes, peaches, etc.) -- he eats fruit 3 times a day, and we offer the sippy with water with every meal. I am not worried about him getting enough nutrients, but I am worried about him staying hydrated. We are definitely working on it. I am hoping that he will become more consistent with the sippy soon!

On an average day he was getting 3-4 formula bottles a day (all 5 oz bottles) until about a week ago when he dropped down to 3 bottles a day, and over the weekend he seemed content with 2 bottles. I don't want to push the formula on him if he isn't interested, but I also don't want to put water in a bottle and have him be more reliant on the bottles instead of making him get used to the sippy!

[karlamo]

kh826, I asked because I was wondering if he was taking his formula in a sippy instead of bottle.
I'm thinking we may give that a try and see if that gets him off bottles. We do 2 oz of bm mixed with 3 oz of soy. We have days where he'll eat a ton and others when he eats barely anything and the bottle is really a life saver.

I'm not really bothered by him still taking a bottle and am not sure when I should be. It seems like there is such a range out there. I assume 10 is too old for a bottle.

mahler5, Your LO and R are around the same age. Have you made any changes?

[kh826]

karlamo - gotcha! No, formula is still out of a bottle. His disinterest seems to be in the formula, not in the way that he is getting it. He still drinks his full 5 oz bottle of formula when he first wakes up and then right before bed. So he is getting a minimum of 10 oz of formula a day. He usually drinks a full 5 oz bottle either in late morning or early afternoon as well, so that is 15 oz in total on an average day. I definitely don't want to transition to a sippy for formula. He isn't great with the sippy, and I would like to wean from formula starting around his birthday and replace with WCM. Once he is weaned and fully on WCM, then we will move to a sippy for milk instead of a bottle. I feel that you are right about the range of what age is appropriate. It is interesting, because like most other things it seems, William is leading us here. We had no intention of thinking about weaning for bottles or formula until a year, but at 10.5 months he just started losing interest in formula as he started eating more table food. In some ways, it makes me glad b/c perhaps it won't be as hard to wean him if he takes the initiative himself, but in other ways I worry that it is too soon!

I am interested to hear what other folks with older kiddos have to say about this. Please weigh in!

P.S. I reiterate that I am not concerned that William is not getting enough nutrients, and we have consulted the pedi to be sure. In case any of you are inclined to reply that we should be force feeding him more formula than what he is taking on his own right now for the next 6 weeks.

[karlamo]

kh826, R is pretty much BF on demand so I have no idea how much he is getting from the boob but enough that he seems satisfied. It's at daycare and home with me that he gets 3 bottles/day.

I'm with you and wouldn't worry too much if he's already weaning, it's 6 weeks away anyway.

I'm not surprised he's losing interest in formula. I've never tasted it but I can safely assume anything you're cooking taste way better than boring formula!

[mahler5]

karlamo -- C went straight from BF to sippy cup since I stay at home, we rarely gave her a bottle. This was around 10-11 months. She was already somewhat used to sippy cups because she had water in them it didn't seem like a hard adjustment. She was chugging the milk sippy cups within a week. If anything, I think she gained weight after I weaned her because of the chugging, and probably not stopping when she was full, which I imagine happens more during Bf since she can't chug the boob.

Anyway, not sure about going from bottle to sippy, but if he loves his milk as much as C I'm sure he will figure it out quick! Good luck.

[Stringy]

Its already hard to remember, but I know before 1 we were offering a straw/sippy (we had both) with water just about all the time. But she was still nursing ridiculously until about 14 months so hydration wasn't an issue. I would say, if he is having wet diapers and isn't constipated, don't worry about hydration.

You are right in that they lead the way, no matter how hard you try. M had no problem switching from breastmilk in a bottle to cows milk (we started by mixing a little in and then adding more and more). Unless my wife was around, then it was the boob all the way. We had a small opportunity around 14 months to wean from the boob so we went with it (she had gone a day around her and not asked to nurse, so we never offered again). Mainly because she had started nursing more and being super clingy and my wife was over it. But then she got attached to the bottle of cows milk. Like needed it overnight 2x. We tried in a cup and it was loudly rejected. She was drinking SO MUCH cows milk for a few months, we figured she'd be on a bottle until she was 12.

Then one night I was reading her a story before nap and hadn't got her bottle yet. She pointed to a cup in the book and said cup. I said, do you want to have a cup before bed now? And she said yes, drank it, and I never offered her a bottle again. She was about 18 months then and honestly never asked for one.

Fast forward another 6 months and she rarely drinks any milk. She'll drink it in cereal or oatmeal but never ever downs a cup. We have to force her to take sips at meals. She likes her water. She won't drink juice either (though I'm fine with that). She eats yogurt and cheese daily so I'm not worried, but within a year it went from MUST HAVE MILK, to eh, to "no milk." So my advice is just go with it and if you see a window towards a change you are wanting, go for it and don't ever look back.

[kona]

Olivia is 9 months (!)

We are having a rough go the past week. She's all over the place, difficulty sleeping, not eating during the day and then up at night for 2 bottles, she wants to be changed at night now which is new, and she won't nap with the nanny. She's teething again for sure and also trying to walk and crawl on hands and knees. We are hoping that once she gets past this she will sleep better again. She's never been a great sleeper but this is very trying.

Our family is all concerned because we are doing baby led weaning and they can't believe we don't feed her baby food. She won't eat purée at this point or let you feed her. I'm really over all the judgment of our families.

She is an adorable kid though. She's starting to play independently for a few minutes which is great. She loves her doggie and has started to give M hugs and putting her head down on her shoulder. We start swim lessons Saturday and I am super excited. I hope she loves it. She loves bath time and music.

[karlamo]

Stringy, I'm thinking of weaning from the bottles this summer. He'll be right around 17 months or so. We are expecting a lot of regression when the new baby comes in August.

Watching my wife nurse a toddler is hilarious! It's a whole new ball game compared to nursing a newborn that's for sure.