nursing

Josiah has decided he will not be taking milk from a bottle anymore. This has happened three separate times now. First for Chris, then my mother-in-law. I thought, secretly, that they were just not doing something right. Yesterday I was proven wrong. My friend, Amy, was over watching the kids and Josiah did the same for her. She tried for 20 minutes, then I tried, then I tried putting it in a sippy, then putting it in a different kind of sippy. It was all to no avail, and more dishes were added to my already full sink!

This behavior is a little perplexing to me, especially since he's had no problem taking bottles as recent has 2 weeks ago! It was nice to be able to go out for the evening and not worry about how the little guy (and the one watching him) was getting along. I don't know how this will effect our already very few date nights. I like our date nights. Perhaps we'll just have to modify them for awhile.

While I'm on the subject of nursing, Josiah likes to nurse. Elizabeth was a very different baby. I used to joke that she didn't care HOW she got fed. Nursing, bottle, sippy cup - I probably could have fed her intravenously and she would have been happy. The girl just liked to eat (and still does). Of course it was a good thing that she wasn't picky because after finding out I was pregnant with Josiah, when she was almost 9 months old, my milk supply dried up and she was completely weaned at 10 months of age. Josiah would probably be VERY upset if I suddenly stopped producing as much. Fortunately that's not the issue . . . there is an issue with his teeth though. I did not know that having a baby with teeth hurts when you are feeding them - even if he's not biting down. Elizabeth only had her bottom two teeth the whole time I was nursing. She got the top two at 11 months. Josiah has his bottom two teeth, one of his top teeth and the other one just poked through today. I'm really hoping it will get better!

feeding Josiah

Josiah has not been interested in much baby food yet. Every time I tried to feed him pureed baby food he would gag and then cry and refuse to eat more. I was doing some research on Wholesomebabyfood.com and came across Baby Led Weaning. I found it to be very interesting and while I don't agree with it 100 percent it opened up my (often rather closed) mind to new ways of introducing food to Josiah.

I found out the other day that Josiah likes avocados and he likes artichokes. I mash a little on my finger and give it to him. He does pretty well. Tonight I tried a new food, tofu, and he really liked it. I also gave him cooked peas and cooked apple pieces instead of pureeing them. He liked both a lot more and he didn't even gag!!

I am learning that what worked with Elizabeth may not work with Josiah and I have to be flexible in order to figure that out!

clean house, clean mind

It's the start of a new month and on the first Monday of the month we get our house cleaned. I forgot that today was the day for our house to get cleaned so last night I was making a list of all the cleaning I needed to do . . . and knew deep down inside I wasn't going to get to it all! Then I got a reminder call from my house cleaner and "aaah", I didn't need to stress! It feels so good to have a clean house! Now I just need to try to keep it that way the rest of this month.