Night time bottle. We had been giving the girls a bottle before bed just to make sure they had gotten enough milk in during the day. For the longest time we thought they "had" to have it, but one night I realized they only cried for it when they saw us preparing it. Shortly thereafter, I decided to "forget" the night time bottle --- so we did bath, book and then bed. No tears. I '"forgot" it again the next night.....and the rest is history.
All bottles. I can't believe it. I had reduced our bottle supply down from 58 bottles (yes - five-eight.....when they were newborns, that was enough bottles to last us 2.5 days) to 12 and this morning I took the last 12 out of the cabinet. Hello sippy cups. I don't know why, but this one is bittersweet for me. On the one hand, I h.a.t.e washing bottles and all the pieces that come with them - for the Dr. B's (and we even use the dishwasher - ha!) but on the other hand......that's a big "baby thing" that's now behind us. I honestly wasn't sure how we were going to do this one and I'm completely surprised that it really just "happened". We've been working on sippy cups during the day but they got a bottle in the morning and at night. You saw above how the night bottle went away and in the mornings, we just started putting them in their highchair with a sippy cup of milk and let them figure it out while we got their breakfast ready. We figured they were the most thirsty first thing in the morning which would be motiviation for them. This morning we realized that we had just stopped giving them a bottle at all......and to the cabinet I went. They are great with sippy cups now. We can sit the cups on their highchair trays and they know exactly what to do. We have sippy cups around during the day and Sofia will crawl over and pause to take a drink. I thought this would never happen!
Warm milk. I talked here about the transition to milk and how the girls were so particular about the temperature of their milk and so we decided to focus on sippy cups first and then the milk temperature later. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but they've finally come to like cold milk. I honestly think one morning I, being of sleepy mind and tired body, poured milk into their cups and truly forgot to warm it up before letting them sit with the cups while I made their breakfast. I'm not sure what D has done - he was pretty adamant about the warm milk - but we both suddenly realized that neither of us had been heating the milk for quite a few days. And they down it. Woo hoo!
Baby food. For the most part. For the last few days, we've been feeding the girls "regular" food for every meal. Whatever we've had for dinner - they have for dinner. Chicken, beef, pork - you name it - if we've eaten it ourselves, they've had it as well. It was actually really cool this past week to sit down at the table - the four of us as a family - and have dinner. It's a little more time consuming. Since they still only have 2 teeth, the bottom teeth, all meats have to be cut into very small pieces and we test everything to make sure it is small enough to be gummed. But they do really well, even if a little slow, and their motor skills for picking things up and getting the hand to the mouth have definitely improved. Thank goodness, though, for those bibs with the pockets at the bottom -- they work GREAT! It's nice though -- we put food on their trays and they sit eat as we're eating our dinner, and we pause to give them bites of whatever. The hardest part is keeping enough variety of things that are healthy and that they like. You try it......think about a week's worth of meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner.....for someone with only 2 teeth who can't yet use a spoon................. We do still have a few jars of baby food on reserve in the event we get in a bind or need a quick meal or whatever, but for the most part, it's bye bye baby food!
Since we're now in to self feeding, we've also said "bye bye" to an inconsistent bath schedule throughout the week. Ha! It's a nightly event to end up with some sort of food smashed in the hair....under the neck......down the shirt (although I still can't figure out how that happens - she must be reaching her hands under her bib and shirt and rubbing them on her belly. Therefore - we're now on a solid night time bath schedule. Bath, book and bed. It's great to have a routine but it's not so great on my back!!
So! There you have it -- lots of bye byes around here! Below are a few pictures of the adventures in dining at our house these days! Olivia is in the first two, Sofia is in the last two.
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