Food update and 11-month stats

So the babies were 11 months old last Monday.

I was all excited to go see Sister Carla to ask her about Connor's on and off food strike.

"My concern is keeping a fine balance because I want him to get enough nutritious food but also I don't want eating / mealtimes to become an issue.

And...

The more seasoned mothers among you will be nodding your heads ... but there is nothing wrong with him.

She said he is trying to assert his independence (with a control freak mother) and is very clearly showing when he's had enough (he purses his lips and shakes his head no, no, NO!).

She suggested a couple of things:

1. have a choice available for meals and always start with the healthier choice (my Annabel Karmel meals - do you know I am still cooking them once a week?!) and then have the back-up ready (Provita and peanut butter/ toast with cottage cheese).
2. don't force the issue - when he says no, it's no.
3. let him start feeding himself - OY! (she said it's normal that half the food ends up on him, the chair, the floor but it is all normal and there's no other way for him to learn - double OY!)

Kendra has no problems but they do this sympathetic crying thing so when he starts acting up, she'll start too.

There was a small concern with K getting enough milk because she doesn't really care for milk and with them having 3 meals and 2 snacks, she's happy to not have a lot.

Apparently you count milk and milk products - I hadn't been counting in the yoghurt and the milk we use to make their cereal - so there is NO problems. They both get well over 500 ml a day.

With the sleeping, ha! She very nicely told me that they definitely don't need to have any bottles at night (try telling them!) and if we don't want problems later on, we'd best do some sleep training.

Those words send TERROR into my heart.

But I told D and we decided that we'd do it the wussy way - by weakening their bottles even more. So now at night they get 50 ml of formula and 100 ml of water. Connor accepted it for a couple of nights but then SCREAMED on night 3. I had to steel myself to not go get him a proper bottle by chanting, "he doesn't need this bottle!" because I can't bear the sound of the crying.

Tonight is night 7 and then we're going to weaken even more.

Over the 6 days, they've both slept through once and on the other 5 nights they only woke once, usually around 4 (after 10 hours sleep), but last night it was 1.30 (I think that's due to the party they went to yesterday).

As for the eating, I'm a little hesitant to write this but I think we're over the hurdle for the moment because that very night at supper, he ate beautifully with V feeding him and then even fed himself properly for the first time (with a spoon!). He's repeated this at every lunch and supper so it was definitely that he wanted to feed himself.

Now, the stats:

Connor weighs 10.18 kg (22,4 pounds) and Kendra weighs 7.45 kg (16.4 pounds). The gap is narrowing. At 9 months there was a 2,9 kg difference in their weight; now there's only 2,72.

So that's it - all is good.

Only thing - next month they need more injections.


How was your week last week? What do you have planned for this week?

P.S. I need to tell you what I realised after the electricity headache and what I'm doing to get a new, improved, streamlined life (!)