Journey of self-feeding

On and off when I'm feeling adventurous, I would let Andrew try to self-feed. Be it with a spoon or fork or even his fingers. I would like him to explore and train him to eventually feed himself. And I just want him to enjoy his meal time.

Little Andrew is an expert picking up his food with his fingers - even a grain of rice! He can also use the fork, though sometimes the angle is wrong. But the spoon is a long way to go, well, partly because I hardly let him try feeding himself with the spoon. He does get the rice into his mouth, but if I let him do it for the whole bowl of rice, he will probably get 10% into his mouth! But I do let him try it out on and off.

Drinking from straw cup

I bought the straw cup quite a while ago and little Andrew doesn't know how to suck it yet. I tried giving it to him repetitively but he just doesn't get it. So I stopped giving it to him.

Last week I decided to give it a try and this time I pour some of his favourite apple juice. To my surprise he can drink from the straw cup! First few times he would suck it all in and choke. After a few more days of getting the hang of it, little Andrew can now drink like an expert!

Baby is 15mo today!

Little Andrew is 15mo today (pix was taken the day before). And we have been so blessed to have him. My parents love him to bits! He continues to be our sunshine everyday and may that goes on for a long long time.

So far what else can you do since we updated our stats:
- MOST IMPORTANTLY we weaned you off your pacifier!!! Woohoo!!!!
- Walk a few steps now before slowly planting your butt to the floor and crawl
- Cover your bottle when you finished your milk
- Just discovered how to unscrew your bottom balm container!
- Getting down the bed with your legs first and you will stop at the edge whenever I say "Nothing there"
- Just yesterday, you tried to pry open my eye because I was still asleep when you wake up
- I think-sort-of say "nen" when you are hungry and "mum" when you are waiting to be fed during meal time

Likes/dislikes:
- Egg. You are not a fan of hard boiled egg. So I've got to mix it up before you will eat it. But you enjoyed Chawanmushi! (Got to learn how to make it)
- iPad. Gawd. If you are watching your favourite show and we stopped it, you will cry. So we are trying to minimise your time spent in front if the iPad/TV. Oh and your new found movie- Garfield! One day Waigong was changing channel and you watched Garfield and burst out laughing! So daddy got it for you and you can really laugh!!!!
- Still loving FOOD and shower time.
- Instead of not liking us to wipe your face after meal, you always lick or chew the wipes/tissue/hanky now
- BITING before falling asleep. You will sink your teeth to the blanket, the pillow, the dinosaur, etc

Not quite sure what else to update here and my mind is blank now because it just took me forever to put you back to sleep!

Little Andrew has been waking up around the same time everyday- 3am!!! Why is it that you can wake up almost the same time everyday is beyond me. By waking up at 3am, this is the killer and is very tiring. I hope this is just a phase and will pass soon.

Still just that one-two steps

My dear little Andrew is so scared of falling that he will hang on to my hands so tightly when we "walk" together. And he will stop walking the minute I let go of one hand!

He did walk but it was only one or two steps before he gets down on four and starts crawling. I tried motivating him but he will just get down and crawl over >.< He can certainly stand very steadily ONLY in the shower!!!! Unbelievable!

Baby, you are gonna be 15mo soon. Please walk already!!

This is it! Fingers crossed!

I think we made it! We have weaned off THE buddy! Andrew had 2 day nap, one fallen asleep in the car so that can't be counted. Then at 4pm, Andrew had another hour of nap which he didn't even put up a fight, no more crying or yelling. And tonight, he fell asleep within 15 minutes, which is shorter if not the same amount of time he needs to fall asleep.

For the last few rounds when he didn't put up a fight, I realised he roll around the bed lesser than before. Or maybe he is just plain tired. But I'll take it as a good habit!

I like the hours that Andrew took his nap today. He napped at noon for 1.5 hours, only if I can try to stretch that to 2 hours. Then at 4.30pm, he had another hour of nap. He was in bed by 9.45pm, and fell asleep in less than 15 minutes. So by my calculation, he is sleeping 13 hours a day. Is it enough for a 14mo?

See! No buddy!

Tonight is the 5th night without his buddy and it took him 13 minutes to fall asleep. There was no crying or rolling. Has he totally wean himself off? I don't know for sure.

I think he is ready for 1 nap a day but I gotta make that 1 nap longer. He is only doing just about 2 hours. Since he cut down the morning nap, I'm hoping he can stretch his afternoon nap to 3 hours.

4th morning/noon

Last night or rather early morning, little Andrew woke up at 3ish and refused to go back to sleep. After an hour or so, I'm dead tired and kept dozing off and so asked the daddy to put him to sleep. Like ALL MEN, he fell asleep before the son and ended up little Andrew was rolling all over the place. I ended up putting him to sleep at 5am!!!

This morning, little Andrew finally woke up at 9am. He didn't go back to sleep after his shower, like he used to when he was still enjoying his buddy.

These few days I realised he will only go to sleep at noon. Yesterday he had lunch before nap, but today he didn't. So I'm not sure how long he's gonna nap for. Surely he will be super hungry if he wakes up later than 1pm.

Oh, without the morning nap, it was easy putting him to sleep. Just a couple minutes of patting and humming, zzzzzz :) Maybe it's time to change his nap routine to 1 daytime nap?