Delish turned 16 months yesterday! I missed writing about 15 months, but everything blends together in terms of development. The two substantial things that happened last month were 1) he started popping up from crawl position to walk (rather than crawling to a piece of furniture or wall to brace himself to get up) and 2) we took the bottle away (finally!).
Regarding the latter, it was a trying few days, not helped by my mother AT ALL, who was upset that we were torturing the kid by taking away his beloved milk. But in fact, we just changed to a sippy cup. He had already been drinking juice and water from it, but had refused milk. He also had a bedtime routine that included a bottle, and became dependent on it. The first few nights were so sad, he lay in my arms and whispered "boo" -- his word for bottle and the Vietnamese word that basically translates to suckle. Poor guy.
And I imagine it was worse during the day while my mother cared for him. She even called me at work one day saying she couldn't take it, and that I'd have to come get him, which I did. But that all blew over a few days later. He drinks less milk now and eats a lot more food, which is the whole reason for taking away the milk bottle.
Our pediatrician urged us to give him no more than 16 ounces a day, as he should get his calories from table food. Milk doesn't have enough iron, apparently. On top of that, she said that the bottle, especially at night, promotes cavities. We use a straw sipper, so I'm not sure that eliminates the issue, but we don't give him milk before bed anymore.
And speaking of bed, he had a brief sleep regression episode around daylight savings time. He was effectively going to bed an hour earlier and was more awake and alert than usual, crying and carrying on. And as I had forgotten during the first regression at nine months, I caved and went to him and picked him up to soothe him. And after just one episode of that, he got used to it, waking in the middle of the night, with the added torturous touch of crying "maaaamaaa" dragging out the word. It was so incredibly sad. But I knew I couldn't let us regress. So we did the usual cry it out and also introduced a new helper: a gift he got for his first birthday, The
Twilight Ladybug.
It illuminates the room and ceiling with stars and the moon and is apparently really soothing. Delicious took to it right away, and after two epidodes of waking up in the night, we're back to sleeping 11 hours. The best part is the night time routine now includes us looking at the starts and my asking him where the moon is. And he points and looks up at the pretty constellation of stars. It's really relaxing and magical! I recommend this thing. It's actually for older kids with night terrors, but works to soothe as well.
Along the way, the little mister also popped several molars, but they don't seem to be painful, thankfully. Our visit to the pediatrician at 15 months also showed his growth has slowed a little and he's in the 30th percentile for height and 50th for weight, down from 75th for both up until now. But we're not worried because growth happens in fits and starts and he's incredibly healthy, and has not really been sick, except for a couple sniffles twice, up until now. Knock on wood.
At 16 months he's lively and is very talkative and babbles a lot. He imitates words and knows how to answer some questions kind of. When asked if he's hungry, he'll say "gurt" which is short for yogurt, his favorite food. The biggest thing now is that he knows the concept of putting things back. He loves going into cabinets (on the occasions that they're not secured and we're watching) to retrieve something. And we just say, "Put it back" and he does! Not only does he put the item back, he makes the effort to set it upright! It started when he'd go into the pantry to knock down the stock of paper towel rolls we had on the bottom shelf. Tired of picking them up, I told him to put them back, as I demonstrated. He picked it up quickly, at first putting them back haphazardly, as any baby would. But then I showed him to set things upright, which he does with everything, including his sippy cup, taking several tries, sometimes. It was hilarious one day when we saw him put back some things we left on the window sill. We didn't even notice that he took them, but watched as he carefully placed them back. We always reward him for his efforts with overzealous clapping and 'yeahs'!
In other news a couple weekends ago we went and applied for his passport. I took a photo of him myself and it's hilarious. Do you know of Benjamin Buttons? His first passport! We're heading to Europe this summer, so it's going to be very interesting!
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