Before 
AfterOh frabjus day! Not only did we go out to breakfast en famille, not only did we take a jaunt to the pier, not only did I find a surprisingly flattering (flaw masking) dress at Old Navy, but the critter is officially sitting by his ownself! The lad's doing a fair bit of "ownself"ing these days which is either adorable or taxing, depending on caffeine consumption. My days are spent dancing between encouraging his independence and keeping whatever happens to be on the receiving end (apartment/cats/me) reasonably damage-free. Because he so desperately wants to exert control, I decided to try finger food the other day. I diced some ripe farmer's market peaches into fingernail-sized bits (I'm a nellie when it comes to chokables) figuring he'd have a field day ownselfing instead of waiting for mama to shovel it in, but mostly he just got frustrated. It was like watching an arcade claw machine - the poor kid kept grabbing for the prize but coming up bupkus. (Peeled peach bits are really slick.) I tried steamed carrots with equally peeved results. So now I'm just moving to a rougher mush (homemade chunky applesauce, unsmooth green beans) and will move up when he seems ready or as soon as I get bored, whichever comes first.
I figured all this new stuff (sitting, ownselfing, the rev-himself-up-only-to-faceplant pre-crawl) would screw with the sleeping but knock on a freaking forest, he seems okay. In fact, and I can barely type this because I know it's going to change, he has actually started to put himself to sleep. (Can you believe it, because I can't believe it.) And here's why I know those sleep books are bunk: we've done everything absolutely "wrong" - we slept with the kid, we rock him to sleep, we come in every time he cries - and he has still managed to learn how to self-soothe. You will never convince me there is any rhyme or reason for this miraculous change outside of sheer luck (and Will's willingness to do it). All those books put the fear of god into you about not following their rules. Bah! I say. BAH!
Any day now...
8 comments:
CUTE!!!
I'm told that dusting slippery fruit bits with baby rice cereal/baby oatmeal/Cheerio dust will make them more grippable for newly ownselfing babies, but I can't tell you from personal experience, as my girl declined to self-feed until she was well past a year old and well past developing pincer grasp.
Hey, are you still looking for board books? I am drowning in the things (got lots of hand me downs plus free from work). If you are thinking of going to the Ask Moxie meetup, I can bring you a bagful.
Oh yes oh yes oh yes! (When is that Moxie meetup anyway?)
I want to go to a Moxie Meetup!
I want to squeeze that baby! In a nice way of course!
I think it's Sept. 7? Of course right in the middle of naptime but I'll make it work somehow.
Awesome!
I never read any of the sleep books, except the first time around with Caitlin and popped onto a triplets web site this time around. It often seems like the books are written by folks that don't actually HAVE children!
Will is daaaaaaaarling! Like you ever get tired of hearing that? And you are fabulous in your ownself, too! Congrats on napping!
Try some bigger slices of peaches with the skin on. E (9 months) seems to like that better than the little bits. Yup, skin on, she just sucks out all the juice & leaves the skin.
You have a cutie!
I second dumping the sleep books, they just make me feel inadequate and E seems to make her decisions on her own time anyway.
Good for you--ignore the books, do what feels right to you, and you won't have any regrets down the road. In Rilla of Ingleside, when Anne is packing her son to send him overseas to fight in WWI, she tells someone how fiercely glad she is that she went to her son when he cried as an infant, even though people told her not to, b/c if she hadn't, she couldn't live with herself now (20 years out).
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