Vee achieved two major milestones in sleeping (our toughest challenge) and potty-training. Read on:
Learning & Communication
- I bought a ‘truckload’ of materials from Shichida and other books and puzzles for our home practice sessions. He loves jigsaw puzzles (just like me) and has attempted to put each piece into place.
- He surprised me by showing that he recognises alphabets! I was washing my hands and did not want him to follow behind, so asked him to bring the “Q” alphabet foam over. He dug it out and brought it to me. I tried again and he brought the next “Q” over again!
- Instead of knocking down towers of blocks, he suddenly started stacking blocks up and looks very pleased when doing it.
- He is starting to speak in short sentences such as “Ma-ma, poo poo”. My heart melts whenever he says “妈妈” (Ma-ma) in perfect Mandarin pronunciation.
Physical
- He is toddling all over the place recklessly and the biggest danger: not going down steps carefully.
Vee insisted on climbing the stairs yesterday and suddenly fell backwards, hitting the back of his head. Though I was right behind, I could not break his fall in time. It happened too fast. He was shocked, did not cry and stared into space. I carried him, asked him to call me — no reaction. He remained silent for about a minute. I knocked on my mum-in-law’s door for help — he called out “mama” (Granny in Cantonese). Phew! Luckily until now, he has been his normal self. I have been super paranoid since his fall. Pray that all would be fine.
Diet & Feeding
- Four teeth are STILL in the process of erupting. Thankfully, no fussiness due to this.
- His current favourite food is BREAD, to the extent that I need to hide bread during meals so that he eats his other food before getting bread.
- Weaning him off breastmilk is progressing very slowly. I only managed to drop the feeds when he is awake in the morning and after his nap. After he is asleep, he still keeps waking up to nurse. One month away from my target…
- Besides drinking fresh organic full cream milk, he also loves the fresh yoghurt that I make.
Potty Training
- He finally tells me when he wants to poo! I was elated when he said it the first time. Next target: telling me before pee-ing (very tough because he pees about every hour)
Sleep
- For most nights during the past week, he has been falling asleep with his head on his pillow on his mattress (not on me). This is possible with lots of massaging and singing to him. I totally feel like a human jukebox.
- The longest is sleeping for 3 hours before cuddling up to me again. Still a distance away from sleeping through 5 hours.
Please help: How do you wean your toddlers off the breasts?
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P.S. View more developmental milestones (from 8 months old onwards).
P.P.S. Our latest homeschooling updates are posted at MummysHomeschool.com HERE,
With my first one, I used Bonjela to force wean him off the breasts. But I have heard conflicting opinions now about the safety of Bonjela on infants. Lately, I read that some moms use vinegar (apply on the nipples)..although I personally feel that if baby can wean himself/herself naturally from the breast, that would be ideal 🙂
Naturally is ideal… but I think it would take years in our case! Haha…
Bonjela is new to me, need to read up more on it.
Vinegar: thought that would cause tooth decay?!?
Thank you very much for your sharing! 🙂
Hi i tried both bitter gourd n onion juice…voila, onion juice won hands down on the 2nd night. By the time it came to the 3rd night, he was wean of totally after a good 17months of breastfeeding.
TIPS – its best to do it during the holidays when hubby is around to give u the emotional support to persist on & no stress from a disturbing night of wailing and crying. I feel its harder on the mum side when it comes to weaning. Need to be strong & focus. Its so tempting to give in at times when the crying is unbearable & the breast is engorged…..all the best to u…
Onion juice?!? Wah… very creative! For me, day-time weaning is progressing well, while nights are very tough indeed. He has started falling asleep on the bed, yet still wakes up after maximum 3 hours to nurse. After 7-8a.m., he’d want to latch on continuously until waking up at 10a.m. for breakfast. Thank you for your suggestion, Eilynn! 🙂
The issue with bonjela is the active which is salicylate – similar in structure to aspirin which is obviously not recommended for children because of Reye’s Syndrome. If I recall correctly, there were a handful of cases emerging through use of bonjela but it later got debunked. In the end, they came up with a new bonjela formulation and advised caution against using the old bonjela for children under 16 years.
Vinegar won’t cause tooth decay. What you’re concerned with is tooth erosion, but given the brief contact time, I doubt that would be a problem.
I haven’t weaned Gavin (3 years 3 months), but he is effectively weaned. He’s completely stopped nursing during the day and we can often go nights without nursing. There have been occasions when he’s feeling particularly vulnerable which I then let him nurse. When he wakes up at night, I try to offer him cow’s milk instead (he doesn’t take formula) and most of the time it works. He’ll drink the milk and then fall back to sleep. Sometimes I think he’s just thirsty and water does the trick, too.
Oh yes, got to trust you with the dental-related queries. Day-time weaning is progressing quite well now. Guess when the in-the-middle-of-the-night weaning stage comes, I’ll try offering cow’s milk and see how long it takes for Vee to fall asleep again. This is the part I’m most paranoid about. Thank you for your sharing, Shen-Li! 🙂
Hello! I came across your blog while browsing… Your son’s one month younger than mine… 🙂
And hope he’s ok after his fall. Think the guideline is to monitor for drowsiness, confusion for 24 hours, after that if he’s still ok he should be alright… Our little boy also is pretty prone to falls, and also is still feeding at night. But he’s been such a fussy eater that I’m still ok feeding him, just to get in more calories! All the best for night-weaning!
Hi Jus, thank you for visiting! 🙂 He has been fine since the fall, hope no damage done. 2 days ago, he fell forward and his lip bled a bit, while I was holding him! He is really a bull who charges everywhere; got to be on my guard at all times.
Ouch! I’m quite paranoid about falls esp on the head but glad to hear Vee’s fine again. The paed usually advises us to keep a close watch for vomitting or disorientation. If no such signs, then all’s OK.
My boy was quite a boisterous baby too but thankfully, nothing like bleeds or cuts. Don’t think I’ll be able to take it – I can’t stand the sight of blood! Yup, I’m a chicken-hearted Mum 😀
Thankfully no such signs. Then last Friday, I was holding his hands at a shopping mall and he fell flat on his face, biting a piece of skin off his lower lips. It was a little bloody, fortunately cleared up after some washing. He is super-accident-prone. *Sigh, wondering if it’s a boy-thing.*
My friend was once a mid-wife telling me the lactation consultants of Mt E suggest Lime juice or Lemon juice. I don’t these two will cause much harm to our child but it is too acidic to our nipple if we didn’t clean it properly.
I am weaning off Yvette and the progress look promising for a start.
My boy loves fruits, wondering what if he ends up loving the lime/lemon taste?!? Thank you for sharing your idea, sunflower! Glad that there are so many different ways to try. 🙂