After writing last time about my favourite times with Jake, I spoke with some friends who we normally see regularly but haven't seen in a month or so. It's not until people see Jake after a while that they see different things about him, but it's also an interesting time to reflect on changes in the way that my wife and I parent Jake.
Sometimes they're forced on us by Jake. It still amazes me (and always will, I think) that he is a conscious being with desires and preferences and the older he gets, the more able he is to express these desires. A good example here is feeding himself. Since starting on baby led weaning, we've been happy to let him pick finger food but have always fed him things like yoghurt and main meals ourselves. However, he's learned (sort of) how to use a spoon and a fork and now will refuse to eat anything proffered to him on a spoon by us. However, the minute that he gets the spoon himself, he will happily eat anything and everything in front of him. This is a good change all round as he is more control of what and how much he eats, though it does tend to mean more of a clean up after dinner times!
Sometimes they happen by apathy. Not apathy as in we don't care about Jake, more apathy as in happy accidents. For example, up until a month or so ago, we would religiously take Jake's baby monitor (Doodle Radio as we dubbed it) everywhere so we could listen in on him wherever we were. One day we were at a friend's house and hadn't brought it with us. Rather than driving back to get it, we just made sure that we kept a careful ear for him. We got home to realise that we had unplugged but hadn't taken it with us and we somehow never got round to plugging it back in. We've found that we can hear him perfectly well in the mornings, and he will cry loud enough if he's in trouble during the evening or at someone else's house. It's a good change as it's one less thing to take with us and have around the house.
Sometimes they're as a result of coincidence. For a while, we've been talking about how and when to get Jake off his morning and evening bottles of milk. We've not done any reading and as always we're not sure if it's too soon/early to do so, but we both had a general feeling that with the amount of solid food and drinks of water that he's getting through each day, he shouldn't really need them any more. However, neither of us wanted to brave a night without his evening bottle as we've used it as a way to make sure that he was full enough to sleep the whole night. This weekend we went to visit my sister and forgot to take any formula or bottles with us. It seemed like as a good a time as any to try it out, and whilst for the first night or two he cried for longer at the change of routine, he now accepts that bedtime means bath, cuddle, book and bed. It's a good change as it makes us feel like we're at the next step with Jake and as he's walking and communicating more, he has definitely moved on from being a baby to toddlerhood.
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