Milk

A few days ago, we bought real milk (organic, full fat, cow's milk) as we were really low on formula and we figured that he's almost one year old and that it's time to get him to drink milk.

Well, actually a stickler for rules and permissions, I was going to wait until we see the pediatrician for the one year visit on the 15th, but my dad insisted that Ivan should get milk now. So last week, he bought milk.

As if on que, Ivan, who's been very amenable to trying all sorts of new foods and eager to eat anything on his plate (well, less now, than when he was 9 months old. I guess, we have preferences now -- such as for avocado, cheerios and cheese -- and we're more likely to shun everything else) and who had absolutely no issues taking formula, in addition to breast milk, when he was 9 months old, refused.

Ivan adamantly refused to drink milk. We tried both the bottle and the sippy cup. (I don't recall if I've written about this one, but ever since Lisa M. suggested I get those disposable, clear, multicolored First Year sippy cups, he's taken an interest and a liking to them. He'll drink both water and juice, especially that juice Naked. Loves that juice. He also loves to fling the sippy cup around while sitting in the high chair so that the liquid gets squirted all over the floor and rug, but oh well.)

On the milk front, however, we ended up bying another jar of formula, much to my dad's dismay. However, good thing we did because....

No luck with the bottle, or the sippy cup. We tried several times. Actually I tried, like twice, my dad tried more often since it was his personal mission to get Ivan to drink milk. But to no avail.

Good thing we bought that other jar, big jar, of formula. As of today, we're half way through that jar.

But then today (I stayed home yesterday and today because I'm quite sick with a cold) we tried again. I tried giving him some milk in his bottle from which he drinks formula. Again adamantly refused. I tried several times during the day. Nothing. Absolute refusal.

His sleeping and feeding schedule has been off for the last few days. I don't know whether it's because he's probably a bit sick from Andy and myself, or whether he's teething (that seems to be the blanket answer for all possible baby related ills -- just like for women, it's always "it must be your period," or "it's just your hormones" if it's not that time of the month.)

But in any case, he was extra cranky today, that by the time I went to give him his bath at his usual time of 6 pm, he was too cranky to even be bathed. At least that's what I thought. He was screaming when I put him in the bathtub and was fine as soon as I took him out. So I tried putting him in again, just to see. As soon as his feet hit the water, he started screaming as if I were torturing him. At first I thought the water was too hot, but the water was fine. It just must have been the fact that he was super tired.

I try to stick to what the books and the pediatrician said: "he's got to be on a schedule. If he misses a nap, then keep him up until the next nap......" I try real hard to listen to their advice.

My father, on the other hand, thinks these books and the doctors are full of fads, which come and go, and he doesn't buy into them. After all, 'he knows best." He keeps saying he's done all this research, that he's reading more on the topic that I have (which is probably true, the man does know something about everything, which has always been the bane of my existence growing up).

If it were up to my dad, Ivan would be in bed at 5 pm every day for the night. The fact that he'd then get up at 4:30, 5, or 5:30 pm doesn't really concern my dad. After all it's my problem.....And the baby shouldn't suffer because I'm too lazy to get up in the morning, he tells me. I mean, what on earth am I going to do with the baby at 5 am.

So after the super quick bath today, I toweled him off and he nursed a bit to calm down. He usually must nurse as soon as he's out of the tub, mainly because he usually spends all of the bath tub standing up playing with the faucet so he's super cold when I actually take him out of the tub to dry him off. Then I dressed him in his jammies and put him to bed.

For the last few months, he's been going to bed with the bottle. (This habit was introduced a few months by my dad and Andy on those nights when I didn't make it home in time to bathe him. Now it's become a ritual. And I already dread the thought of how to wean him off this habit. Not to mention that it's apparently bad for his teeth. All four of those sharp teeth. But in any case, that a fight for further down the line.)

Tonight, instead of giving him the formula, we sneaked in the milk. And he took it. Started drinking it pronto.....I laid him to bed as I usually do and there was not a single peep out of him. A couple of hours later I went to check in on him. He drank all the 4, 5 ounces that were in the bottle.

Now, let's see what happens tomorrow!

Oh yes, apparently if we could get him to drink goat's milk ("hm, where do we buy that", he wondered..."whole foods," I knew) that would be even better because goat's milk is the best, as my dad informed Andy this evening.