Define "Mature" [: mə-ˈchur: to develop and reach maturity]… that's the plan, at least

I’m not looking forward to the next couple of weeks because our little family is going to embark on so much change (such big, big change), that I literally ball up in anxiety and “aksmiuwnjibr!”-ness thinking about it. That was a full blown spaz attack, by the way.

Most of it I’m not ready to talk about, but the adjustments we need to make with Aiman are plenty to make a post out of. Firstly would be his bottle and how we are going to be damned to Hell for not having him off of it by now. He’s a 12 month old, guys. Let’s remember that although his pediatrician and dentist say that he should be off of it by the end of this month (so in about 10 more days?) let’s not forget that a) Saad and I HATE the cry-it-out method and don’t think it resolves anything without unnecessarily making Aiman, or any baby for that matter, cry. And we can’t bare to have Aiman cry his eyes out and feel like we’re ignoring him or not responding for something he feels like he needs, but can’t have, why? Because mom and dad said so –EH! NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Anyway, to make a long explanation short, cry-it-out will not be practiced in this house. I’d rather hold him down and get him to drink his milk out of his sippy cup, if I have to. By the way, he’ll drink anything else out of a regular cup or his sippy cup, but his milk? He’ll actually give you a look that says exactly “Oh. hell. no. Don’t even try this mess again. Milk = bottle. Get it right.”

Wait, where was I? Oh yes: a) we don’t like cry-it-out and b) I don’t think any baby, or most at least, drop the bottle in a week or even in a month’s time. That’s a little unrealistic to me because he’s spent his entire life on a bottle and now the one thing he’s most familiar with and even dependent on for eating or drinking, he’s expected to just let go? No, I doubt it works that way. And it’s going to take extra time because we’re tying to make it as bearable as possible.

Another thing is our sleeping arrangements. Aiman is still sleeping in our bed  at 12 months old and some days I wake up thinking OH SWEET BABY OF MINE, HOW I LOVE YOUUUU! Other days it’s more like THIS IS GOING TO BE THE VERY LAST NIGHT!

But let me tell you about his new set of tricks. You are already know that he bothers me out of my mind during the night, yet leaves Saad completely alone, right? Okay, so now he likes to sleep on his belly but only from his waist up, so his legs and hiney are propped up and the pillow underneath his upper body even out his posture. Does that make sense? Anyway, he ends up that way no matter how you lay him down and position/reposition him. And guess who’s pillow he loves more than any other? Mine. He starts off subtly at first and then makes his way onto my entire pillow leaving my head crammed in between the wall and the mattress.

This next trick is his favorite. Every night, in the middle of the night or early morning, he’ll suddenly jerk upright, look around, feel for my face until I turn face up, and then climb on top of me to sleep on my chest. He’ll get comfy sprawled out on my chest and sleep until we all get up.

So in the last few weeks we learned that “mother” is synonymous with “mattress”.

But this is a 26 lb baby on my chest, thinking he still weights 7lbs and not suffocating me. I also can’t sleep in one position (and especially on my back) throughout the night and whenever I try to move, Oh! Look! Heavy baby on my rib cage, locking me in place.

Saad says that all of his “tricks” from wanting extra attention to his early morning chest climbing escapades are just his ways of loving me. Which I love and appreciate. Sort of. But it’s also easier for him to say that when he gets a full night’s rest.

So I’m torn about moving him to his crib, which will be another hurdle to overcome like weaning off of the bottle. This one year mark comes with a lot of hurdles no one really mentions. At any rate, I’m looking for advice, tips, tricks -anything!- to help with either or both.

So if you have ideas or stories to make me feel better (because I will take that too), spill em!

I am more than desperate.

How do you get your child to eat table food without him puking his guts out?

That’s the million dollar question right now because Aiman doesn’t seem to keep anything down! Well, more accurately, he doesn’t keep any “real food” down, but does fine with pureed baby food.  But when you’re trying to eat and a baby looks at your food with longing eyes and starts salivating, how are you supposed to refuse that child a bite.

Just one.

Just one little bite.

BAD IDEA!

Because there’s always the risk of him completely throwing up everything he’s had because he’ll choke on something -whether his own spit or a teeny tiny fragment of food-and cough, then vomit and continue to gag everything he’s had back up.

And I mean everything.

We literally feed him in fear of this one bite or that one spoonful being the one that causes a vomit avalanche. I say that he has the strongest gag reflex ever, but his pediatrician says that he’ll outgrow this phase.

Today I gave him some peas* and “he didn’t take it well” doesn’t even close to what happened. He choked and the entire 9 ounces of milk came back up.

Did you know that regurgitated whole milk looks like extra, extra thick cottage cheese? With a foul odor. Want to know just how incredibly disgusting I am? After he was done with puking everything up and allll over the living room, I was cleaning it up and picked up a glob of the “cheese” just to feel it’s consistency. Squished it a little, thought it was interesting, and then finished cleaning it up.

And fyi, it’s not as smooth as breast milk or slimy as formula.

Then later he had ravioli with turkey and vegatables and was fine! whoohoo! But I’ll admit that I was on guard the entire time and had shiny things, songs, and toys on standby to distract him from throwing up if he started gagging.

That’s how it usually goes; can’t feed him something new without standby distractions. And sometimes a bucket.

My husband and I also get a lot of crap from family members who think Aiman should be eating regular food by now, but we’re not going to rush anything. They say that we should’ve started him on solids earlier (he started at four months) or given him bits of food earlier (he started table food around 8ish months), but I doubt it would’ve made a difference. Aiman will get used to it when he gets used to it and as long as he doesn’t choke, everything is fine.

But he usually does**.

It’s alright baby love! You’ll get used to it sooner or later and we’ll continue to clean up the mess in the meantime.

But I’d appreciate it if you got used to it sooner rather than later.

*this isn’t the first time he’s had peas, but I was trying to sneak it into his mouth. Why sneak? Because he takes a good look at whatever anyone feeds him and only if he agrees will he allow you put it in his mouth. Oh and he generally doesn’t like green foods for some reason.

**In his defense, he doesn’t have his molars and only has two (incisors?) teeth in the front, at the top and bottom. So technically chewing isn’t possible. And if you can’t chew your food, how can you swallow whole bits of it without choking? I understand you, baby boy…