I hope you enjoyed a fun day with your family.  Up until this year Johnny has always worked on Labor Day.  But this year his company changed their holiday schedule.  I guess you really shouldn’t labor on Labor Day anyway, right?

We have some major changes going on around here.  I am still working on weaning Nathaniel and today was his first time to skip his favorite morning feeding.  He did VERY well and did not cry.  We changed things up a bit from our normal morning routine to  help distract him.  Usually Johnny goes and gets him out of bed; but I did this morning.  Then I had a cup of warm milk with honey waiting for him and he drank it up with no complaints.

The other change was skipping his morning nap.  I think he is ready to make the move to one nap, so this morning we let him stay up and play.  We went out to enjoy the morning at the park and he did very well.  By 11 o’clock he was getting pretty tired, so we went and grabbed some lunch to take home.  After he ate, I put him down around 11:30.  It is 12:45 right now and he is still asleep.  We’re hoping that this change to one nap will help him sleep better at night.  Since cutting out his early morning feeding at 5 am a month ago, he can’t seem to break the habit of waking up then.  From what I’ve read in my favorite sleep book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, it seems like getting rid of the morning nap will help his night sleep last longer in the mornings.  So hopefully he’ll start waking up about 6:30 or 7:00.  Hopefully.

I guess the biggest change around here though is that he is taking steps.  He is still crawling, since that’s his fastest, and safest, mode of transportation right now.  But I’m thinking his crawling days are coming to a close.  He stands up and takes steps many times a day.  He usually has a huge smile on his face and leans a little too far forward. When he does take a spill he rolls around and comes up with a smile on his face.  He is having a blast!

So that’s what’s going on around here today.  Doesn’t seem like much, but really a lot is changing for my little baby.  He’s making some big steps away from his time as an infant and headed toward toddlerhood!

It seems the time has come to start weaning my little guy, Nathaniel.  Gabriel seemed ready when he turned one. He even started weaning himself at about 11 months and dropped some feedings on his own. After he dropped one, I would wait a week and drop another, and so on for about 4-5 weeks.

Nathaniel doesn’t seem as ready. He has started to nurse for shorter periods of time. He used to always nurse for ten minutes, and now it’s more like five, most of the time.  About a week ago, I stopped going in to him when he wakes in the middle of the night to nurse.  Johnny went instead and reassured him, and this transition was a fairly easy one for him.  He didn’t cry much, and now he’s not waking up anymore.  But he’s not refusing any of the other opportunities to nurse.

With Gabriel, distraction, or changing up the norm, helped a lot.  So this morning after Nathaniel’s first nap, instead of nursing him, I decided I would take him into the kitchen for a snack.  We have some new crackers, so I let him try those, and he didn’t protest at all.  I added some cheese and he was really happy.  I needed to run some errands, so after he was done, we left the house.  He seemed a little grumpier than usual and by the time we got home he was really grumpy.  I’m not sure if he was hungry or if he suddenly remembered he got tricked out of a nursing.

Dr. Sears has a great article on weaning, and his tips helped me with Gabriel too.  I won’t force the issue with Nathaniel.  If he’s not ready, he’s not ready.  I think he’s really close though. He really likes his first-thing-in-the-morning nursing.  It’s like his morning cup of coffee. It’s what starts his day out right.  I think I’ll cut out some of the less favorite nursings and go from there.