Trying new foods

We seriously have 2 of the worst eaters out there!  Poor little Owen has a tight frenulum (tongue tie) and he wasn't a good nurser.  After struggling for 2 weeks and supplementing every feeding he still wasn't back to his birth weight.  We gave up and went with bottles, but he didn't do much better with that either.  We tried 3 different formulas and finally found one that worked.

And Micah.  Where do I even begin.  I thought I was doing everything right.  I introduced new foods one at a time to look for allergies.  I followed everything by the book.  We took his bottle away at 15mo and he really didn't drink much milk for the next year.  He just now at 2 1/2 started drinking milk!  I'm hoping he will start eating some new foods.  He's too busy to eat and asks to play or go to the bathroom through the entire meal.  We started using a timer and setting it for 20-30 minutes.  He can either finish his meal and get up to play, or wait for the timer.  I'm so surprised, but he's actually sitting the entire time!  Still not eating much more, but taking a few more bites than he would have.  He lives on cheese/yogurt, crackers/bread, fruit, and cereal.  I've always let him try anything that he asks for.  Today it was my Fiber One bar.  He picked some of the chocolate chips out of it but thankfully didn't eat much more.  I don't want him to have an upset tummy.  I'll never get him to try anything new if it does!

I sure hope Owen doesn't pick up on Micah's poor eating habits.  Maybe Micah will start eating better before Owen picks up on it.

Potty Training Success!

I was putting off potty training Micah as long as I could.  We had a big move and a brand new baby all within about 12 days of each other, and potty training was just not on my agenda.  Micah had shown some interest and I could occasionally get him to sit on the potty.  He would rarely do anything on it but if he did we always made a big stink about it.  His cousins Cole and Noah were both potty training and I kinda felt like Micah should be too.  I had received some advice from a friend with 5 children.  She said that she struggled training her first child and he finally trained himself around the age of 3.  All 4 of her other children did the same.  So I thought, "I'll just wait until he's closer to 3 and then we'll get him trained".

Micah has been waking from naps and nighttime dry for some time now.  One day he'd gone from 12:00-5:00 and was still dry when he woke from his nap.  This child had to go I was sure, so we sat in the bathroom for about 2 hours playing and reading books.  All of a sudden he looked at me, ran to the potty, sat and peed!  Yippee!  We made a huge deal of it, gave him a handful of M&M's, and then called it a day putting a diaper back on him.  I still didn't think he was really ready to potty train.

Well the next day he refused to put on a diaper, and we started potty training in full force.  He was a trooper. He picked out a pair of Mickey Mouse undies and we were confined to the playroom the rest of the day with the potty nearby.  I'd read a blog about potty training in a day and it truly worked!  Check out her blog for details of this method.

http://www.themoesfamilyintexas.blogspot.com/search/label/Potty%20Training

Basically we stayed home for the first 3 days.  Micah really had it down after the first day and a half.  We drank lots of juice, set the potty timer for every 15 minutes, ran him to the potty whenever he did go, and kept the potty close. We rewarded him immediately with M&M's and Dum Dum suckers and he got to choose his treat of choice.  We called different family members to share our successes.  We did a happy dance to celebrate each time he went potty, and we made it fun to run to the potty.  We had luck letting him go bottom free, and he even went on his own the first day! I was in shock!  After the first 2 days we moved the potty back into the bathroom and it didn't seem to confuse him. I heard little boys were hard to train.  He's been so difficult with other things like eating and throwing temper tantrums that I think God is giving me a little break.

We've had some accidents here and there, but overall it's been a success!  He's never had an accident on the furniture thankfully.  We're going on nearly 3 weeks without an accident (knock on wood).  I'm so proud of this little boy!  He's growing up so fast!

Roll over, roll over

Our little guys has kept us on our toes.  For being so small, his muscle tone has always been advanced.  At just 3 weeks old he rolled over!  I'm not making it up.  Nathan and Micah were both there to witness it too.  We were reading books with Micah, and Owen was on the floor doing some tummy time.  Before we know it, he'd pushed himself up and was over.  We didn't believe it.  So we had him do it again and in just a second he'd flipped himself over again!  It wasn't until about 2-3 months that he was rolling over consistently.  He's sleeping on his tummy now most of the time.  I've tried rolling him to his back and he just flips right back to his belly to sleep. He's sleeping nearly 12 hours at night and that makes this mama happy.  We couldn't love him any more!

Micah showing Owen how to roll over.  

Welcome Owen Jones!

So I know I'm about 4 months late on this, but I'm trying to get caught up on blogging.

Owen William Jones entered the world at 12:20am on June 10th, 2012. Owen weighed 7lbs 7oz and was 19.5in long. Our little man was a full week late but certainly worth the wait.  He arrived very quickly and our doctor didn't even have time to make it to the hospital.   Micah is such a good big brother and always very protective of his baby brother.  He's really made the adjustment quite well.  We're so happy he's here!