Hello! Here’s the summary of the last month:
Feeding
Nothing much has changed in this aspect this month. The only “new” thing now is when they are eating something and suddenly they don’t want it any more, they will say “I don’t like it!”. Eric started doing this first and then Elisa followed. I am pretty sure they want to say “I don’t want it any more”, because they do like it – whatever it was they were eating. What I tend to do is say something like “If you are full, you don’t have to eat it” or “you don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it”. I try to push for them to eat a bit more everyday, even when they’ve eaten ok at nursery, but if they don’t eat I won’t push them. I’ve been told enough times that they won’t starve themselves and will eat when they are hungry. It’s just weird seeing how little they can eat sometimes! (unless it’s nutella – they could eat a glass of nutella each in one sitting)
Sleeping
Big news here this month. If you remember, last month I was telling you how we had gone a bit backwards with Elisa needing me to stay in the room with her. Well, Jon and I had enough, and after watching an episode of the three-day nanny, we decided to bite the bullet and try the “controlled-crying” technique. I was not looking forward to it. In fact, a lot of people had recommended us to try it in the past, but I was always too scared. So, about 10 days or so ago we did it:
We started our bedtime routine as usual, with bath and then bottle of milk on our bed. However, when they finished it, rather than waiting for Eric to fall asleep on daddy’s shoulder, or me sitting on the floor by Elisa’s cot, we said “We’re going to go to bed now and read a story”. At the beginning neither of them thought any of it, and happily moved to their cots. But when we finished reading the stories and said goodnight, all hell broke loose. Eric started crying inconsolably and didn’t stop for a good 40 minutes. It felt like an eternity. Eventually, he settled and fell asleep until the following morning. Funnily enough, Elisa was completely fine during the whole thing. We didn’t hear her cry, although she took a long time to settle down.
The following day we did exactly the same. Bath, bottle in bed, off to nursery for story time. When we said “it’s story time” Eric completely freaked out and started screaming. He wasn’t having any of it. We read the stories through his screams and then said night night. He cried for 20 minutes and then settled. Still felt like an eternity.
The third night Jon was out on a parish council meeting so I had to deal with bedtime on my own. Still, I was adamant to make this new routine work, so did everything exactly the same. When I moved them to their cots for story time, Eric freaked out again and started crying and saying “no story time!! no story time!!” – Heartbreaking, I tell you. However, and here is the twist of the story, by the time I was half way through the third book he completely settled down! He stopped crying, got comfy on his pillow and listened to the rest of the story. I kissed them goodnight, left the room, and they both settled to sleep without crying!
A total miracle. I was expecting it to be much worse than it was, and once again the fear of the situation that I built up in my head was worse than the actual “problem”.
So, yeah, ten days in and now Eric and Elisa actually get excited about story time and ask for it! The best thing is that they are in bed by 8:10 the very latest and Jon and I can enjoy our evenings once again.
Development
Eric’s speech is fantastic. I know I have been saying this for a long time, but it is getting better and better by the day. Elisa’s is still behind. She mumbles lots of her words and I really struggle to understand much of what she says. I get a lot of it via the context, but without a context I really don’t know what she’s saying.
Something new in their development is that one day they came back from nursery asking for a potty. Their class is for children up to three years old so a few of them are either potty trained or are going through the process. So they must have seen stuff going on in their class, that one day they wanted “their” potties. The following day I went to mothercare and bought two pink Peppa Pig potties 🙂 Eric has used his -successfully- a couple of times. We have them upstairs, just outside the bathroom, so they always see them when we go upstairs. Almost everyday (although not always) they ask to sit on them. They can spend a good 5 or 10 minutes “playing” around. But Eric has actually pissed and pooped once! He was so proud of himself. And then proceeded to spill all the wee all over the bathroom floor. Elisa also sits on it and likes playing with it, but she has not “delivered” anything yet.
They have also started “pretend play” in a more engaging way now too. For example, if we are in a wendy house, Jon and I pretend to be customers to a restaurant and order food, and both Eric and Elisa go and “prepare” the food and then bring it to us. It is SO DAMN CUTE! At home they also pretend to play with teacups and things like that.
Elisa loves to “help” getting undressed and dressed. She will actually insist in taking her socks off and putting trousers on. Eric is not too bothered but if he sees Elisa trying to put on her trousers, then he will also try. They love copying each other!
Socialising
We were quite surprised the other day to learn that both Eric and Elisa know ALL the names of ALL the children and carers in the nursery! Which can be a bit embarrassing when you have no idea who they are talking about. We must try to make an effort and learn them too!
They are still doing very well at nursery and every time we pick them up they are always very happy and playing around. Yes, they are also very happy to see us and have no problem leaving the nursery to go home. We just know they are happy there.
We haven’t socialised that much with other children in our environment this month though. We have gone to Wellington and Eastrop, but they always played on their own.
Health
Not too bad actually. We had an episode of vomit-in-the-middle-of-the-night, on Elisa’s part. It was definitely something she ate that didn’t agree with her, as we could see the pieces of chicken and corn all over the vomit. It was quite disgusting entering the room and being hit by that wall of stench. I still don’t know how them two could sleep through that! Anyway, she was completely fine all day after that, that’s why we know it was something she ate and not a bug. The smell took a while to get rid of. Ugh.
—-
This is them at Eastrop park just a couple of weekends ago. We had such a great day in the paddling pool. I must make a note of what a rubbish summer we’ve had this year. We have had like maybe 10 days in total of good weather. The rest has been appaling. Such a shame because we really wanted to go to the beach and make the most of the summer… it’s just that summer never turned up!
We are off to Motril soon to see the Spanish family. Fingers crossed that the weather is good (but not too hot either!) so we can enjoy a couple of days at the beach! (even if the beach is full of pebbles and not sand)
