Feeding update

The boys still take 4 bottles a day and will continue to do so until they're about 15 months, which is when they will be 12 months adjusted age. We're also trying to incorporate some sippy cups with whole milk, but they aren't totally getting that just yet.

In addition to their bottles, they get 3 solids meals per day - breakfast, lunch and dinner (obvi!). The latest update is that over the last several weeks, Stokes and William have begun to kind of feed themselves. I will just put some small bits of food on their trays and voila! They pick it up and put it in their mouths! I love it! I can concentrate of feeding Ryan some pureed food with a spoon while Stokes and William are eating on their own. I still have to hand feed William some towards the end of the meal, but he is definitely getting some in his mouth by himself.

Until this recent change, Stokes really did not like getting spoon fed and I was concerned about him not wanting to eat. He would clamp his little lips down and not open his mouth. He was getting a very minimal amount of food during most of the meals. He has an independent streak and did not love it when I was trying to feed him. Now, however, he loves eating and will gobble up pretty much anything I put on his tray.

I've been trying a mix of things for them. So far we've had green beans, peas, broccoli, rice, spiral noodles, cheese, pears, Cheerios, grapes, strawberries, bananas, watermelon, blueberries, carrots, bread, pancakes and avocado. I try to give them a variety of different things at each meal.

Not only are they doing pretty well with feeding themselves, they are also more receptive to letting me spoon feed them. For some meals, we do a combo-self and mama-feed. I'm really liking this transition. I think it's going to be so much easier to take them places and go out to eat when they can all feed themselves.

Here's what meal times look like now!

Side note: I really struggle with taking them somewhere when I know we'll be out during a solids meal. It's just difficult to try to spoon feed them all when we're not in the comfort of home with our normalcy. I've tried to twice. It's messy and it's hard. I hate not being flexible and "go with the flow" about it, but it's a struggle. We're slowing getting out of that phase though!