Opinionated

He looks so sweet and angelic. Ever since he turned one though, Gavin has had an opinion. It is not hard to translate what he is trying to say.

"Ahhhhh" (very loud scream): Don't take my toy away from me.
"Ahhhhh": Put me down. I don't want to do whatever you want me to do. I want to play with toys.
"Ahhhhh": Put me down. I would like to crawl...(under benches at church, into the refrigerator, in the garage, wherever I want to go.)
"Ahhhhh": I want to play with the DVD player (or anything else he isn't suppose to touch.)

If I move Gavin to another room to get him from under my feet while I'm cooking, he will immediately crawl back unless something else distracts him. This is the same if I remove him from the same room as Dallin if Dallin wants to play with a toy that Gavin will destroy or if he has a friend over and Gavin is getting in the way. If Dallin is playing with a friend, nothing will distract Gavin. He wants to be in the same room as the big boys and play with them.

What we have really struggled with is switching over to sippy cups. Gavin had no problem switching to whole milk, but he wanted nothing to do with a sippy cup. He has never liked them. I first switched out the afternoon bottle with a sippy cup. When I did that, Gavin decided he no longer wanted anything to drink in the afternoon. (He won't drink any liquid from a sippy cup.)

My next step was to keep trying different kinds of sippy cups during the day with different kinds of liquid. No luck.

With Dallin we went cold turkey so that he had plenty of time off of bottles since we thought we were adopting another baby when Dallin was 14 months. Dallin did fine. He likes to eat. Gavin though doesn't like to eat. If he doesn't get enough milk/food during the day (because he refuses to eat or drink), he wakes up screaming at 3 or 4 a.m. and nothing will calm him down (not even paci) until he gets that bottle. He has done really well lately not waking up (he was waking up 1 or 2 times a week), that we didn't want to ruin this because we went cold turkey or dropped another feeding.

We finally decided we had to brave waking up at night and switched out the morning bottle since that is when he is hungriest. When I walked in his room in the morning, he would take one look at the sippy cup and start screaming. At night when he saw his bottle, he would go crazy with happiness. After three mornings of no morning bottle, Zane came in to see what all the screaming was about, picked up Gavin, tucked one arm behind his back and held the other one down, and stuck the sippy cup in Gavin's screaming mouth. Gavin finally gave in and drank.

This sippy cup was the winner. The cup was full and he downed it in one of his fastest feedings. I think he was missing the milk.

He is now off of bottles and doing fine. He still doesn't drink sippy cups while sitting in his high chair (meaning he gets very little liquid during the day), but he will drink a full cup morning and night while we rock him in the rocking chair. I don't mind though because I love cuddling with him.

Gavin is still sweet and angelic, but he is definitely letting everyone know what he wants and he does it in a very loud way!