It started out okay, but take a few too many pictures and you get this.
The boy has been on an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kick that might have won points with the Puritans but peeves his mama to the max. Little buddy needs to reset his time clock, pronto. How early is early? Try 3:45, peeps. I never thought I'd call 5:30 "sleeping in" but I'd give my right ear for a few extra winks. After his wake up bottle I can occasionally lull him back to sleep if I immediately throw on daddy's super-soft robe, turn on the white noise, and launch into "Wheels On The Bus". Sometimes that gets me an extra 40 minutes, sometimes it gets me a whole lotta baby backtalk. We're trying to edge his bedtime closer to 6:30 or 7 (versus the 5:30 he seems so attached to) because I am incapable of good mothering before dawn.
* UPDATE! This first part is no longer applicable. I hope.
Speaking of early morning rituals, apparently the boy is supposed to be off the bottle by 1. Is that true? Because that early morning bottle is ingrained. The other bottles he could probably do without but I can't imagine trying to get 8 oz. down him, especially at that hour, using a cup. He's just started figuring out how to get the sippy to his mouth (the actual head tilt is still tricky. Electriclady, I hear about becoming the kid's "drink bitch") and skipping it and going straight to breakfast seems weird. Usually we do a bottle when he wakes up, followed by breakfast an hour later. I know most of you breastfed so you probably didn't have to worry about it (why is it more acceptable to breastfeed after 1 year than it is to bottle feed?) Still, weaning is weaning and most of you have done that. Anybody have advice?
8 comments:
First: CUTE!
Second: As the mother of a 21-month-old who still takes 3-4 bottles a day, I am probably the last person to give advice on this, but...I personally don't sweat the bottle thing much. He will naturally start dropping bottles as his solid meals get bigger. When you start introducing cow's milk, you might try doing it in a cup instead of bottle so he gets used to it that way--one reason we're still on bottle is that BG won't drink milk any other way and I choose bottle over no milk at all. But considering that there are plenty of kids still nursing several times a day well into toddlerhood, I see no reason to take away a source of comfort just because we "should." He won't go to college still drinking from a bottle (that's my catch-all reassurance for everything, like "No one goes to college still needing their mommy to lie down with them until they fall asleep").
Too CUTE! I thought about getting that costume for my son - maybe next year!
Oh Electriclady, you make me laugh.
And EBP, the costume is a huge hit but be warned - it's gigantic everywhere except the hat. So if you have a big-headed kid (she says, looking at her big-headed kid) you might want to go up a size or stretch it real good.
I think the no-bottle-after-age-1 comes from wanting to prevent bottle-rot in the teeth (assuming that you let your baby fall asleep with a bottle in his/her mouth - which I'm sure you don't). I was ready to get rid of the bottle because it was a pain in the ass (not that sippy cups aren't, but at least they are portable, and don't leak-too much when tipped over). So I switched to cold, cow milk in a sippy cup, pretty much cold turkey. And no, there was no milk drinking for a few days, but they eventually adjusted. Again, its one of those "whatever works for you is best" moments. (Ain't life like that though?)
P.S. Yoda is SO cute!
Well, I'm not quite there yet, we are still breast-feeding, but I am starting to introduce milk - and in a bottle. There's no way we are going to stop that at one year (that would be next week - gah!). I have however also introduced a sippy cup (for water) and am fairly sure that my DD would take milk out of that, too. So, I would do whatever you and your cute boy feel comfortable with. As electriclady said, he won't go to college with the bottle. My Mom likes to add "and will probably stop "insert specific habit here" long time before he goes to college" :)
Oh honey, we just turned 3 and still have bottles for milk. MILK MUST BE SERVED IN BOTTLES ONLY. The King has Spoken.
Don't sweat it. Eventually, they decide that all the cool kids in the 5th grade drink their milk from glasses cold, and ditch the bottle. There are more things to worry about then getting him off the bottle by 1 if you feel that is ingrained and part of your (sanity) routine.
I remember hearing that my baby should be weaned by age 1, and at first I thought, "Oh, yeah, definitely! Why ever not?" Then my baby turned one and...she was still a baby. Baby cheeks, baby talk, baby needs. I suddenly realized that they don't cross some magic threshold on their first birthday any more than I did on my 18th.
So--we wound up weaning around age 2 and a half (and breastfeeding past the 1st birthday may be acceptable in NY, but it sure turns heads and mouths in Kansas!). So, you know, do whatever you and the boy want to do about the whole bottle/sippy cup thing. It will all work out in the end!
BTW, love love love that costume! What a CUTE baby!!!
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