I know we've already talked about this but I could use a little more hand holding. I'm finding it very hard to bring myself to wean. Maybe it's because the boy is coming up on his VERY FIRST BIRTHDAY and I'm desperate to infanticize him but I'm really having trouble making the switch from bottle to cup. It just seems so sudden. Not to mention the fact that the babe is nowhere near being able to handle a cup effectively, which yes is my fault and yes he's never going to learn if I keep helping him, but let's be real - it's damn dark at 5:30 am. Handing him a full glass of cold milk... There's no way that scenario ends well. Right now we have a cozy little starter, a nice bit of simplicity that eases us both into the day. (Well, it eases me into the day. The boy is full speed ahead from minute one.) We curl up on the loveseat in the dark, toasty bedroom while he drinks his bottle (no lights - I'm practically vampiric that early in the day) then we have mama/baby cuddle time and play "Dat!" for awhile ("Dat!", "Window.", "Dat!", "Bookshelf." It's about all the mental energy I can expend that hour of the day) before I release him to play independently, which is becoming more and more interactive now that he's learning to climb stuff.
I know that I'm supposed to start with a less ingrained feeding - say, the ever-tedious lunch - but I need a better sippy. The one we just bought (a $13 BPA-free jobbie) is some sort of no-spill sippy/bottle hybrid and about as easy as getting milk from the friggin' cow. The amount of effort it takes to get a few drops is ridiculous. Little Dude will be in college before he finishes 8 oz. Maybe I'm just being stubborn and soft-hearted. It's the last vestige of baby. I already had to wean once and it broke my heart. I see so much boy in him already, it's hard to give up the baby stuff because once it's gone, it's gone forever.
I'm tearing up. Time to drink more wine. Any tips for making this easier?
10 comments:
I wish I had some words of wisdom here. My kids were never fond of the bottle, so I have no experience from which to draw. We started sippy cups waaay early because of their disdain for the bottle. It was boobie or nuthin' for those girls. Our pain came with the screaming until mommy was available. Have you talked with your pediatrician about tips for weaning? If it were me, I would make that morning bottle the last one to go. Work on it during daylight hours when you are hopefully more up to the task.
Unfortunately my pediatrician has no kids of her own (she's some sort of 20-something doctor wunderkind) so most of her advice is textbook. Did you just give them milk with meals? Because the boy drinks very little while he eats - a few sips of water if I force it down. How did you get them to drink significant amounts? And did they like a particular kind of cup?
We did give them milk with meals. We used the playtex sippy. Back then I knew nothing about the BPA thing. We took the plunger out of the no spill sippy during the teaching phase, so that it was easier to get the liquid out. I also then offered a sippy at times when I would have offered a bottle, to help get more liquid down.
Definitely take the no-leak valve out of the cup--BG refused to even attempt the sippy with valve in place. Too hard. Once we clued in and took the valve out, she loved it.
Eventually the novelty of the cup will be appealing to him and he'll love drinking out of it. Just keep offering it to him. You could try different drinks, too--milk, water, juice, drinkable yogurt--and see which makes him most excited.
And try not to stress about meeting a deadline. He IS still a baby! (Not that you necessarily want to be in my shoes--kid almost 2 and still refuses to give up the bottle--but there is a middle ground between that and a 1-year deadline.)
Ooh, didn't think about removing the no-spill... Maybe I'll give that a go! (And why do I find it so reassuring that your girl still takes the bottle, E?)
My boy had zero interest in the sippy until he saw me drinking from it. I had tried to offer it to him at different times, with or without meals, and it was just no dice...but since he imitates us when we eat, and is always reaching for our food, I thought he might do the same thing with the sippy. So while we were eating lunch the other day I started periodically grabbing the sippy and taking big swigs of water. *Wow* did that do the trick--he is definitely interested now and has started periodically picking it up and drinking from it with no encouragement.
Oh M, I'm ON THAT!
Well, my daughter's 13 months and I'm in the process of weaning her from nursing ... but mostly onto bottles. I wouldn't sweat the bottles, but mix it up with sippy cups. We use a very simple one from Gerber that seems to work well. I give my daughter a bottle when she wakes up, one mid-morning, one afternoon, and nurse at night. I'm planning to cut down to fewer bottles during the day this month. We use the sippy cup for water with meals and whenever she is thirsty. I have to admit, I don't know what all the fuss is about that children have to be off the bottle by the time they are one. I think it's one of those things that just got stuck in people's heads and now everyone thinks they have to follow it.
Everything I keep reading is about making sure their teeth are okay. I keep reading about the tooth decay that happens if you let the baby sleep with a bottle in his mouth but I don't know a single person who does that these days.
I do use a sippy for water but frankly, the kid doesn't drink that much at meals. He produces so much saliva chewing that he never gets thirsty enough to drink more than a half an ounce. I can't figure out how I'm supposed to get 5-8 oz. of milk down him at meals! (Not to mention the fact that he loathes the taste of milk. He keeps trying to wipe it off his tongue.) There's also the boy's seeming inability to tilt his head back while holding the cup (the spout! So fascinating! So much touching and DAT!-ing and refusal to drink-ing) which means I have to do it for him if I want any liquid to enter his throat. (See: not thirsty at meals) Still, nobody goes to college needing his mommy to hold his cup for him. (Seriously, gonna put that shit on a T-shirt...)
Hi Ali--My kids liked the Avent sippy cup, and they never graduated past the "littler babies" one (used to be white, and the one for "older babies" was green), b/c it was a softer plastic and easier for them to drink out of, I think. I liked it b/c it worked w/Avent bottles, so I didn't have to buy that many sippy cups!
Have you tried a straw? Dinah really, really liked that, and we found a no-spill drink cup with a pop-up straw that looked more like what her big sister was using so she liked that (I still make them use them in the car and they're 9 & 5, do you think I'll scar them for life?)
BTW, I hear you on the perpetually non-thirsty kid. Dinah was like that and is STILL like that. She seems to never, I mean never, drink anything much and I'm always worried she'll get dehydrated. I don't have any solutions for you on this one, but if YOU find any I'd love to hear them!
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