Oh the bottle. That dreaded thing. As I've previously mentioned, I had Brenna off the bottle by shortly after a year old. In fact, at a year was her last daytime bottle and the evening one probably drug out to about 14 months. With Kara, I have been very hesitant to remove it because she simply won't.drink.her.neocate.from.anything.else.period.
ABSOLUTELY REFUSES.
So, that has resulted in the bottle. Often. Fussy baby wants a bottle. Dinner is in an hour, but just give her a bottle, now fussy baby won't eat her supper. A car ride over lunch? Give her a bottle to tie her over. It's gotten quite ridiculous, I must say.
Since the GI doctor brought up getting the bottle away from her, I figured we better start. We have a new baby in our family, a new nephew/cousin named Baby Michael that we've been talking a lot about this week. We put all the bottles in a bag, telling her we were giving them to Baby Michael. She was NOT happy. The other morning she woke up and asked for a ba-ba. We let her know what we did again and she cried NO NO NO I put her Neocate in a sippy and brought it out to her, where she was snuggled up in the recliner. She wouldn't take it, pushed it away, cried for the bottle. I tried to pretend I was drinking it, and how yummy it was, then tried to up it up to her lips, and she again pushed it away. I gave up and continued to get ready for work.
Kara moped around the house crying for her bottle as we got her ready, Brenna ready and ourselves ready. The girls were having another day at their new daycare and this day was NOT off to a good start. Finally Brian and I decided to just give one to her, start by just cutting out the daytime ones but still give her a morning and night one. He made a production out of opening the sippy, showing her the "milk" and then pouring it into the bottle. She grinned, took the bottle, and laid down on the floor to drink it, perfectly happy.
She went all day at her new daycare with no bottle. I explained how there was one at the bottom of the bag but that this was a good opportunity to ditch it, if at all possible. Easy enough, there was enough distraction. However, for the first hour she was home she moped around the house asking for one. We did not give in.
She went to bed tonight with NO bottle. She didn't even ask for one, which made things simple. It's going to be a big change but I'm hoping we can do it. My original plan was to hang on to it through her ENT appointment, in case she needs tubes put in so we have another way to get fluids in her afterwards because of her dehydration issues but now I guess we are starting now!
Finally getting a chance to read this. How is it going? Is she taking the cup more? Is it affecting her intake? Are they worried about ear infections caused by it? I have been battling the bottle issue for some time now with Ellie. But I can not find a cup of any kind that will allow her meat formula to go through. We dont have the ear infection issue, and we elevate her when she eats to make sure there is proper 'drainage'. I think for us our first battle is going to be the middle of the night feedings. She still eats three times at night as if she is starving to death. Oh these things are so complicated arent they??
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