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I am stressing because Thomas is fast approaching the age of 2 and he has a major attachment to his bottle.
Months ago I took it away from him at the baby sitters. Went fine! Am I allowed to be jealous by this?
I took it away during the day time at home for a short stint of time. And then one day he figured out how to say “BABA” and it was over.
When I pick him up from the sitter he is drinking from a cup just fine. The second we are in the car he starts ranting about “BABA”. The rant becomes worse when we enter the house. He will not take a cup at this point and throws a royal fit just to have his “BABA”.
Bed time is even worse! He will not go to bed with out it and in the middle of the night he wakes and has a major fit for it. There is no consoling him until he has “baba” in hand.
Eating dinner at night is awful because he has a belly full of milk so he doesn’t eat the way he should.
On the other end of it, he will drink from a cup but if you put milk in a cup he has a fit and will not drink it.
I have never met a more stubborn child. Yet my mom swears he is just like me, I don’t see how.
So what do you do? How do you get him to drink the milk he needs each day and get him off the bottle?
I won this great book from Melissa at Sweet Serendipity about raising toddlers. It had some very good suggestions. I took one of them and went a step further and during the day I have replaced the belly filling milk with water in his bottle.
He drinks the water with out argument. The good news is he doesn’t drink it as fast as he does the milk. Bad news is he still wants his “BABA”.
Please, please no one teach this child how to say milk.
Now at bed time I was still giving him milk because I want him to get his daily milk intake. However his milk intake at night is so strong that he has been getting up two and three times at night and crying for “BABA”. (I have another post on bed time but that is for another day).
Last night I replaced the milk bottle with water in the bottle. We woke up 5 times. He would drink a little and then go back to sleep. I think he is missing the full belly, sleep well syndrome. Oh and forget about the cup, he will throw it down and do a major melt down until he gets “BABA”.
Now I need to make a tough choice, do I stick with the water for a couple weeks to wean him down from the bed time milk belly and then go cold turkey with the bottle? Or do I just get it over with now and go cold turkey? Either way it is going to be several sleepless nights for all.
I would love to know if any of you had a child that would not give something up and how did you make the break? This is new to me because Luke gave up his bottle at 12 months with out a blink and never had an attachment to anything.
10 Comments Welcome:
Oh I wish I had some awesome advice, but I really do not. My kids nursed and I was horrible about kicking them off of that:) My Em nursed up until 3:)
I do think if he is waking up, he must be hungry. Maybe you should continue to just give him one bottle of milk before bed? Just kind of back off gradually--1 bottle after sitter, than say "Bottle is dirty" or something...then give some water in bottle a little later (when he has actually forgotten for a minute) then milk at night? I sense from what you are saying he will not be happy:) I really would not worry about him still using the bottle, though--just work on stretching the between bottle times out--eventually he'll forget! PS: when I tried to potty train Em, she totally balked and it did not work. Then, like 6 mths later, she started asking to go, and was trained within the week.
Sometimes timing is everything--and you know what you can live with:)
PS: FYI-your feed did not show up correctly in my reader yesterday on this post..don't know if it's me or your feed
We had a couple of kids who were about 3 years-old and going through this same thing, albiet with sippie cups instead of bottles. I've heard of the bottle fairy or the sippie cup fairy who come and take it away and replace it with a "gift" or something. We never did that. I've heard that it works for some kids, but maybe not for others. But, I can really relate. It is an awful dilemma. We finally just quit cold turkey. We threw all the sippie cups away and that was that. They stopped waking up at night after only a couple of nights. Good luck. It isn't a fun situation!
Hmmm, I'm not sure what to tell you...as soon as my girls found a cup they liked, we went cold turkey!
I'm not there yet...but if I am then Iwill be coming to you later for answers! Good luck...I would go cold turkey now since you said he still wakes up during the night with water. A FEW sleepless nights beats a couple of weeks of sleepless nights and then even worse after taking away the bottle...but I have not ever been there so you do what you need to do...
Thanks for the kind words on my blog today! Have a great day!
I haven't had this exact issue, but would definitely vote cold turkey. However, I'd tackle the night wakings first, and stop delivering drinks of any kind during the night. At least with my kids so far, a few days of tough love is quicker and less painful than a drawn-out attempt to do it the "nice" way. Good luck--hope you get some good nights' sleep soon!
You could try a straw in his cup?....some kids get so excited by that. Let him see you or other kids using straws. Make him want to be big boy too :)
ANytime we have run into majpr issues we have gone cold turkey. ANd it can be awful, for a night or two. But then they get smart and realize it's not worth wasting all that energy throwing a fit if they know you aren't going to give in. So, my advice is cold turkey, but except it to be a little rocky. Good luck whatever you decide!
Oh, the joys of parenting ;P I don't have any sage advice, I'm afraid. My kids nursed until 2 or so. I used a bottle to help wean my daughter b/c the doc advised it when I got pregnant again. She LOVED juice in her bottle and drank from a bottle until well past 3. We just let her. I figured she wouldn't be 15 and wanting a bottle so I let it go. As she got older, played with more friends and wanted to be more like her big brother than her little brother she gave it up.
I would probably go with water at night since it's better for his teeth and let him have the bottle. But I really think you have to just go with what's most comfortable for you. Sounds like it is his "pacifier" for comfort. Your best bet is to gradually replace it with something else comforting that he'll accept. That's no easy task, I know.
I hope you both get some sleep soon :) BTW, thanks for the mention and link!
I really don't know... I'd probably take a "pick your battles" approach and leave it alone. I've found my kids achieve levels of indepence best if left to do it in their own timing. It's hard when he's replacing meals with milk though. I'm not much help!
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