One of my girls, G, loves, loves, loves, loves, loves her bottle. She is a bottle addict. If she sees a baby with a bottle in public she cries for it. It's not the milk, it's the bottle she loves. It comforts her. If she wasn't bottle feed I sincerely believe she would be a breast addict.
We have been very successfull at dropping several bottle feeds, except for two. At 12 months the only milk feeds they were having was in the morning when they woke and night time. I quickly disposed of the morning drink when breakfast was left uneaten regardless of what time they had the bottle or breakfast. I swapped milk for cheese and a drink of water. Breakfast included cereal (with milk) and at snack time yoghurt. This seemed to work well for us. Breakfast was now consumed. Hooray for us!
You will note I wrote seemed..... well my bottle addict was not going to give up that easily. At 9am every morning (before snack time) the crying would begin, followed by rolling around on the floor. Quite frankly, it was embarrassing and horrifying to watch my child melt down over a bottle. I tried giving the yoghurt snack just before 9am..... to no avail. Was I surprised? No. The same child also loved her dummy as well, which disappeared at 6 months.
My bottle addict showed an astounding amount of fortitude and was able to maintain what I call a bottle tantrum for over an hour...... she showed more stamina than I did. When her sibling joined in just for the fun of it I caved in. In the end, she (and her sibling, because she wasn't going to be left out) got her bottle, a small one, with 50 mls of milk. Not enough according to her, but tough there would be no additional day time milk drinks provided in a bottle. A cup, a glass or any other drinking vessel yes, but not a bottle. Yes, this internal dialogue with myself made me feel better.
How did this work for us? My bottle addict refuses to drink milk from a cup, glass or sippy cup. She spills it, she plays with it and she spits it out. We have had a show down, her and I.... so far I've managed to hold out. She has yet to notice her dairy intake has increased.
Fast forward to today. The day bottle is gone. Instead they sometimes receive a small carton of Devondale Full Cream Long Life Milk after their mid morning or afternoon snack. Often they don't drink all their milk so it goes back in the fridge. I have in the past tried providing a small milk drink with their meal. This has not worked out well for us. It has ended with milk been spilt or thrown. This only happens when the beverage provided is milk. It never happens with water.
My bottle addict is enthralled by the carton, struggles with drinking from the straw, but she is persevering. She hasn't noticed (yet) the bottle is gone.
The only down side, the straw doesn't come with the 150 ml carton. I have spare straws in the pantry for the small cartons
I'm not concerned about their dairy intake. They are mostly good eaters and consume enough dairy products during the day. I just want the bottles gone. Her bottle addiction is unfortunately holding back her sister, who was ready to give up bottles months ago.
One of the challenge of raising twins is the question of sameness. I find what one has the other one wants, so having one a drink from a cup while her sister drinks out of a bottle was only going to ended in tears. How do I know? Well I gave it a try.
In my internal dialogue with myself I have rationalised, saying G isn't ready to give up the bottle. The truth is she may never be ready. She loves her bottle that much. I gave myself until they were 15 months, to come up with a strategy and to start getting rid of all bottles. It is time. We now have a bad case of bottle theft and milk gorging happening in the evenings.
A & G have proven that they do not need a night time bottle to sleep through the night. I'm about to revamp their whole night time routine which will involve a change to our evening activities. Dinner time, bath time, outside play time, bedtime reading and going to bed is all about to change. In the past I have found a complete change in the way we do things works better for us than a gradual change.
As a parent I have to make tough decisions which cause short term unpleasantness for me, my husband, our home life and our children. This feels like one of those decisions. I know there could be tears, tantrums and sleepless nights, or it could all be an anticlimactic non event. Here's hoping. One thing I do know it is time to be the parent, make the decision and follow through. Six months from now I know this will be a faded memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment