Saturday, April 5, 2014

Bottle Weaning a Toddler! Yes it is possible.


As your little one starts losing his baby fat and all that chubby cherubiness and starts taking the motor skills world by storm, "bottle feeding" becomes that sword hanging over your neck! It becomes worse when he has crossed his first birthday and crossed into a bossy opinionated where-did-my-cute-angel-baby-disappear. If at all it has continued even after turning 2, it may have become the best kept secret within your family!


Doctors ask at every meeting whether you have weaned him yet and you sheepishly look here and there hoping he will just drop it. Okay I'm sure they mean well. But honestly! I always felt the risk of tooth decay, milk anemia and milk / bottle addiction is a tad exaggerated (seriously? It's just milk! I was NOT shoving down chocolate bars down his throat every night!) and not a big deal compared to the nice soundless sleep he drifted into after that one bottle of elixir!

No rotting teeth yet!



That one bottle with magical abilities was what we pinned our hopes on every night and it would always come through. Like a best friend we never had! Dependable and thoroughly reliable!


Why did we use a bottle to begin with? Well that's a whole different story that is explained in my previous posts on exclusive pumping. There wasn't any choice. Weaned him off breast milk and nightly wakings when we was 1.5 y.o. But even after that he didn't let go of that one bottle of normal milk as a bedtime ritual till last week (28 months to be precise!)


I've written about how he was plagued by cold and cough ever since we shifted to Pune. Cold and cough seldom came without its chaperone: vomit. The big trigger was that damn bottle of milk. Yes that means that all of it would be out without any notice and within a fraction of a second requiring Edward Cullen like swiftness to avoid massive spills on the bed, couch, pillow, duvets... although I use an excellent rubber sheet to protect the mattress, and the duvet can be washed in the machine, cleaning up all this PLUS the child was quite a task. Esp when I was all alone!


One fine day after a vomit I suddenly realised how stupid I was being. F*** tooth decay and milk anemia! The #1 reasons to bottle wean should be vomit cleaning!!!


And that fine (gloomy, utterly horrid) day, the first thing I did after bathing and changing him was take all the effing bottles from every nook and corner of the house and throw them in the garbage. Before I could change my mind!!


He HOWLED for an hour the first day. When I said the bottles are gone he insisted I go and buy new ones. Well whatever. One time-out stopped his howling and all that screaming had left him way too tired to stay awake anyways. The schedule was a bit diff the next few days so the question of bottle didn't arise. The 4th (or 5th) day he remembered again and screamed for about ten minutes. Subsequent night for perhaps 5 mins…


See? It wasn't so hard.


Note & reminder to self: toddlers are MORE adaptable to change and MORE likely to put a habit behind them than us adults!



Confused about which Breast Pump to buy? Read Here.



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20 comments:

  1. Sometimes it's just the thought of doing these things that make it worse. I was anxious about ditching the bottle, but was hardly a blip on the horizon for both my kids. But toilet training...? Now that's another story!! See ya later, vomit!!! #FartGlitter

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    1. haha~ toilet training technically happens over the weekend...but it lasts a year!

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  2. How funny! I wrote a post about weaning too and it's linked up just before you! A different angle though and your experience was a while back #FartGlitter The Frenchie Mummy

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  3. I remember getting rid of my daughters bottles...for us she was just not eating enough food and she was coming up to three at this point. I got rid of dummys at 16 months, switching to a bottle of milk at night and it just went on for a very long time! #bigpinklink

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  4. Aaaah, the blessed bottles...!! Yes, they were our nighttime best friend for our eldest until he was 2&1/2, and just when I was starting to not only get worried about the tooth rot (which I agree is probably a load of tosh!!) I was also fed up of scrubbing them, and finding them laying around stinking of milk turning to cheese...!! He just gave up by himself! But my second is now 2&1/2, and refusing to let go, so I might have to take this approach!! Wish me luck!!
    #bigpinklink

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    1. All the best! (& yes it's all a load of tosh! )

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  5. Kids soon adapt it's jusy a case of persevering. We used to have nighttime battles for the eldest to come in our bed but the only took a couple of nights before we cracked it. Well done!! #dreamteam

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    1. Oooh, that hasn't yet been tackled at our place. Since he comes early in the morning, and quietly tucks himself next to us without any one noticing!

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  6. All little ones are different, so going with the flow is completely fine in my book. You did well to get rid of the bottles in one massive swoop. We opted for the good old trick of pretending that Father Christmas' new baby reindeer needed her bottles so they could get strong enough to pull the sleigh. It worked a charm. Thank you for linking up to the #DreamTeam x

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  7. It's so hard to know what to do isn't it? My second sucks her thumb and had a cuddly toy. She's almost two and now I'm getting comments that we should try and get her to stop both. What?! My kids don't sleep much as it is. Why would I do that?! Impeach to there own I say #DreamTeam

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  8. You are so right! I think 99% of the time it's actually our perception of what will happen that holds us back from making the next step. My little one is 22 months and while he doesn't have a bottle, he will only drink out of one specific brand and style of beaker. ANY variation to it is promptly refused. I know that realistically he will not dehydrate and would eventually take liquid from another drinking cup eventually, but I just don't have the appetite for the battle just yet? Maybe one day... Thanks for the nudge though - I'll recall this post when we take the jump! #fartglitter x

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    1. I know! Half the time we give in only because we don't want to bother to put up a fight!

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  9. We had to ditch the dreaded dummy....panicked about it then just did it. Cold turkey. Pain for first day/night but haven't looked back since. Just do it! Like you say , they can adapt and do! #bigpinklink

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  10. Sometimes this patenting marlarky is difficult and knowing what to do for the best! My daughter has bottle until her second birthday the first few nights were a bit difficult (for me) but she has adapted very well, thankfully. #DreamTeam

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